19 Events That Will Happen Before 2050 . Colonization of Mars No, we’re not talking about an upcoming sci-fi blockbuster – the colonization of Mars is a real possibility in the foreseeable future. Conditions on the surface of Mars are closer to the conditions on Earth in terms of temperature and sunlight than on any other planet or moon. However, the surface is not hospitable to humans or most known life forms due to the radiation, extremely low air pressure, and an atmosphere with only 0.1% oxygen. This means that human survival on Mars would require living in artificial
environments with complex life-support measures. While NASA has said that the idea of making the surface of Mars habitable in the near future is not realistic, billionaire SpaceX owner Elon Musk disagrees. Musk is currently funding and developing a series of Mars-bound cargo flights set to launch as early as 2022, followed by the first crewed flight to Mars in 2024. During the first phase, the goal will be to launch several spacecrafts to transport and assemble a methane and oxygen propellant plant and build up a base in preparation for an expanded surface presence. It's all with an eye toward the ultimate goal of getting humans to Mars by the 2030s. According to Musk, it could take anywhere between 40 and 100 years to ship enough people over to Mars to populate a city with one million inhabitant, so what do you say - would you want to be one of the first people to leave Earth and move to Mars? Let us know in the comment section below! . Nuclear fusion In nuclear physics, nuclear fusion is a reaction in which two or more atomic nuclei are combined to form one or more different atomic nuclei and subatomic particles - neutrons or protons. Fusion was accomplished in
1951 with the Greenhouse Item nuclear test, while nuclear fusion on a large scale in an explosion was first carried out on November 1, 1952, in the Ivy Mike hydrogen bomb test. One of the biggest challenges of fusion energy has been sustaining the right amount of heat required to produce meaningful amounts of fusion power from plasma and no one has yet managed to build a commercial fusion reactor. However, a team of researchers from MTI has reported that, with adequate federal funding, a prototype nuclear fusion reactor could be tested within 30 to 40 years. Over the last few years, scientists at MIT and around the world have made significant progress toward developing ways to break up the tidal waves of heated plasma and reduce the escape of heat from charged gas. China has also made advances in planning for
an experimental fusion power station called China Fusion Engineering Test Reactor that would start in 2020, while the European Union and Japan are currently building a powerful machine designed to harness the energy of fusion called JT-60SA. In other words, we are close to achieving a system of unlimited clear energy that could finally solve all global warming issues. . Interstellar exploration Until recently, interstellar travel was nothing more than a theoretical possibility. However, the exploration of other star systems may become reality sooner than you think. Russian entrepreneur and physicist Yuri Milner is currently funding the development of a fleet of light sail spacecraft named StarChip that will be capable of making the journey to the Alpha Centauri star system 4.37 light-years away. A flyby mission has been proposed to Proxima Centauri b, an Earth-sized exoplanet in the habitable zone of its host star, Proxima Centauri, in the Alpha Centauri system.
At a speed between 15% and 20% of the speed of light, it would take between twenty and thirty years to complete the journey, and approximately four years for a return message from the starship to Earth. According to Milner, the fleet would have about 1000 spacecraft and each one would be a very small centimeter-sized vehicle weighing a few grams. He estimates the first fleet could launch by around 2036. . Ice-free Arctic The loss of Arctic sea ice is one of the clearest signs of human-caused climate change and so far the Arctic Ocean has melted to its lowest extent ever recorded since satellites began measuring it in 1979. To make matters worse, the region’s climate has seen temperatures
increase at more than twice the rate of the rest of the world. This means that ice-free Arctic may happen much sooner than predicted so far. Sea ice is quite sensitive to temperature because it’s so thin. And as temperatures warm, it gets thinner. The thinner the ice, the higher the chances that summer melt will be enough to remove the ice, so unless the global community drastically lowers emissions of greenhouse gases to keep global warming below the Paris Climate Agreement threshold, ice-free summers in the Arctic are going to become common during our lifetimes. An ice-free Arctic Ocean is often defined as having
less than 1 million square kilometers of sea ice and if this happens, it would dramatically affect global weather patterns and increase the magnitude and frequency of storms. The Arctic marine ecosystem would also be altered, with the added sunlight affecting the Arctic Ocean food web and melting the ice bed on which animals like polar bears and walrus hunt for food. . 99942 Apophis asteroid threat Before global warming brings humanity on the verge of extinction, a giant rock from outer space might wipe us all out. While you’re watching this video, asteroid the size of a small mountain called 99942 Apophis is hurtling towards Earth through space and there’s a probability it will hit Earth on April 13, 2029. Discovered in June 2004 asteroid Apophis is about 370 meters in diameter and if it does make impact with our planet, its explosive power would create the most powerful earthquake on record. It
is estimated that Apophis would make atmospheric entry with 750 megatons of kinetic energy. For comparison’s sake, the biggest hydrogen bomb ever exploded, the Tsar Bomba, was around 57 megatons while the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa volcano was the equivalent of roughly 200 megatons. Using computer simulation, scientists have estimated that the hypothetical impact of Apophis in countries such as Colombia and Venezuela, which are in the path of risk, could have more than 10 million casualties. However, the exact location of the impact would be known weeks or even months in
advance, allowing any nearby inhabited areas to be completely evacuated and significantly decreasing the potential loss of life. However, if the asteroid hits Atlantic or Pacific oceans, it would produce a tsunami with a potential destructive of roughly 1,000 kilometers for most of North America, Brazil and Africa, 3,000 kilometers for Japan and 4,500 kilometers for Hawaii. Chocolate extinction Bad news for all of you chocolate lovers out there: your favorite food may actually become extinct in a few decades. Cacao plants are increasingly victims of fungal disease and climate change and back in 2010, the spread of witch’s broom, frosty pod, and other fungal disease have essentially destroyed cacao trees in Central America, their original natural habitat. Scientists are worried that
these fungal diseases could jump to other parts of the world and completely wipe out the precious chocolate-producing plant. The biggest problem is that cacao plants are quite sensitive and need very specific conditions, such as uniform temperatures, high humidity, abundant rain, nitrogen-rich soil, and protection from the wind. These conditions currently exist only in Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Indonesia, which leaves the world's chocolate supply vulnerable to even small changes in climate. In fact, climate models predict that by the year 2050 a 3.8°F or 2.1°C increase in temperatures and drier conditions will occur in these areas and may further shrink the possible cacao growing areas. These trends suggest that chocolate may actually become extinct unless something is done about climate change. But
what if don’t manage to reverse climate change? Can anything else be done to save chocolate? Well, Mars, Inc. may have the solution. Not only has the company pledged to reduce its carbon emissions, it is also working with external scientists to develop genetically-modified cacao plants that can resist fungal diseases and live in a broader set of conditions. While the thought of eating GMO chocolate may be a bit scary for some people, it’s still a better option than living in a world without any kind of chocolate, right? Antibiotics stop working According to a major 2016 UK study, urgent action is needed to control the use of antibiotics before they stop working and leave a number of major conditions untreatable. Resistance to antibiotics
is growing at such an alarming rate that they risk losing effectiveness entirely, which means that medical procedures such as caesarean sections, joint replacements and chemotherapy could soon become too dangerous to perform and unless serious action is taken soon, drug resistant infections will kill 10 million people a year by 2050! Drug resistant infections are thought to be growing due to over-use of medicine such as antibiotics and anti-fungus treatments to treat minor conditions such as the common cold. With overuse, resistance to the drugs builds up and some conditions become incurable. Research has also suggested that antibiotic use in pig farming is common as poor living conditions mean such treatment is necessary to prevent infections spreading between livestock and that this passes down to humans through pork consumption, increasing resistance levels further. In the UK, 45% of all antibiotics are given to livestock. The study estimates that without action now, the cost of the antibiotic failure will be $100 trillion between before 2050 and antimicrobial resistance might soon become a greater threat to mankind than cancer currently is. Technological singularity
The technological singularity is the hypothesis that the invention of artificial super-intelligence will trigger rampant technological growth, resulting in unimaginable changes to human civilization. According to this hypothesis, an upgradable intelligent agent, such as a computer running software-based artificial general intelligence, would enter a "runaway reaction" of self-improvement cycles, with each new and more intelligent generation appearing more and more rapidly, causing an intelligence explosion and resulting in a powerful super-intelligence that would ultimately surpass all human intelligence. In the 2010s, prominent public figures such as late English theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking expressed concern that full artificial intelligence could result in human extinction. In March 2017 interview with The Times magazine, Hawking said that an AI apocalypse was impending and the creation of some form of world government would be necessary to control the technology. He
also expressed his concern about the impact AI would have on middle-class jobs and even called for a complete ban on the development of AI agents for military use. In his book The Singularity Is Near, American futurist and director of engineering at Google Ray Kurzweil, predicts that by the year 2045, AI will have surpassed human beings as the smartest and most capable life forms on the planet and machines will have attained equal legal status with organic humans, who may even become a minority on Earth. . New countries Situations and circumstances keep changing, but conflicts rarely end. Unfortunately,
in most cases, it is war that ultimately leads to the division of borders and fights for independence have been ongoing for a long time in many parts of the world. As a result, the world may see the formation of new countries and borders in the near future. Over the next decade or so, a good number of regions may get the chance to go their own way and forge new states. While we can’t say anything for sure, East and West Libya, Unified Korea, The Shetlands and Orkney, The United States of Europe, and Somaliland are five new countries most likely to emerge by 2026. Ever since Gaddafi was overthrown, Libya has veered between extreme visions of what it should be. Multiple self-declared governments emerged,
each claiming to be the legitimate one. Amid all this chaos, East and West Libya have begun to pull apart from one another and it looks extremely likely that they will split into separate states. While the idea that South Korea might one day reunify with North Korea seems like fantasy, it may not be as unlikely as you think. In fact, reunification is the official government policy in both North and South Korea. However, the costs of reunification would be enormous and South Korea would have to pay $1 trillion just to stop a reunified Korea from instantly collapsing.
With a combined population of less than 70,000, the Scottish islands of The Shetlands, Orkney, and the Outer Hebrides might seem like the last places on Earth to fight for statehood. But with the threat of Scotland seceding from the UK, plans have been drawn up to potentially create three new microstates, or one federated collection of island states. The reasons for this is that many islanders feel more connection to Scandinavia than Scotland and also tend to be much more pro-UK than Scots. As for the United States of Europe, many experts have warned that the EU simply can’t continue to function in its current form, so either closer integration is needed, or a return to the days when the EU was merely a trading bloc. Given how interdependent many of mainland Europe’s economies are, an even closer
unification of European countries in the near future seems like a more plausible alternative. Finally, the self-declared state of Somaliland might become internationally recognized in the next few decades. Somaliland is one of three entities making up modern day Somalia that declared its independence way back in 1991. In the 25 years since, it has run free elections, kept at peace, created its own currency, and developed economically, and yet not a single country has ever recognized its existence. Despite this, Somaliland has a strong claim
to statehood. It does business with the US, EU, UN and Arab League. It also has its own army and controls its borders, so it might not be long until Somaliland gets the recognition it seeks. Countries and Land Masses At first, this one may sound a bit...abstract. After all, don't we already have a LOT of countries on this Earth of ours? Well that's the thing, the world we live in right now is tied up in countries who not just have their "homelands" but also, territories that they claim as their own via colonization or other metrics. So what does this have to do with the Earth by 2050? The answer to that is that as the years go on, more and more people want freedom, not just freedom from oppression, but true independence. In the last couple
decades alone the Earth has grown in countries that are known throughout by more than a few. Even if you look at the world right now there are certain territories that are looking to gain or regain their independence in various aspects. And we're only in 2020 right now, imagine what will happen in another three decades? Plus, there's another aspect you can't ignore, and that is that the Earth is honestly always growing in land mass because of volcanoes.
Should that go to a large enough scale, there could be new countries that emerge depending on the viability of the land. As if that wasn't enough, the global warming situation could rip off large chunks of land and put them into the ocean, and that could also create a large land mass for people to live on and call their own country. So by 2050, the Earth as we see it right now could very much look VERY different. A New Pandemic? We're sure that this one terrifies you to a certain level, but if 2020 proved anything to us, it's that you don't know what to expect until it happens. There is no way that in the earliest months of 2019 we could've predicted
this kind of pandemic would happen just over a year later, and sure enough, we're basically a year into this global pandemic and we're still very much picking up the pieces on things. Sure, there's a set of vaccines that are coming out that might treat people and help curb this pandemic in the bud, but that's just THIS pandemic. In the next three decades it's possible that a brand new pandemic can emerge. If you don't
think that's possible then look back at the past few decades and listen to how many experts noted that we were close to another strain of swine flu, or bird flu or a host of other things. The other problem with these pandemics is that the medicines we have now aren't likely to treat them. That's why this current pandemic is so bad because we didn't have any kind of vaccine that could stop it. And if the next one is that way? And the one after that? Then things could only get worse. Now, it's also true that this could be prevented. After all, with more time comes more chances at
advancement, and that could lead to... Brand New Medicines If you were to look at medicine as it was in the 1920s and see where they are in the year 2020, you'll see such a rapid scale improvement it would see ludicrous that people survived during the times without this medicine. But in recent times especially, people are working harder than ever to go and make the best possible medicines and try and cure the illnesses and diseases that are still ravaging our world.
The World Health Organization for example is very close to wiping out certain diseases from our world in full. So imagine what they could do in 30 years? Imagine what all these pharmaceutical companies can do with another 30 years of computer technology and further research on cells? Now, we're not going to be so bold as to say that cancer and AIDS or many other diseases that are killing scores of people will be fixed. However, when it comes to things like medicine, all it takes is one breakthrough to change everything. Our current pandemic has proved that as we
went from "no vaccine" to suddenly having two viable options in about a year of hard testing. So what will the next thirty years of testing bring to the table? We're going to find out. 7. Sci-Fi Tech Don't go overboard on this one, we're not saying that hovercars and jetpacks are going to be commonplace in our world in the year 2050, however, certain pieces of sci-fi tech are likely to come around by 2050. A great example of this is the universal translator. As you all know, language is something that is integral to our lives, but if you were to meet a person from another country and you can't speak their language...you kind of have a problem. Now, the obvious answer is to have someone or
something translate for you, but that can take time and you're going to have do some things on your own side to get it down. But, if you were to have a device like a universal translator, you could just put it on your body or around your ear and you'll hear everything translated into perfect English or whatever language you speak. This is a common thing for Star Trek, Star Wars, and even the Marvel universe. Believe it or not, your phone has the ability to translate things for you, but it takes time. With a potential new invention like this diplomacy could be done a LOT quicker. And that's just ONE invention that could be made true by 2050, who knows what other sci-fi tech might be made by then. 6. Green Planet?
This one is honestly a bit more wishful thinking than anything else but it could happen should the right forces come into play. The idea of the Earth going "fully green" in regards to using clean energy sources may be not so hopeful right now in 2020, but strides are being taken towards doing better. The biggest example of this is with the company Tesla, who are making 100% electric cars that are relativity cheap and can suit families and individuals very easily. Should enough of these cars start hitting the roads it could cause a major shift in the carbon footprint of the United States, and maybe the world.
The other thing to note is world leaders are trying to get the world on a better track. France is leading the way on this charge and with President-Elect Joe Biden coming in for the United States leadership he's promising a HUGE green energy plan that might just shake things up for the better. This won't be a quick fix, but with the growth of the solar panel industry and certain other clean energy factors it could be that by 2050 we get to a world where oil is only used in incredibly small amounts versus being the lifeblood of the planet that we're at now. Y2K Part 2? If you recall the year 1999, you might remember a gigantic fear that was going on called the Y2K Bug. In short, there was a genuine fear that when the clocks on computers around the world reset for the new millennium...it wouldn't
go and do 2000. Instead, it would be locked on "0000" because of a perceived computer glitch. Now, that might not seem like too much of a problem, but in truth, it would've wrecked havoc on the computer systems of the world. Causing banking errors, login problems, and more. Remember, this was when computer technology was only just starting to grow in the worlds' market on a massive scale. Thankfully, the glitch didn't happen and the world went on its way.
However, there are some who speculate that in the year 2038 there is another potential Y2K-esque bug that might happen to computer systems that might cause worldwide shutdown. Which if you can believe it will be even MORE devastating than what it would've been back in 2000 because of how much our world now truly relies on technology for just about everything. Will it happen? Honestly...likely not. We've gotten really good at programming things and sussing out bugs. So as long as it doesn't catch us off guard we should have plenty of time to work out how to fix it before it actually becomes a problem.
True Virtual Reality Heading back to sci-fi tech, let's single out another desired object that might just happen by 2050: true virtual reality. Some of you might be scratching your head at this because we already have things like the Oculus headsets and the PS VR that are fully functioning virtual reality tools. But as you are likely remembering, those are very restrictive. You can only do so many things with them and of course, you have to wear the headset and controllers in order to do things in the virtual worlds. But in true virtual reality, like the holodecks from the Star Trek universe, you can create a full simulation and engage in it without the need for anything but a holo suite or deck. You might be wondering, "are we truly that close to the tech?" Honestly, we are. Because we know
that there is VR technology that works, and just as important, there is Augmented Reality that lets you see things in the real world that are virtual through your phone or other device. If a true fusion could come of these two, then the possibilities of entertainment are endless. Which by 2050 might just be a key form of entertainment for the masses. 3. A.I. Everywhere
Judgment Day is inevitable, and yes, we're quoting Terminator. But while we won't go and say (yet...) that robots are going to doom us all, we will go and say that when it comes to A.I. it's going to be everywhere by 2050. It would honestly be incredibly shocking if it wasn't. This is for a very specific reason: A.I already exists in various forms. From Alexa to Siri,
to certain apps on your phone and even robots for the military there are A.Is being put to use all over the world right now. Now yes, they aren't as smart as the holographic AIs of some of your favorite movies, but they are out there. Just as important, they're growing with every single year. There are already AIs that can detect obstacles, realize the more finite points of a question and give a philosophical answer, and so on and so forth. There are literal fields
of scientists who are trying to make A.I. a true part of our lives on a grand scale. So it could be that by 2050 you not just have A.Is at your work place, they could be on your phone, watch or even your own holographic partner who is customized for you to go and help you get along your day. Super-Automation Here's a darker element of growing technology that we're already facing right now. The more that technology grows, the more that humans can be replaced by automated machines. Automation has already done major damage to car industries, factories all over the creation spectrum and can even be found in small businesses in certain ways. Automation
is cheaper and that's what companies want. By 2050, it's entirely possible that we could live in a mostly-automated world where robots and machines do almost all the hard work while humans just maintain the robots and equipment and do lesser things. Which would obviously put many tens of millions out of jobs. . The Unthinkable When it comes to predicting the future...there's always a risk. Because in truth, you have NO idea what's going to
happen in the next however many days or months or years or decades. Which means that something that could happen by 2050...is the unthinkable. In this context, it could be something like an asteroid hitting the Earth and causing massive damage. Or global warming melting the ice caps enough that whole cities are drowned by rising ocean levels. A massive hurricane or tidal wave could wipe out a coastal region. A long-dormant Earthquake
could rise up and just blast things to oblivion. There are so many things that could wrong in the world that it's a miracle we're still alive today. So who knows what might come next, because it could be something great...or it could be something truly horrifying.
2023-02-27