# 2171

Background for a story set in a plausible future.

## Why 2171

The aim is to have a recognizable future, but allow for some fundamental changes that the reader will not expect. I first tried to set it in 2071, 50 years in the future, but this doesn't plausibly allow for a big enough environmental upset. Adding 100 years doesn't get us into magical technology territory yet, I think, but it does allow for unexpectedly severe rising of the sealevel. As a dutch guy, this is just too tempting a disaster...

Disclaimer: This is not a political platform. I do not advocate for anything that is mentioned here. Since the novel is probably set in and around Europe, this material will probably be a bit euro-centric as well.

## Macro Environment

Here is an overview of the most important aspects of this future world. Each statement should have a details page which explains how this has come to pass, what alternative paths history might have taken (so we can switch things up more easily to fit better with a more interesting story line.)

### Earth / Environment

There is still just one earth. No practical colonies. And the earth has been abused hard, but we're trying to fix it. For a lot of things this is too late. So the environment is no longer so benign as it was in, say, 2021.

'Climate Change' is seen as a [bad term](https://www.greenbiz.com/article/whats-right-word-climate-change), an understatement of the worst kind. Globally the temperature has risen about 6 degrees celcius, since 2000. Large parts of the earth have become uninhabitable because of extreme heat and lack of water.

Sea levels continue to rise and rise faster. We're at +30 meters compared to 2000 now. This is a lot higher than the expected 10m and has happened relatively suddenly. Unexpected instability in Antarctica dropped much more ice into the ocean than expected. Antarctica still has a lot of ice, which is melting, but snowfall is up as well. A large scale effort to cover the antarctic ice with reflecting fabric is underway, but not expected by most to have any meaningful impact.

The [ocean has become poisoned by co2](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/oceans/critical-issues-ocean-acidification/), it is now so acidic that [many of the smallest lifeforms are no longer viable in about 90% of the ocean](https://news.mit.edu/2015/ocean-acidification-phytoplankton-0720). This has a cascade effect on all higher lifeforms. Fishing for anything in any water is now considered as bad as hunting elephants for ivory.

While we're no longer using fossil fuels, the last use of oil as fuel was way back in 2070, the amount of greenhouse gasses in the athmosphere hasn't dropped. The methane release from the melting permafrost in canada and siberia has negated all the improvements from green energy worldwide.

Stabilizing the Earth's ecosystem is a global cause, one that has taken on an almost religious mantle. Anything and everything that is proposed is carefully considered in how it will help improve the environment. Proposals with no or neutral effect or considered bad. Nothing that will negatively impact the ecosystem gets to the point of being considered.

- [Long term climate change report](https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/WG1AR5_Chapter12_FINAL.pdf)

### Geography

Sea level rise has obliterated many coastal cities around the world, triggering large building efforts to house all the displaced people. There are some holdouts where cities build massive dikes and levies, notably in north america ([New York](https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/14/18265833/new-york-city-climate-change-sea-level-rise-bill-de-blasio-development)) and the netherlands, ofcourse. Still the netherlands is now mostly under water. Florida has been abandoned, as is most of the bahama's.

Large storms now affect Europe as well. The worst of the impact of the storm is countered by the unfinished attempt to [dam the north sea](https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/101/7/bamsD190145.xml). The [warm gulf stream no longer passes northern europe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shutdown_of_thermohaline_circulation), so it has in fact cooled down a bit. Unfortunately large temperature swings mean that it sometimes gets extremely hot summers or very cold winters, depending on the unstable polar vortex.

The pillars of hercules dam, or just the pillars, is now a 50 year old project to [dam the mediterraneum](https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/A-sea-surface-height-control-dam-at-the-Strait-of-Gower/1ec8ba517e1cd73a2db48951e7d85308d84a81a9). It successfully kept the sea level rise from effecting all bordering countries.

The sea level rise itself isn't the major problem for coastal cities in most of the world. The extreme storms and surges that come with it are. So globally there has been a migration away from the coast, even where the cities aren't directly affected.

### Demographics

Africa has become the most populous continent, by far. Europe has long ago become one of the most diverse places, more so in west europe than in east europe.

### Society

The centuries long self-domestication of humanity continues. Violence is becoming more and more rare in the most developed regions. A new philosophy has grown out of the original humanism, called futurism. Its central idea is that it is not enough to promote individual liberties now, we must ensure that future generations have the ability to be free as well. So any action now must reflect on the - long term - future repercussions.

Vegeterianism, and to a large extent, veganism, is the norm. There is no largescale food industry based on livestock. But there is a large industry in lab-grown meat. There are still backward areas where hunting is considered ok or even normal. A current discussion is whether to allow predator species in the few wild area's left to actually eat other animals, or whether they should be fed an alternative.

### Space

There was a short time where space was lumped in with other industries that were considered too polluting. But recently a new sky hook system and hydrogen electric planes that can reach high enough to use it, a new space age is arriving. There are plans to install a sky hook over mars as well. There is a long lived scientific colony on mars, already more than a century old. The new sky hook over mars could mean mass travel will become possible.

### Politics / Wars

War as we think of it has died out. But it is replaced by more insidious conflicts. 'Cyberwarfare' is constant, at a low level.

### Communication

### Technology

### Energy

### Transportation / mobility

### Logistics

### Medicine / health

### Finance

### Religion

### Work / unemployment

### History of 2171