For some cities, Doomsday is real

Desdemona Despair

By Emma Whitford
20 December 2012

Despite the hysteria, it’s safe to say that tomorrow’s Mayan Doomsday will end up as nothing but the latest apocalyptic hype. But even after December 21, Earth will hardly be in the clear. While we may have dodged one gigantic, irreversible blow to humanity (for now, at least), various cities across the globe will continue to face actual existential threats to their survival. Perhaps sooner than we’d like to think.

Increasingly, we humans are living an urban existence. The 2012 “Future Proofing Cities” report produced by Britain’s Department for Economic Development reminds us that more than half of the world’s population already lives in cities. By 2050, that figure will be 75 percent.

Below, environmental scientists, food security experts, sociologists, and authors — people who have invested a lot of time and energy into thinking about the future — offer their ominous visions of what could await some of the world’s great metropolises in the years, decades, and centuries down the line. Here are some predictions to chew on while we empty out our doomsday shelters.

Prediction: By 2100, the summertime temperatures in New Delhi and Karachi could be physically unbearable.

Expert: Fen Montaigne, senior editor at Yale University’s online environmental magazine Yale Environment 360

How It’ll Happen: “If temperatures rise more than five degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century, which is possible, these cities are going to experience the kind of temperatures that test the limits of human heat tolerance.”

Prediction: By 2016, Gaza City could be without fresh drinking water.

Expert: Fred Pearce, London-based journalist and author of When the Rivers Run Dry (Beacon Press)

How It’ll Happen: “Gaza’s one source of water, the rocks beneath it, is increasingly salty. As the city pumps out the water to survive, the water table falls ever lower and more and more seawater pours into the rocks. UN scientists say that the city could be uninhabitable by 2016.” […]

Prediction: By 2100, large parts of the Miami and New Orleans metropolitan areas could be under water.

Expert: Montaigne

How It’ll Happen: “If we get a three-to-six-foot sea level rise this century, which is very possible, Miami is in very deep trouble. A large part of the Miami area will be under water and New Orleans will flood during larger storms.” And when it comes to levees and flood protection, “Miami is far more exposed than New Orleans.” […]

For Some Cities, Doomsday Is Real