What will happen from global warming

At the federal level, Congress is in an uproar over water redistribution: states with less water demand what they see as their fair share from states that have more. Government leaders have been stymied on the issue for years, and with every passing month the Colorado River and the Rio Grande shrink further. Food production swings wildly from month to month, season to season, depending on where you live.

More people are starving than ever before. Climate zones have shifted, so some new areas have become available for agriculture Alaska, the Arctic , while others have dried up Mexico, California.

Still others are unstable because of the extreme heat, never mind flooding, wildfire, and tornadoes. Global trade has slowed as countries such as China stop exporting and seek to hold on to their own resources. Disasters and wars rage, choking off trade routes. The tyranny of supply and demand is now unforgiving; because of its increasing scarcity, food can now be wildly expensive. Income inequality has never been this stark or this dangerous.

Desperate people will always find a way. Ever since the equatorial belt started to become difficult to inhabit, an unending stream of migrants has been moving north from Central America toward Mexico and the United States. Others are moving south toward the tips of Chile and Argentina.

The same scenes are playing out across Europe and Asia. Some countries have been better global Good Samaritans than others, but even they have now effectively shut their borders, their wallets, and their eyes. Even if you live in areas with more temperate climates such as Canada and Scandinavia, you are still extremely vulnerable.

Severe tornadoes, flash floods, wildfires, mudslides, and blizzards are often in the back of your mind. Depending on where you live, you have a fully stocked storm cellar, an emergency go-bag in your car, or a six-foot fire moat around your house.

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How viruses shape our world. The era of greyhound racing in the U. See how people have imagined life on Mars through history. See More. Half of the land devoted to agriculture in the past is now unusable, and the capacity of the rest to grow food differs widely from season to season. Crop yields are at their lowest levels since the middle of the 20th century. Fish stocks have collapsed.

The ocean food chain has collapsed in some regions as the small marine organisms that form its base struggle to make calcium carbonate shells and so survive in the more acidic waters. Despite advances in medical sciences, deaths from tuberculosis, malaria, cholera, diarrhoea and respiratory illnesses are at their highest levels in human history.

Extreme weather events — from heat waves and droughts to storms and floods — are causing large loss of life and leaving millions of people homeless. Disease epidemics have plagued the century, spreading among populations beleaguered by widespread poverty and vulnerability. This is what our planet could look like if we do everything in our power to contain climate change. Global temperatures rose to 1. Fossil fuels have been replaced by renewable energy. Over a trillion trees have been planted, sucking carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

The air is cleaner than it has been since before the industrial revolution. Cities have been restructured to provide all-electric public transport and vibrant green spaces. Ground-level ozone is the main component of smog, and the hotter things get, the more of it we have.

Dirtier air is linked to higher hospital admission rates and higher death rates for asthmatics. It worsens the health of people suffering from cardiac or pulmonary disease. And warmer temperatures also significantly increase airborne pollen, which is bad news for those who suffer from hay fever and other allergies.

As humans, we face a host of challenges, but we're certainly not the only ones catching heat. As land and sea undergo rapid changes, the animals that inhabit them are doomed to disappear if they don't adapt quickly enough. Some will make it, and some won't. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's assessment, many land, freshwater, and ocean species are shifting their geographic ranges to cooler climes or higher altitudes, in an attempt to escape warming.

They're changing seasonal behaviors and traditional migration patterns, too. And yet many still face "increased extinction risk due to climate change. The earth's marine ecosystems are under pressure as a result of climate change. Oceans are becoming more acidic, due in large part to their absorption of some of our excess emissions.

As this acidification accelerates, it poses a serious threat to underwater life, particularly creatures with calcium carbonate shells or skeletons, including mollusks, crabs, and corals. This can have a huge impact on shellfisheries.