How do we cope with the results of Global Warming from RCP 4.5 to RCP 8.5 including food, housing, flooding, and more. This presentation touches on bioengineering of transgenic plants, mass migration of over 1.8 billion people, CO2

1. Givens: The vast majority of us are Earthbound
Plan B planet, Jupiter moon, Lunar
Colonies, or the Wall-E World Space Station
are not viable options for “The rest of us…”
Note: Kepler-452 is 1,402 light-years from Earth in the
constellation of Cygnus

2. Givens: Hotter by 5.4C and sea level increase of 3 to 8.2 feet by 2100
Business as Usual: RCP 4.5 to RCP 8.5
(RCP 8.5 the 90th percentile of no-policy baseline scenarios)

3. Given: RCP Process (Representative Concentration Pathways)
IIASA modeling framework
Global development of main scenario drivers in RCP 8.5 (red lines)
compared to the range of scenarios from the literature (grey areas: IPCC
AR4 scenario database). Right hand vertical lines give the AR4 database
range in 2100, including the 5th, 25th, 50th, 75th, and 95th percentile of
the AR4 scenario distribution

4. Affects of Global Warming by 2100
• Massive population displacement
• 800 million in India/Pakistan – Loss of irrigation water
• 1 billion – sea level rise (Indonesia, Bangladesh, Europe, U.S., etc.)
• Crop Reduction
• Reduced C3 crop yield – Photosynthesis becomes less efficient
• Plant hardiness zones shifting 300 to 500 miles north
• Maize crop yields are projected to decline 24%, while wheat could
potentially see growth of about 17%
• Fish and Crustaceans
• 60% of fish populations will be wiped out
• Ocean acidification – 10% to 25% reduction in shell thickness
• Oyster larvae now only thrive in alkaline enhanced on-shore
breading facilities

5. India and Tibet
• Glacier melt is the main water resource in this region.
• 800 million people rely on glacier melt that flows through
the Indus, Ganges, and Brahmaputra Rivers

6. Himalayan Glaciers
• Glacier melting rate has doubled since 2000 across 50,000 glaciers.
• Loss by 2100 will be over 65%. (“The Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment” – 2019)
• Temperatures in the mountains have increased 1C (1.8F) since 1975.
• Breaking glaciers have smashed several dams and wiped out villages.
• Landslides have become more common. Ground has become unstable.
(e.g. 2021 flash flood disaster in India’s Uttarakhand state)
• Acceleration of ice cliff calving and collapsing ice features in the Khumbu Icefall
• Hydropower is becoming less reliable.
• Trade routes are becoming imperiled.

7. Humans can’t conveniently live under water
NYC subway station Venice’s St Mark's Basilica New Orleans – 10 years after Katrina
Fictional Water World
London
Vancouver BC – Oct. 2021
Belgium
Bangladesh
Change 1990 to 2020

8. Humans can’t live in excessive heat
Rosy Scenario: Stop CO2 increase by 2040
Business as usual: RCP8.5
Circled areas become Uninhabitable
by 2100

9. Where do the humans move to? Blue = Partially Underwater
Red = Destination counties
100 Year catastrophic hurricanes
will occur every 10 years in 2090
Miami
Mumbai

10. Who opens their borders to immigrants?
Texas/Mexico Border Poland/Belarus Border
Mediterranean/Italy
2x in 10 Years

11. How do we house massive waves of migrants?
• Minimum cost semi-industrialized country standard = $56,000/resident => $112 trillion for 2 billion people
• Housing:
• Apartments in mixed-use towers are eco-efficient - $209,000/unit
• Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) - $170,000/unit
• Micro-apartment (<150sqft) - $145,000/unit
• Empower Shacks - $12,500/unit
• Cost for shacks for 2 billion people is $25 trillion
• Industrial, Commercial
• Government, Hospitals, Public Safety South Africa
Portland ADU
Mixed-Use Towers
Jakarta Slum
Empower Shack
Queensbridge projects – Queens, NY
Beijing Micro-Apartment

12. How do we prevent anarchy and genocide?
Roman Empire overrun by immigrants
Early Human Migration
Note: Bioengineering humans to be sent to Io, Titan, or other alien planets is still a bad idea.
Hondurans migrating to the U.S.

13. How do we feed everyone?
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/3124/global-climate-change-impact-on-crops-
expected-within-10-years-nasa-study-finds/
The pie diagrams denote percentages of harvested area under the aforementioned warming
levels. All data shown in the pie diagrams are normalized to the global harvested area for 2000
Oregon 2021 Heat Wave with 121F Temps
• Increasing temperature:
• Decreases rate of photosynthesis.
• Increases irrigation requirements
• Increases leaf scorching
• Increases fires that burn crops
Crop Yields in U.S. by 2100

14. How do we feed everyone
• Bioengineering
• Development of Drought-Tolerant Transgenic Wheat with genes from orache mountain spinach
• Modify C3 crops like wheat to become C4 crops.
• Decrease sensitivity to soil salinity
• Grow in new places: Indoor Vertical Farming and Aquaculture
• Soil Science and Bioengineering soil microbes
Engineering chloroplasts to
improve Rubisco catalysis
Engineering soil microbes
Vertical Farming
Reduction in natural fish populations

15. How do we distribute inadequate food and reduce risk of famine?
• Ethical Frameworks
• Virtue ethics : What makes us the best person we could be
• Deontology : What follows from absolute moral duties
• Utilitarianism : What generates the best outcome for the largest
number of people
• Rights-based Ethics : What is in accord with everyone's rights
• Care-based Ethics : Promotes healthy relationships and the well-
being of individuals and their interdependence
• Kantianism : Motives and Universal rules are important aspects in
judging what is right or wrong.

16. Food Sufficiency by Country vs Population Trend Scenarios
A country is considered self-sufficient if it has a SSR of 1 or greater (>1 indicates a surplus) shown in green, while a country with an SSR of less than 1 will not be self-sufficient (purple).
SSR
Scenarios: Given RCP multi-model mean of RCP2.6, 4.5, 6.0, and 8.5. (Average of climate change forecasts)
(b) Sustainability: Food consumption decreases by 12% by 2100 compared to 2019 as world population declines to 7.3 billion and meat consumption is
significantly reduced. There is adequate food grown globally to match the global population. Half of the world's countries will be self-sufficient whilst the
other half will be dependent on food imports.
(c) Middle-of-the-Road: Food consumption increases as population increases to 10.8 billion people by 2100. Moderate reduction in meat consumption. Only
36% of countries worldwide will be self-sufficient, while 64% of countries will not produce enough crops domestically to feed themselves. 555 million people
would be food insecure in 2100.
(d) Business-as-Usual: Food consumption increases as population reaches 15.6 billion people. Global food demand dangerously outpaces food production by
the end of the century. 141 countries will not be self-sufficient and food production will not suffice to meet the caloric demands of approximately 9.8 billion
people (∼63% of the global population in year 2100). Only 14% of countries in the world will be self-sufficient and have excess crop production.

17. How do we mitigate famine and reduce likelihood
of war and anarchy?
• Famine increases probability of war, anarchy, and genocide
• Where are we willing to allow famine to take its course?
• China 1876 Qing dynasty 13m died. It was the last imperial dynasty, collapsing in 1911.
• Rwanda : Famine in 1993, Genocide in 1994 – 1.1m
• Soviet Union: Soviet famine in 1932-33: Holodomor Genocide – 7.8m
• German famine in 1918-19 led to Hitler’s invasion of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia in 1938
• Yemen 2021 : Failed state, 5m on the “brink of famine” and 16m “marching towards starvation”

18. Mexico and Central America?
Rainfed Maize production collapses
Avg. summer temperature in Mexico City increases from 78 to 88 degrees.
Most don’t have air conditioning. By 2050, an additional 26 GW of peak load will be needed to for A/C.

19. What can we do now to prepare humanity for the challenge?
• Policy changes
• Population
• Housing
• Immigration
• Education
• Technology Investments
• Food production: Crops, Aquaculture, Watershed restoration, Bioengineering
• Water Management: Dams, Long-Distance Diversion, Conservation
• Energy Production and Transmission
• Energy Conservation – Residential and Commercial
• Housing and Urban Planning
• Mass Transit
solar
wind/solar
wind
China
28%
United
States
15%
India
7%

20. What can we do to better cope within the U.S.?
• Excessive Heat: 97 million in the Southeast U.S. need to relocate or realize dramatic improvements in energy efficiency
• Heat Waves: 3x to 5x more common. Even “cool” cities like Seattle and Chicago will require A/C for everyone
• Rising Sea Level: 13 to 18 million people (RCP 4.5 to RCP 8.5) residents will need to move due to sea level rise
• Hurricanes: 10x more likely - impacting Mexico, Central America, South East and East U.S.
• Food insufficiency: Even with improved agricultural methods, the U.S. will produce 15% less food than it needs. Food
costs will increase between now and 2050 by 20% to 35% adjusted for inflation.
• Immigration from Mexico and Central America: Food production crashes, Energy needs soar for A/C, “bad weather” –
they’ll be trying desperately to migrate north.
• Opportunities
• Construction
• Renewable Energy and Electricity Transmission
• Urban Planning led Development
• Agricultural Science
• Civil and Environmental Engineering