Now that you’ve worked with some predictions from both the past and present, what predictions would you make for the future? For this activity, you’ll write a letter (about 300 words) from the year 2050 to your present day self, describing your life in the future. Think about what you might eat and wear. What kind of home will you live in? What will the climate be like? What kind of job will you have? How will you communicate with others? How will you travel? How will you read and write?

Answer and explanation:

Dear me,

If only you knew what life will be like thirty years from now - well, now for you. It is 2050, I'm obviously older, but I look and I feel much younger. Medicine these days is so advanced we are now aging more slowly. Several people are reported to live up to be 135 years old. It's not just medical advancements, but technology used everywhere has made us stronger, faster, healthier. The food and water we consume nowadays are modified, full of supplements that give us everything we need for a whole day in just one meal - that's right, we only eat once a day. Not to mention the adaptive clothes they came up with around 10 years ago. No matter the weather outside, whatever it is that we put on will provide us with the warmth and protection we need. People buy much fewer clothes than they did back in 2020, and no animals are used - or killed - to give us their fur or skin for fabric.

Speaking of animals and weather, the fight against climate change has done its job. It was a global effort, of course, but when all countries made the decision to embrace it, that frightening warming slowed down. Reforestation of the Amazon forest, for instance, was a difficult battle, but one worth fighting. Rivers, endangered species, forests, they were all finally regarded as essential for our lives on this Earth to continue, finally treated with the respect they deserve. Climate is now getting back to normal - as much as possible, that is. Fewer hurricanes and tornadoes, fewer storms... Now scientists are working to grow ice caps back in the Poles - that is something I'm curious about!

I work as a recruiter for a reforestation company - that's a thing now. But I don't really need to leave home to do my job. I can work from each and every room in my smart-house. There are holographic monitors everywhere, all activated via voice commands. They are like the computers I - I mean, you - used to use back in 2020. I can access the web and talk to co-workers, relatives, and friends anywhere. Their holograms simply pop out of devices installed around the house.

I do like to travel a couple of times a year, usually to foreign countries. Trips are cheaper and way faster now. Spain is just a half hour away, be it flying on a superjet or riding the underwater bullet train. During that short time, I either take a quick nap or write on my journal. By the way, we no longer write with our hands. There have developed devices that look like very small electrodes. They can be attached to the side of our heads and interpret our commands to write something down on our phones, watches, etc. We also don't need to read like we used to. Those same devices can send data into our brain in the form of electric signals. We just receive information as if we have read a newspaper, for instance. Scientists are now enhancing that device so that we can use it to control that system in our homes. When they perfect it, we will no longer have to use voice commands - a simple thought will suffice.

when your a dog and you need a bone.   go and eat a rabbit

the earth’s crust is broken into separate pieces called tectonic plates (fig. 7.14). recall that the crust is the solid, rocky, outer shell of the planet. it is composed of two distinctly different types of material: the less-dense continental crust and the more-dense oceanic crust. both types of crust rest atop solid, upper mantle material. the upper mantle, in turn, floats on a denser layer of lower mantle that is much like thick molten tar.

each tectonic plate is free-floating and can move independently. earthquakes and volcanoes are the direct result of the movement of tectonic plates at fault lines. the term fault is used to describe the boundary between tectonic plates. most of the earthquakes and volcanoes around the pacific ocean basin—a pattern known as the “ring of fire”—are due to the movement of tectonic plates in this region. other observable results of short-term plate movement include the gradual widening of the great rift lakes in eastern africa and the rising of the himalayan mountain range. the motion of plates can be described in four general patterns:

collision: when two continental plates are shoved together

subduction: when one plate plunges beneath another (fig. 7.15)

spreading: when two plates are pushed apart (fig. 7.15)

transform faulting: when two plates slide past each other (fig. 7.15)