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.