Watching news on television, reading articles about how the melting polar ice caps are changing the Earth’s mass enough to affect how our clocks, I have to admit, it’s a bit much. It almost makes you wish for a checklist, right?

  • Heatwave
  • Increased hurricanes
  • Forced human migration
  • Infectious diseases

I could go on…but, well, you get the idea.

Measuring Progress Towards an Objective

What’s the end of the world look like? When will it arrive? These are serious questions. They pop into my head every time I read an article on climate change, view videos of melting polar ice caps, and polar bears trying to figure out what happened to their habitat. This is what I got:

This image generated in Canva by Miguel Guhlin ( mguhlin@zirk.us ) with data from Perplexity.ai Pro version. Citation links appear at the end. View the Google Slides version here (or get a copy). View PDF version.

Prompt

With that in mind, I decided to ask Perplexity.ai Pro (get a referral from me for $10 off, if you want to check it out), the following prompt. I’ve incorporated follow-up prompts in the selection below. I didn’t spend a lot of time on this prompt, as you can see, since I was just playing around.

make a list of all the bad things that could happen with climate change. Each bad thing should be one to three words, max. Organize these in order of severity from 1 to 30 (30 being the worst) and by category (nature vs human). Without changes to current trends, estimate the year that each impact will appear.

The results were sobering. I’ve broken them up by Nature-related effects and Human-related effects, but obviously, what affects nature affects us all.

Nature-related effects and estimated timeline for impact:

  1. Wetland loss - Already occurring, will accelerate by 2050
  2. Coral bleaching - Already occurring, most reefs affected by 2030-2040
  3. Marine biodiversity loss - Already occurring, significant losses by 2050
  4. Ocean acidification - Already occurring, significant impacts by 2050
  5. Coastal erosion - Already occurring, will accelerate by 2050
  6. Fishery declines - Already occurring, significant declines by 2050
  7. Aquaculture impacts - Already occurring, significant impacts by 2050
  8. Biodiversity decline - Already occurring, accelerating by 2030-2040
  9. Ecosystem disruption - Already occurring, widespread by 2050
  10. Habitat destruction - Already occurring, accelerating by 2030-2040
  11. Species extinctions - Already occurring, accelerating by 2030-2040
  12. Spread of invasive species - Already occurring, accelerating by 2030-2040
  13. Reduced ecosystem services - Already occurring, significant impacts by 2050
  1. Saltwater intrusion - Already occurring in some areas, widespread by 2050
  2. Coastal flooding - Already occurring, will accelerate by 2050
  3. Sea-level rise - Already occurring, major impacts by 2050-2100
  4. Increased drought - Already occurring in some regions, widespread by 2050
  5. More hurricanes - Possible increase by 2050, definitive increase by 2100
  6. Extreme weather - Already occurring, more frequent and intense by 2050
  7. Heavier downpours - Already occurring in some areas, widespread by 2050
  8. Increased wildfires - Already occurring, more frequent and intense by 2050
  9. Infectious diseases - Some impacts by 2030, significant spread by 2050-2070
  10. Deadly heatwaves - Increasing by 2030, common in many areas by 2050
  11. Food insecurity - Impacts felt by 2030, more severe and widespread by 2050
  12. Agricultural losses - Increasing by 2030, major losses by 2050
  13. Threats to human health - Increasing by 2030, significant impacts by 2050
  14. Infrastructure damage - Increasing by 2030, severe and costly by 2050
  15. Economic losses - Increasing by 2030, major drag on economies by 2050
  16. Forced human migration - Increasing by 2030-2040, large-scale by 2050-2100
  17. Resource conflicts - Possible by 2030-2040, more likely and severe by 2050-2100

Citations

  1. Wetland loss[1]
  2. Coral bleaching[2][4]
  3. Marine biodiversity loss[4][7][8]
  4. Ocean acidification[4][7][8]
  5. Coastal erosion[1][2]
  6. Fishery declines[4][7]
  7. Aquaculture impacts[4][7]
  8. Biodiversity decline[9][10][11][12][13]
  9. Ecosystem disruption[9][10][12][13]
  10. Habitat destruction[10][12][13]
  11. Species extinctions[9][10][12][13]
  12. Spread of invasive species[12][13]
  13. Reduced ecosystem services[9][13]
  1. Saltwater intrusion[1][2]
  2. Coastal flooding[1][2]
  3. Sea-level rise[1][2][3]
  4. Increased drought[3][5]
  5. More hurricanes[3][5]
  6. Extreme weather[3][5]
  7. Heavier downpours[5]
  8. Increased wildfires[5]
  9. Infectious diseases[3]
  10. Deadly heatwaves[3][5]
  11. Food insecurity[3]
  12. Agricultural losses[3]
  13. Threats to human health[9][10][11]
  14. Infrastructure damage[5]
  15. Economic losses[9][11]
  16. Forced human migration[3][11]
  17. Resource conflicts[3][11]

Citations: