If the royal baby became king, where would the world be?
By mbrooks on May 6, 2019
Meghan, Duchess of Sussex gave birth to a boy on Monday morning.
The little royal bundle of joy is officially the seventh in line to become king of Great Britain. So, there’s not a huge chance he will one day wear the 2.3 lb. crown.
But if the boy who wouldn’t be king would be king, it would likely happen in his old age, close to age 80 or 90. If he does become “emperor of his own domain,” what would the world look like in, perhaps, the year 2100?
Speedy travel
Yes, we’ve heard this before. Flying cars, high-speed trains, and rocketing to space to travel across the globe within minutes. It could happen by 2100.
Virgin currently has a plan called the Hyperloop, a vacuum tube-like form of transportation, to move Los Angeles residents to New York City in 4.5 hours. Estimates by Popular Mechanics says in 2100 the same trip could be made in 30 minutes, accomplished by high-speed trains.
Water world
A recent article by Business Insider says that if climate change continues unabated, sea levels could rise anywhere from six to ten feet.
Cities like Miami and Houston would end up underwater by the year 2100. In King Royal Baby’s kingdom of England, the city of London would experience severe flooding, according to the Independent.
London’s watery fate is the result of a double knockout. Ancient glaciers pushed Scotland down, causing England to rise like a seesaw. Scotland is slowly rising so England is on its way down. Rising sea levels and a falling London spells problems for the commonwealth.
More Martians
Plans for life on Mars in the next century are already underway. Elon Musk’s Space X hopes to send 10,000 people to Mars. The United Arab Emirates intends to build a city on Mars, established by 2117.
NASA hopes to send humans to Mars in the 2030s.
Dying languages
Estimates for the number of spoken languages are commonly placed at more than 7,000 languages worldwide. For a number of reasons, languages are constantly dying.
Native speakers die and the rising generation picks up the more widely spoken languages. The Irish language, for example, once had millions of daily speakers. Now there are fewer than 100,000 native Irish speakers.
Housing problems
The population of the United Kingdom currently sits just shy of 69 million. The area of London is already one of the most expensive places to live. By 2100, the population could nearly double, to more than 120 million, according to the European Environment Agency.
Any growth in Europe will be dwarfed by population increases in Africa. Africa is projected to increase from 1.3 billion to 4.3 billion. Asia could increase from 4.3 billion to nearly 4.9 billion residents. North America is anticipated to increase its population slightly, from 369 million to 500 million.
High tech antiques
The phone you are holding right now could be in a museum in 80 years. The car you drive could be priceless, maybe.
Do you have an old cell phone in a drawer that you never got around to throwing away? Hold onto it. It could be worth something again someday.
