Climate change has extensive sway with social processes and maps out the development of civilization even today. In 30 years’ time, if nothing changes, humanity will live under entirely different conditions, featuring the increased level of regional conflicts.
Global warming is fueling armed conflicts in Africa and Asia even today. Habitat change, lack of fertile land and water resources are the main causes. Flooding of territories will be added to them in years to come. Climate change gives a boost to urban development. Once having been farmhands for generations, people lose their ability to feed and have to migrate to cities, thus raising the demographic pressure, triggering social, interethnic and cultural conflicts, the growth of poverty and crime. Moreover, this adds to the economy load in the countries and prompts global migration trends. However, food security in most countries will become at risk. To this we can add an increase in armed conflicts over natural resources that will multiply the number of refugees. We are just on the verge of tremendous social changes so far, but everyone is going to feel them in as little as a generation from now, wherever he is.
According to researchers from UN expert group, the problems of about 280 million people will be in areas that are not suitable for life. The countries of Africa, South, Southeast, Central, East Asia, the Middle East, and also certain regions of Latin America are the most vulnerable ones. These are the geozones where the poorest countries of the planet are located, which, as a rule, are characterized by a high level of poverty, a significant number of the population, which is growing, as well as a low level of medicine and a high sickness level, including infectious diseases.
Besides that, it must be borne in mind that not just people will migrate en masse, but other species as well. That will increase the incidence rate and bring hitherto untypical infectious diseases to where they did not exist before. For example, warming promotes the migration of Asian tiger mosquitoes (Aedes albopictus) and yellow fever mosquitoes (Aedes aegypti), that transmit serious tropical diseases: dengue, chikungunya, Zika virus, West Nile virus, yellow fever, malaria. Given the increase in population density in the northern regions of the planet, such a mix of people and insects migration might cause irreversible effect.
Countries featuring more favorable climatic environment today will not be able to “close up” and resist the million-strong stream of refugees. That, in turn, will trigger negative economic, social and political changes there. The economy load will increase, causing a downturn in the well-being of every single citizen. National governments will have to raise money for refugee adaptation programs, their cultural integration, and the fight against rising unemployment and violence, that can be solved by tax hike only. Increasing security vulnerability and the need to control growing heterogeneous population might result in establishing police regimes and the reduction of human rights and freedoms that are familiar to us today. Given that the bulk of the multimillion-strong army of migrants will not gear well to the new cultural environment, the social demand for ultra-right parties will grow. A pessimistic scenario foresees their influence might be so great that current Western states might lose their ideological policies’ framework, including such a “pillar” of democracy as equality.
Unfortunately, if climatologists calculate right, no measures to stop these processes are able to correct the causes triggering mass migration any longer. This does not mean that there is no need to take the steps referred to in numerous environmental strategies today. It should be realized that emissions reduction, stopping massive deforestation, afforestation and other steps will have ramifications only in the distant future. They are unlikely to affect the causes of the migration wave deeply, expected as soon as in 20 years’ time. Qualitative technological leap and applied ideological constraints in Western democracies might make things better.
This refers to the mass adoption of cheap synthetic food production and consumption, enabling to decrease the anthropogenic load on the planet and reduce emissions. First of all, we are talking about the technology for lab-created meat production. Today, livestock production accounts for about 14.5 percent of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, the development of animal breeding prompts deforestation for pastures and crops. Afforestation of the territories currently used to produce livestock and poultry feed will have a positive impact on the planet’s climate. Moreover, the cheap meat analogue might partially tackle the food security issue.
The second factor is the necessary technological factor – developing new or improving the established technologies for cheap energy production. First of all, that refers to thermonuclear energy, as well as improving the solar energy technology. Cheap energy will tackle both the issue of emissions and the sustainability of the global economy amid new social environment.
And finally, the third factor is the ideological constraints for the usual model of social behavior. First of all, that refers to the capital reduction of consumption and, as a result, extensive economic growth. Moreover, Western countries should develop clear ideological principles and restrictions for “ultra-right” ideas today.
The changes are already at full speed, but the civilization would feel them to the hilt suddenly when a mass limit is reached and a new reality is knocking at every door of the Earth’s inhabitant, irrespective of nationality, wealth or social status.
