Predicting what the earth will look like in 100 years is a bit of a fool's errand. Honestly, if you asked someone in 1926 to describe 2026, they would’ve probably guessed we’d all be commuting via steam-powered zeppelins or living in some weird Art Deco bubble cities. They’d have missed the internet entirely. They’d have missed the smartphone. They definitely wouldn't have predicted that we'd be worried about the cooling systems in massive server farms keeping our digital lives afloat. But we have something the folks in 1926 didn't have: sophisticated climate modeling and a much clearer picture of how our biology and technology are merging.
The future isn't a straight line. It's a jagged, messy series of trade-offs.
By 2126, the planet isn't going to be a scorched wasteland, nor will it be a techno-utopian paradise. It’s going to be "weird." We’re looking at a world where the coastlines have been redrawn, sure, but also a world where the very definition of "nature" has changed because we’ve had to engineer our way out of the corners we’ve painted ourselves into.
The big visual shift: Redrawing the maps
When people think about what the earth will look like in 100 years, they usually go straight to the water. And for good reason. According to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), sea levels are virtually certain to continue rising for centuries. By 2126, we’re likely looking at a rise of anywhere from 0.5 to 1.0 meters, depending on how aggressively we’ve pivoted away from carbon. That sounds small. It’s not.
Think about South Florida. Or Jakarta. Or the Low Countries in Europe.
💡 You might also like: Electric Car AC System: Why It’s Way More Complicated Than Your Gas Car
These places won't necessarily be "underwater" like some cinematic version of Atlantis, but they will be defended. We’re going to see "The Great Wall" era of human engineering. Think massive, multi-billion dollar sea wall projects, Dutch-style polders in places like Manhattan, and "sponge cities" that use porous concrete and urban wetlands to soak up the inevitable storm surges. The horizon line in coastal cities will be defined by massive concrete barriers and retractable gates.
It’s expensive. It’s gritty. It’s the new normal.
But there’s a flip side. While the edges of the continents get wetter, the interiors of places like the American Southwest, the Sahel in Africa, and parts of Central Asia are going to look significantly dustier. We’re already seeing "megadroughts" that last decades. In 100 years, the vegetation maps will have shifted hundreds of miles. The Wheat Belt in the U.S. might be well into Canada. The wine regions of France might have migrated to southern England. It’s a massive, slow-motion reshuffling of where things grow and where people can actually stand to live without 24/7 air conditioning.
The end of "Wild" nature
Here’s something people rarely talk about: the "managed" wilderness. By 2126, the idea of a forest that grows entirely without human intervention will be a luxury or a memory.
We are already entering the era of assisted migration. Ecologists are literally moving tree species further north because the trees can't "walk" fast enough to keep up with the changing temperature zones. In 100 years, the forests you hike in will likely be curated. They’ll be populated by heat-resistant genotypes of oak or pine, specifically planted by drones to ensure the ecosystem doesn't just collapse into scrubland.
We’ll also see the rise of de-extinction. Companies like Colossal Biosciences are already working on bringing back the Woolly Mammoth and the Thylacine. In a century, "nature" might include proxy species—animals engineered to fill ecological niches left vacant by the extinctions of the 20th and 21st centuries. Imagine herds of elephant-mammoth hybrids roaming the Siberian tundra to help keep the permafrost frozen by stomping down snow. It sounds like science fiction, but the investment capital is already there.
The sky will look different too.
Not because of the clouds, but because of the satellites. We’re currently on a trajectory to have tens of thousands of satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). By 2126, the night sky in rural areas might never be truly dark again. You’ll see "trains" of light—the infrastructure of a global, space-based internet and power grid—crisscrossing the stars.
Energy and the "Solar Skin"
Let's talk about the built environment. What does a city look like in 100 years?
It probably looks a lot more "biological." We’re moving away from the era of steel and glass boxes that fight against the environment. Architects like Neri Oxman are already pioneering "material ecology," where buildings are 3D-printed using biodegradable composites or materials that can actually sequester carbon.
I suspect we’ll see "solar skin" everywhere. Instead of clunky panels on roofs, every window, every shingle, and every stretch of road will be a photovoltaic surface. We’ll be swimming in energy, but the challenge will be storage and distribution. The power lines of today will be gone, replaced by localized microgrids.
- Vertical Farming: Most of our fresh greens will come from the building next door, grown in hydro-towers that use 95% less water than traditional farming.
- The Quiet City: Internal combustion engines will be museum pieces. Cities will be remarkably quiet, dominated by the hum of electric transit and the whir of delivery drones.
- Carbon Capture Spires: The skyline will include massive towers that do nothing but suck CO2 out of the air. They’ll be the "lungs" of the city, paid for by global carbon taxes.
It’s easy to get caught up in the tech, but the social reality of what the earth will look like in 100 years is more about adaptation. People are resilient. We’ll have "climate refugees," yes—millions of them—but we’ll also have new, thriving cities in the "Green Banana" zones of the North. Places like Edmonton, Norway, and parts of Russia might become the new geopolitical hubs of the 22nd century.
The Synthetic Biology Revolution
By 2126, the biggest change won't be what we see, but how we interact with the world. We are currently in the "Silicon Age," but we’re moving into the "Bio Age."
CRISPR and other gene-editing tools are just the beginning. In a century, we may have "living" infrastructure. Imagine a streetlamp that is actually a bioluminescent tree. Imagine a house that grows its own insulation via fungal mycelium. This isn't just "green" living; it’s a fundamental shift in manufacturing. Why build a chair in a factory when you can grow it in a vat or a field?
✨ Don't miss: iPhone 16 Pro Max: What Most People Get Wrong
This affects human health, too. We have to be honest about the fact that 100 years from now, "human" might be a bit of a sliding scale. We’re already seeing the first brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) from companies like Neuralink. In 100 years, the way we perceive the earth will be augmented. You might "see" the CO2 levels in a room or "feel" the health of the soil through sensors. The earth won't just be a place we live; it'll be a place we are digitally and biologically plugged into.
The inconvenient truth about the transition
We can't talk about the 2120s without acknowledging the "bottleneck" we have to pass through first. The next 50 years are going to be rough. We are currently locked into a certain amount of warming regardless of what we do tomorrow.
The earth in 100 years is a survivor. It’s a planet that has gone through a fever and is starting to stabilize. We will have lost a lot—coral reefs will likely be localized to specialized, cooled "arcology" tanks, and many glacier-fed rivers will have changed their flow forever.
But it’s not the end of the world. It’s just the end of the world as we’ve known it since the Industrial Revolution.
The 22nd century will be defined by "Repair." Our descendants will spend their lives cleaning up the plastic from the oceans and rebuilding the topsoil that we’ve depleted. They’ll be masters of circular economies, where the word "waste" doesn't really exist because every molecule is tracked and reused.
Actionable steps for a 100-year perspective
If you want to be part of the generation that ensures the earth in 100 years is livable, you can't just wait for the tech to save us. It's about shifting how we interact with the planet right now.
1. Invest in Resilient Infrastructure
If you're buying property or planning for the long term, look at topographical maps. Avoid floodplains. Look for areas with "water security"—places with deep aquifers or sustainable rainfall patterns. The real estate market of 2070 will be dictated by elevation and irrigation.
2. Support "Open Source" Biology
The future of our food and medicine depends on genetic diversity. Support organizations like the Svalbard Global Seed Vault or local seed-saving initiatives. The more genetic "data" we preserve now, the more tools our grandkids have to rebuild ecosystems later.
3. Focus on "Low-Tech" Carbon Solutions
While we wait for the carbon-sucking machines, the best tech we have is still the tree. But not just any tree—native, diverse plantings that restore the soil. Regenerative agriculture is perhaps the single most important "technology" we can scale in the next decade to ensure there’s a 2126 worth living in.
4. Rethink Your Digital Footprint
The internet isn't "in the clouds"—it's in massive buildings that eat electricity. Support companies that are moving toward "compute-water" cooling and carbon-negative data centers. Our digital world in 100 years will only exist if we solve the energy cost of that data today.
The earth 100 years from now is going to be a patchwork. It’ll be a mix of high-tech defense systems and desperate, beautiful attempts to let nature take back the lead. It’s going to be a planet that requires a lot more "maintenance" than the one we inherited. But for those living there, it will still be home. It'll still have sunsets, even if they're filtered through a slightly different atmosphere. It’ll still have life; it’ll just be life that we’ve had to work a lot harder to protect.