The Washington, DC of the Future

Environmentalists have a broad range of ideas about what climate change will mean, how quickly it will occur, and how well humans will be able to cope with the change. Some believe that serious climate change will not occur for a few generations, whereas others assert that climate change will occur much quicker, within a few decades.

I believe that in 200 years, Washington, D.C. will be a very different place. If humans continue the ecological pattern they have been on, then the impacts of climate change are going to be visible most likely during my lifetime, and extremely likely during the lifetime of my future child. The Washington, D.C. of 2209 will probably be much more advanced in terms of technology and will have been able to deal with climate change to a certain extent, but the planet will look very different. The environment will have been seriously impacted by human activities such as deforestation, greenhouse gases, and other man-made environmentally destructive technologies. This environmental destruction will have greatly lessened the amount of green space in DC. Rock Creek Park will look more like Rock Creek Backyard. Even Northern Virginia, were I've grown up and which has always been full of trees and greenery will look a lot more like a city, full of increasing high rises.

If humans continue on the path we have been on in terms of environmental degradation, the ice caps are going to continue to melt, which will in turn cause a rising in sea levels. Due to this rise in sea levels, eventually huge areas near the water are going to become a part of the sea. Washington, D.C. is not incredibly close to the water but in 200 years it will be much closer. People will be able to take 30 minute drives to the oceanfront because places like Virginia Beach and Rehobeth in Delaware will be underwater.

So the amount of greenery in DC and the surrounding suburbs will have been considerably lowered in 200 years, and ocean levels will have risen to such an extent that D.C. will be considered not only our nation's capital but also a beach destination. People will spend little time outdoors, however, because temperatures will have risen to an extraordinarily high level and the amount of disasterous storms affecting the region will have risen greatly due to climate change. Visits to the beach will be few and far between because of the frequency of tsunamis and hurricanes which will occur. All in all, if we continue on the ecological path we are headed on, the Washington, D.C. which will be around for our future generations will not be a place most people would want to live.

I hope that this scenario will not turn out to be the case. I love Washington, D.C. I've grown up here and the parks surrounding the city are some of my favorite places to visit. As a child I often used to walk along the paths of Difficult Run or spend time walking around in the field near my house. These green spaces are quickly being taken over by technology and development, however. The field near my house is now made up almost entirely of residences. I hope that this process of man-made taking over nature-made will not continue to spread as quickly as it has been, but the amount of new development taken place in my area is excessive.

Hopefully, we will all realise the importance of changing our habits in order to be more ecologically friendly, and the climate crisis will be slowed. If there are major changes made to the way we live our lives in terms of our ecological footprint, and positive steps are made to reduce climate change, then the D.C. of the future doesn't have to look like the image I described above. The D.C. of 2209 could be a lot like the D.C. we know today, although some lifestyle changes will have had to have been made. The kids of the future will know a lot more about climate change and will be conscientious of their choices. Environmental ideas which are in a lot of ways on the fringe nowadays, such as recycling everything, buying locally and turning off lights when you leave a room will be ingrained in the minds of the kids of 2209. Our future generations will also be taught about the environment at school to a much greater extent. They will have grown up thinking about the environment in terms of every subject: math, science, literature and more. They will have learned to conserve energy and to take shorter showers to save water. The standard house will be built using ecologically friendly materials, lightbulbs will all be environmentally low-impact, carpooling will be a part of everyday life, buildings will have green roofs and there will be recycling bins of all kinds on every streetcorner. Environmental change will have been postponed to such an extent that there will have been minimum change in terms of ice cap melting and deforestation, and the o-zone will not have depleted much futher. More people will ride bikes and metro will have been transformed into a more green mode of transportation. All cars will be hybrids, or some technologically advanced car model which is good for the environment. The food that the people of the future will eat will all be locally grown from farms in the suburbs and rural areas not too far from the city. There will be many green areas in the city and the surrounding area; more even than there are now. I hope that the Washington, D.C. of 2209 will be a good example of a "green city" where the people, the infrastructure, everything is environmentally friendly.

Unfortunately, if we stay on the ecological path we have been on, then the first scenario I talked about is more likely what the D.C. of 2209 will look like. The environmentally friendly D.C. of the future is an extremely idealized model, hoping that enough people will realize the importance of preserving the environment to make this kind of major lifestyle shift. It will not be easy to transform peoples' ideas about their lives and what they deserve, but it is possible. D.C. will most likely never be the "green city" I hope for and imagine, but it doesn't have to be the environmentally devoid city I described in the beginning. Hopefully future generations will live in a D.C. that is still thriving, but which is environmentally conscious.