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00:00 Imagine, you're moving through time, beginning at the ancient Earth with its molten seas,
00:05 and scaling through the ages of abiogenesis, of the dinosaurs, the ages of ice, and then
00:11 on to the rise of human civilization.
00:13 Clearly a lot has happened on our planet over the years, centuries, millennia, and eons.
00:19 Travel right up to the present day, and we have bustling cities, vast farmlands, oceans,
00:24 deserts, and intricate ecosystems, all doing their bit to define what the modern Earth is.
00:30 But now transport yourself to the future.
00:33 Here the images aren't quite so clear, but what do you see?
00:36 How has this place we call home been transformed yet again?
00:40 This is Unveiled, and today we're answering the extraordinary question; what will Earth
00:45 look like in the future?
00:48 Do you need the big questions answered?
00:50 Are you constantly curious?
00:52 Then why not subscribe to Unveiled for more clips like this one?
00:55 And ring the bell for more thought-provoking content!
00:57 Today, we know that there are some major challenges ahead of us, although our fate may well be
01:03 decided by the outcomes of two general problems in particular; the threat of environmental
01:08 ruin and the rise of artificial intelligence.
01:11 Global warming and climate change threaten rapidly rising sea levels, extreme weather
01:15 events, and dwindling species diversity.
01:18 Meanwhile, the prospect of an increasingly tech-driven future offers both hope and a
01:23 further reason for pause.
01:25 On the one hand, future technology promises solutions to all of our worries, including
01:29 climate change.
01:31 However, on the other hand, some predict that the so-called and imminent "intelligence
01:36 explosion", after which tech will be smarter than humans, is actually what should concern
01:41 us more than anything else.
01:43 Either way, the future Earth will clearly be shaped by the environmental moves we make
01:48 and the technological upgrades we deliver.
01:51 First off, there's the continued rise of renewable energy, which will increasingly
01:55 alter our physical horizons.
01:57 Picture vast landscapes adorned with sleek solar panels and towering wind turbines, harnessing
02:03 the power of the sun and wind to meet our energy needs.
02:06 It isn't hard to visualize because actually, in many places, we already have this.
02:11 But in the future, renewable energy installations are likely to dominate even more.
02:16 According to the most extreme forecasts, solar farms could blanket entire deserts, and offshore
02:21 wind stations may surround each and every coastline.
02:25 Earth will look different, but the energy it runs off will be clean, abundant, and perfect
02:30 for an ever-growing civilization.
02:32 As for what will happen to the power stations of the past, many will be converted into other
02:37 things while some may fall to ruin as relics of a different time.
02:41 In general, we might envision that energy farms will rise mostly in otherwise quiet
02:46 locations, like in the sea or across the Sahara.
02:50 But, in amongst all of that, tomorrow's "smart cities" will emerge as oases of
02:55 efficiency - with it predicted that a higher and higher percentage of the global population
03:00 will migrate to the cities in the future.
03:02 These megalopolises will far outperform even the most innovative urban centers of today.
03:08 Imagine buildings reinforced from scratch to withstand tomorrow's weather events,
03:12 linked together by streets with sensors to optimize traffic flow, trains that always
03:17 run on time, bridges that never break, high-rises that are taller than ever, instant communication
03:23 links, seamlessly connected services all across the board, colossal data centers to beat even
03:29 the largest and most sprawling complexes of today.
03:32 There are even some plans for a "physical internet", where products, including your
03:36 groceries, are shot through a massive web of interconnecting pipes, potentially to anywhere
03:42 in any city on the world map.
03:44 With both future energy and future cities, however, there is an easy-to-find, darker
03:49 side.
03:50 Just as when, at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, many foretold of a smoky, grinding
03:56 urban hub that would rise like monsters around the factories, there are various, less-glistening
04:01 predictions for this new future ideal, as well.
04:04 Chiefly, the smart earth raises a wealth of questions about data privacy, cyber security
04:09 and tech equality.
04:11 While on paper, it seems as though worldwide renewables should mean that everyone gets
04:15 the same, is that really how this future will play out?
04:19 And despite the obvious allure of smart cities, are they worth the reams of personal data
04:24 and information that they demand?
04:26 In the event of us breaching the AI singularity, might a smart city even become something to
04:31 fear once humans are no longer the most intelligent entity around?
04:36 These questions add colour to an alternate future landscape, then, where the smart cities
04:40 rise and the energy farms hum, but perhaps the humans become gradually less and less
04:46 significant.
04:47 The same kinds of balance can be found when we look at the future of agriculture.
04:51 In the broadest sense, farming is around 13,000 years old.
04:55 It was then, 13,000 years ago, that humans first began settling in one place and cultivating
05:01 crops.
05:02 However, in the last couple hundred years, even in just the last few decades, agriculture
05:07 has dramatically changed.
05:09 Now more than ever, we have industrial-scale farming, which has massively altered how the
05:14 earth looks.
05:15 In the future, though, some foretell of a potential reversal, in search of greater efficiency
05:20 - rather than regimented fields primed for harvest as far as the eye can see, we may
05:26 revert back to smaller farms in terms of the literal space they take up.
05:31 Precision farming techniques, combined with the advent of vertical agriculture, should
05:35 mean that farms appear more like office blocks to today's eyes.
05:39 We'll have crops that thrive in controlled, indoor environments, and the fields that do
05:44 remain will be patrolled by autonomous tractors, harvesters and drones, all constantly monitoring
05:50 to ensure the best results.
05:52 The future of the meat industry could be the most changed of all.
05:56 In just the last few years, lab-grown meat has moved from science fiction to genuine
06:01 foodstuff.
06:02 There's an increasing realization that livestock farming is a major contributor to global warming.
06:08 Some even go so far as to predict that future humans will universally eat a meat-free diet
06:13 - which, if it were to happen, would again serve to completely reshape how the land on
06:18 earth is used.
06:20 Indeed, perhaps some of the freed-up fields and pastures will be reworked into energy
06:24 hubs instead.
06:25 Again, on the one hand, it sounds incredible.
06:28 If all the best estimates do come to pass, then food scarcity will no longer exist.
06:34 Every human will have enough to eat, and should also be healthier, which should make them
06:38 happier.
06:39 But on the other hand, in the event that farming did become an autonomous industry, what happens
06:44 if that automation breaks down?
06:47 Or in true sci-fi form, what if it turns against us?
06:51 Only a little less dramatically, there's also the question of the natural world.
06:55 Today, farming monocultures have obliterated the lives of countless animal species, all
07:00 while systematically reducing the diversity of plant life in search of greater yields.
07:06 In the future, with precision farming so geared towards success, and likely required to feed
07:11 more people than ever before, will much thought be given to replenishing nature at all?
07:16 With the planet having already been widely deforested over the last few generations by
07:21 us, would a potential handover to AI result in more trees and greenery, or even less?
07:27 As with so much when it comes to future technology, it's difficult to tell.
07:32 Those smart cities we outlined earlier may also be resplendent with green spaces and
07:37 green roofing, to blur the lines between the natural and artificial worlds.
07:41 That said, the future cities really might be so mesmerically honed that nature becomes
07:46 an afterthought.
07:48 Nevertheless, the technological revolution is here.
07:51 With multiple governments, companies and individuals engaged in a monumental race to produce the
07:56 next big thing, there is no stopping progress, for better or worse.
08:00 In the past, and to some extent in the modern day, we've seen this kind of competition
08:05 play out with regard to space travel in particular.
08:08 And there's certainly reason to believe that this trend will continue into the future,
08:12 with Earth being changed as a result.
08:14 An expansion of space infrastructure means spaceports, launch facilities, climatization
08:20 biomes… anything to make a trip into the void more possible.
08:24 But what's increasingly likely is that the race will no longer be confined to just space
08:29 anymore.
08:30 Instead, as the future Earth looks set to be relentlessly changed in line with tech
08:35 innovation and climate troubles hand in hand, we may be entering into a turbulent era of
08:42 dramatic and near-total remodelling.
08:45 An overhaul for the ages, it's truly impossible to know what the final results will be, but
08:51 with the environment and AI guiding the way, that's what Earth will look like in the
08:56 future.
09:00 Antarctica, our most mysterious continent, lay theorized but undiscovered until the 19th
09:05 century.
09:06 It took almost another century for anybody to make their way to the South Pole, on the
09:09 only truly uninhabited landmass on our planet.
09:13 But could humans someday live there in far larger numbers?
09:17 This is Unveiled, and today we're answering the extraordinary question; what if a future
09:20 civilization lives on Antarctica?
09:25 Do you need the big questions answered?
09:27 Are you constantly curious?
09:29 Then why not subscribe to Unveiled for more clips like this one?
09:32 And ring the bell for more thought-provoking content!
09:35 Despite Antarctica's hostile and isolated environment, humans have lived there on and
09:39 off for more than 100 years.
09:42 There were a handful of exploration expeditions in the first half of the 1800s, but the biggest
09:46 Antarctic endeavours didn't begin until the very end of that century.
09:50 And in the 1900s, humans moved onto some Antarctic islands to set up whaling stations.
09:55 Today, whaling is at best controversial, and is now illegal in many parts of the world.
10:00 It's been banned internationally since 1986, although not all countries observe this.
10:06 But it was huge in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and with overfishing decimating
10:10 whale populations further north, the untouched Antarctic became compelling.
10:15 In fact, exploiting whale and seal populations was the first major reason that people went
10:19 to Antarctica at all.
10:21 It wasn't until much later that we began going to explore for exploration's sake, rather
10:25 than for profit.
10:26 Thankfully, though, the practice of whaling did almost end completely, and plundering
10:31 the continent is no longer the reason for human habitation there.
10:35 Broadly, Antarctica is today split into different sections, designated to various countries
10:40 to use for scientific research.
10:42 Disturbing the environment in any way is not really allowed anymore, nor is using Antarctica
10:47 for military purposes.
10:49 The biggest settlement, then, is McMurdo Station, a science base operated by the United States
10:54 - although, interestingly, the US doesn't actually claim any territory on the continent.
10:59 In summer, when McMurdo is most populous, there are around 1,000 residents.
11:04 Being allowed to live there is often a career highlight and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity
11:09 for the researchers selected to go.
11:11 But Antarctica still isn't entirely free of commercial enterprise, either.
11:15 There are for-profit Antarctic cruise companies, for example, and some even make landfall and
11:20 allow paying tourists onto the land itself - albeit with strict rules about what they
11:25 can and cannot do.
11:27 Some even visit those eerie, abandoned whaling stations that were once a hub of activity.
11:32 Evidently, then, Antarctica is a unique and intriguing destination, and in many ways a
11:36 desirable one - although it isn't accessible to many.
11:40 Nevertheless, a few people have lived on Antarctica for an extraordinarily long time.
11:45 A British explorer named Ken Blakelock, for instance, spent 14 years there, though not
11:50 consecutively.
11:51 With current technology, the landscape for living in Antarctica is very different from
11:55 how it was for those whalers of yesteryear.
11:58 They lived there before even the invention of aviation, meaning that the only way to
12:01 get back was via long and treacherous voyages on ships, leaving them even more isolated.
12:07 Also, while there's now electricity powering outposts, and most even have the internet,
12:13 those are relatively new developments.
12:15 Not so long ago, nothing like that existed.
12:18 Contemporary Antarctic locales are at the forefront of satellite internet, too, which
12:22 doesn't require the installation of complex infrastructure like cables.
12:26 And so, slowly but surely, modern communities are growing on Antarctica - albeit communities
12:32 that are carefully operated and managed.
12:34 So, does this mean that more will follow?
12:36 For many, humans likely wouldn't migrate this far south en masse unless they were faced
12:41 with climate disaster - at which point Antarctica perhaps looks like a good option.
12:46 With the Arctic far smaller by comparison, and made up primarily of ice, Antarctica is
12:51 a full landmass with ice only on top.
12:54 If the planet were to get too hot, and we needed to live somewhere cold, then Antarctica
12:59 might even be the only option… although not every model arrives at this particular
13:03 conclusion.
13:04 That said, in a reality where Antarctic migration was necessary, then the protection of its
13:09 unique wilderness would likely suddenly come second to ensuring our species survives.
13:15 But never mind the reasons for it.
13:17 Whether a sizable number of people were ever enticed to Antarctica on another quest, or
13:21 forced there due to climate change, what might life be like down there for an advanced civilization
13:27 like our own?
13:28 One built by humans for humans, but in the coldest place on Earth?
13:32 Well, while we often associate urban cities as being the antithesis of nature, and inherently
13:37 destructive to the environment, it doesn't actually need to be that way.
13:41 There are many movements to build sustainable, or "green" cities already going on all
13:45 across the world.
13:46 It's a major goal of the United Nations.
13:49 These cities aim to minimise how much they disturb the environment that they're constructed
13:53 within, albeit often retroactively, as it wasn't necessarily how they were originally
13:58 designed and built.
13:59 However, we do know that it is possible for urbanisation to meet nature and not ruin it
14:05 all.
14:06 Before the Industrial Revolution, many human settlements existed alongside nature without
14:10 affecting it too much… and in the future, we perhaps could feasibly do this in Antarctica.
14:15 What's more, with no retrospective action needed, because we would be building Antarctic
14:20 infrastructure mostly from scratch, this would offer the perfect opportunity to invest in
14:24 green solutions.
14:26 And indeed, wind turbines do already exist on the continent to power its outposts.
14:32 Antarctica could also be a great place for solar energy, though, as the extreme days
14:36 for half of the year would enable energy stockpiling in large reserves and batteries, to help in
14:42 the long, dark winters.
14:44 Meanwhile, those wind turbines would continue to work year-round.
14:48 Add in tidal generators along the lengthy Antarctic coastline, and the prospect looks
14:52 even better.
14:53 In fact, Princess Elizabeth Station, an outpost built by Belgium in 2009, is already a zero-emission
15:00 installation, making use of wind and solar power and leading by example.
15:05 It could be, then, that a long-term human presence wouldn't automatically mean terrible
15:08 things would happen to the continent… but how would the people themselves adapt to living
15:13 there?
15:14 For one, extreme isolation might be a problem.
15:16 But then again, if you were part of a large enough settlement, with plenty of people around
15:20 you, it might not be so bad… especially with internet access to the rest of the world
15:24 (assuming that there was a rest of the world after whatever it was that led to the construction
15:29 of our city in Antarctica).
15:31 But then there is another big factor… temperature.
15:34 The coldest recorded temperature in Antarctica is -128.6 degrees Fahrenheit.
15:40 Pretty chilly.
15:41 Mind you, that was well inland.
15:43 The average temperature on the coast is around 14 degrees Fahrenheit.
15:47 Still cold, but not insane.
15:50 And of course, for thousands of years, humans have lived in extremely cold places, like
15:54 the far north of Canada, Greenland, Siberia, and Scandinavia.
15:59 Societies in these cold places have even thrived, like the Vikings, living in close communities
16:04 and wearing heavy clothes to protect against the cold.
16:08 Humans are adaptable creatures, and it only takes a few weeks for us to acclimatise to
16:12 cold temperatures.
16:14 Many scientists who have lived on Antarctica, for example, get so used to it that they don't
16:18 even wear the huge coats that most of us imagine must be necessary.
16:21 So, the cold perhaps would eventually start to feel much more manageable.
16:26 That doesn't mean that, in this alternate, Antarctic-centric world, we wouldn't still
16:30 all need to be careful, however, particularly while outside, and especially during the winter.
16:36 Elsewhere, some early Antarctic explorers reportedly acclimatised in more extreme ways,
16:43 through drastic measures like throwing buckets of icy Antarctic water all over themselves,
16:48 thereby exposing them to the worst of the cold and getting them used to it faster.
16:52 That was around a hundred years ago, though.
16:54 We'd likely at least have central heating and reliable buildings in this hypothesised
16:59 future, so perhaps it needn't be quite such a shock.
17:02 Finally, though, food would also be tricky.
17:05 We wouldn't want to revert to the early days of whaling, because that wouldn't represent
17:09 a truly sustainable life on the continent.
17:11 Meanwhile, at present, you're not even allowed to touch the penguins if you visit Antarctica,
17:16 and have to be as considerate to them as possible, so people definitely won't approve of you
17:21 trying to eat them.
17:22 Without relying on shipping large quantities of food from other parts of the world, then,
17:27 which also wouldn't be especially eco-friendly, we'd likely have to resort to methods similar
17:32 to what we're planning to use in space exploration.
17:35 Things like greenhouses and large hydroponic labs would be required to manufacture large
17:40 amounts of food.
17:41 It would also be a predominantly vegetarian or even vegan society, since it wouldn't be
17:46 ideal to bring livestock down to Antarctica and disrupt its ecosystem that way, either,
17:52 by introducing invasive species like cows, chickens and pigs.
17:55 By this point in the future, maybe we'll have mastered growing tasty, cultured meat in labs.
18:01 We'd certainly need to be well-skilled in growing fruits and vegetables in climate-controlled
18:05 buildings.
18:06 But if it's seemingly possible to do all of that on the likes of Mars or the moon, then
18:11 it's absolutely possible to do it on Antarctica, too.
18:14 Astronaut food, here we come.
18:16 But what do you think?
18:18 Should humanity use all of its knowledge to build a huge, eco-friendly city on Antarctica?
18:23 Will it ever need to?
18:24 In the end, keeping Antarctica pristine for scientific and environmental research is probably
18:30 going to continue to be the status quo, and for good reason.
18:33 But it is possible to live there, and doing so could even prove to be the first step towards
18:39 leaving Earth entirely.
18:41 So alien is our southernmost land.
18:44 And that's what would happen if a future civilization were to live on Antarctica.
18:49 What do you think?
18:50 Is there anything we missed?
18:51 Let us know in the comments.
18:52 Check out these other clips from Unveiled, and make sure you subscribe and ring the bell
18:57 for our latest content.