Will London be out of water by 2040?

Our world will change profoundly, writes Arthur Snell in this illuminating but often shocking work, ‘and this will happen within the lifetimes of most of this book’s readers.’ There may be debate about how much of the changes in global climate are due to human activities, but there is little doubt that it is changing. As the title suggests, Snell structures his book around the ancient idea of ​​the four elements that make up our world: earth, air, fire, and water.

Under the heading ‘Earth’, it looks at the threat to agricultural productivity from a changing climate. According to the World Food Programme, 345 million people are affected by food insecurity. India, which recently surpassed China as the world’s most populous country, may have difficulty feeding its growing population.

‘Weather’ relates to increasing temperatures. Extreme heat makes some parts of the world uninhabitable. It will trigger migration from south to north. As the weather warms, even some parts of the United States are likely to become uninhabitable. ‘Fire’ is clearly a growing problem. Every year, news comes of increasingly devastating wildfires from California to Australia.

There is too much ‘water’ in some places and too little in others. Small Pacific nations like Tuvalu face the possibility of sinking beneath the rising ocean. In contrast, water depletion on June 19, 2019, in Chennai, India, a city with a population of 12 million, caused panic and social unrest. Frighteningly, some officials predict the same thing could happen in London by 2040.

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Precise predictions about possible ‘deep changes’ are difficult to verify, but current trends suggest that the geopolitics of the second half of this century will look very different from the geopolitics of today. As oil is replaced by new energy sources, Gulf countries will lose their importance. China appears to have made better plans for the future than the United States. Melting polar ice will open up the Arctic Ocean and create ‘a new, unplayed field in the great game of global politics’.

Although much of what he describes in Elemental is alarming, Snell is not a doomsaying pessimist. It offers a vision of the future where change can be good news.

African countries can help supply solar energy to Europe. Xlinks is a highly ambitious project involving a renewable energy plant in Morocco. It will export its output as far as the UK via the world’s largest undersea power cable. Airplanes can be powered by hydrogen; Planting trees instead of destroying forests can become national priorities. New shipping routes across the Arctic could improve trade between Asia, Europe and North America. Different futures are possible. As Snell puts it, the situation we live in is ‘a choice for us’.