Category: Encoded Cloth from the Future

1. Wildfires blazing everywhere.
2. Rising sea levels and flooding that causes society to create many high rise buildings.
3. Improved transportation and super fancy vehicles
4. Green buildings everywhere
5. Civil war in America
6. AR/VR takes over everyone’s lives
7. Everyone is increasingly connected online and people from different countries with different languages can communicate with ease
8. We will have traveled to the moon again
9. There are humans on Mars
10. Many endangered animals are extinct
11. Holographic/see through phones
12. Only virtual/remote learning
13. No more Earth
14. Magical diapers so toilets can cease to exist
15. Autonomous vehicles
16. Automated job selection
17. Automated medical care
18. Automated design work
19. Automated banking and loan giving
20. Robotic pets
21. COVID-19 vaccine
22. Cure for cancer
23. CMU rank 1
24. iPhone 22
25. All of the content we see online is controlled by Facebook
26. Brain controlled technology
27. Commercially sold e-textiles
28. Everyone becomes vegan
29. Everything is reusable or made of recycled materials
30. Actual hoverboards
31. No need to the leave house to live
32. New president
33. Asia will have even more powerful
34. All electric cars
35. No cars at all
36. Underwater travel through tunnels
37. Deep sea exploration
38. Deep space exploration
39. 10G
40. Commercial manipulation of human genes
41. Effective wireless charging
42. Long distance wireless charging
43. Wireless appliances
44. Wireless technology
45. Development of solar energy
46. Lack of 02 on Earth
47. No more drinkable water
48. Flooding
49. No trees
50. Atomic bomb war
51. WWIII
52. Dumping trash into space
53. Fixing the overfull landfills
54. Failing to fix overfull landfills, effectively overcrowding the earth with trash
55. Overpopulation
56. Thanos like population control
57. Using eye/pupil identification
58. Must identify yourself everywhere
59. No privacy at all
60. Humans cease to exist
61. Depleted fossil fuels
62. No more drinkable water
63. New genetically modified super animals for consumption
64. Teleportation
65. Flying boots
66. No more paper for writing
67. No more plastic straws
68. Good replacement for plastic straws
69. Helper robots everywhere
70. Chips in humans for tracking
71. Drones to deliver packages
72. Learning by downloading into your brain
73. Decreased languages
74. More racial mixing
75. Ability to control the weather
76. Automatically hot shower water
77. Change in the American school system
78. No standardized testing
79. Revival of 2010 fashion
80. The second coming
81. Gold will be worthless
82. Bitcoin will take over currency
83. Instant charging of devices
84. Useful google glasses
85. Smart contact lenses
86. Booster shoes for speed
87. Cooking with AR
88. AR meetings and calling
89. AR learning for elementary school students
90. Maximum efficiency motors and engines
91. Unlimited free wifi
92. No more food deserts
93. No more poverty
94. Peace among everyone
95. Free college tuition
96. Invention of true black materials (reflects 0 light)
97. No more radio
98. Unlimited storage on devices
99. “Anti-pc-ness” movement
100. No more cds

In 2030, people will be experiencing the destructive effects of climate change. Forest fires will burn hotter and for longer, and certain places in the world will become uninhabitable due to drought. Natural disasters will be an increasingly common occurance, with tropical storms becoming ever more powerful and sea levels rising at a level where infrastructure cannot keep up. The ocean has acidified from all the pollutants released into it. Fresh water and air will become an even more valuable resource for the general population, while corporations take the bulk of resources for themselves.

Technology is improving, but not at a rate where it is fast enough to keep up with the demands of the population or to reverse the devastating effects of climate change. Wealth inequality has not stopped growing since the 2020s and the idea of the government is a thin veil for the megacorporations actually doing the controlling.

Humans may have moved to living in places they don’t normally live to try and escape natural disasters and flooding. Coastal cities are largely in danger, with seawalls fighting back to hold on against seasonal hurricanes. An encoded cloth might show the conditions and how people are “fighting back” in 2030. It would be like a secret manifesto to organize people in 2030 who still believe in fighting for the future.

To be completely honest, I wasn’t sure whether I was optimistic or worried about the future when I was thinking about what 2030 would look like. Really, my confusion stemmed from the uncertainty surrounding the current climate crisis. Will we resolve the climate crisis by 2030? or will the world turn into an apocalyptic horror story? If we resolve the go carbon neutral, what new technologies could we create? and on the other hand, if we continue to rely on fossil fuels what damage from climate change will we be left with? “Realistic” can’t truly be realistic because nobody knows what will happen.

As much as I wanted to be optimistic, I had to create a combination of sorts that represented how I saw the future.

This is what I sketched for my image of the future. While it doesn’t show the full scope of things, I imagine that we will have new technology and some form of solution to the climate crisis, but I think that the solution will come too late and the effects of climate change will be present. For one, there will be a rise in sea levels and many cities will be flooded, resulting in the building of elevated buildings, railways, and roads. However, there will still be many marginalized communities that will be left to suffer the consequences of the floods and other natural disasters. People will be too distracted by the illusions of new technology and green energy sources that they will ignore those that need help.

The new tech I imagined is the implementation of green buildings and vertical gardens. Since a lot of the fertile land may be destroyed by natural disasters and wild fires, we may have to transition to other forms of agriculture and greenery. I also hope that in the future we have better public transportation systems, possibly the implementation of autonomous routes for public transit and electric trains/subways. It’s hard to see in the drawing, but I imagine the sky will be an apocalyptic orange/yellow color similar to how the sky was in California during the big wildfires. I also imagine that the air would be very thick and hazy.

In 2030, I imagine (or I guess hope) that we will have taken action against climate change. We will be composting and planting more trees and there will be greenery everywhere. We will decrease the amount of waste in the world, and upcycle to turn waste into something more useful and beautiful. An example would be these marbled tiles from post-consumer plastic waste by Enis Akiev or even the Pollution Popsicles which was a warning of water pollution.

An ecoded cloth could be showing the possible solutions to waste and upcycling: how we could make something beautiful out of something people no longer want. We could quilt together old plastic bags, or scraps of fabric, or use dried flowers or dried tea leaves for embellishment.