Amy Coney Barrett, if her confirmation process goes as Republicans hope, could still be serving on the Supreme Court in 2050.By then, the United Nations estimates that anywhere between 25 million and one billion people will have been displaced by the impacts of global warming within and between countries, as large stretches of the planet become unbearably hot. Crop yields in America’s grain belt and Southwest could be decimated. The Arctic Ocean may well have been ice-free for 15 years.

Just 10 percent of the U.S. population by that point is expected to live outside of cities. Should Barrett die in office at a similar age to Ruth Bader Ginsberg, senators representing tiny and increasingly uninhabitable slivers of this country will still be empowered to confirm her replacement.

We can avoid parts of this future. But it’s getting increasingly hard to imagine doing so if today’s judiciary branch remains intact. The […]