Here are three more stories, starting 75 years from now, by students in my Chinese summer school class.
By 2096, I am living on a very different planet -- a planet that is much harder to live on. I have seen the process of rising sea levels, higher temperatures, and more extreme weather events. The areas suitable for human survival have further shrunk, and many island countries have been lost or disappeared altogether. Tropical rain forests were further reduced, glaciers shrank, and as mining and arable land were developed, there was less fertile land, and it became more difficult to extract food/wealth from the soil. Many species that had existed for thousands of years became extinct in the last 75 years. Continued global warming is making catastrophic weather more frequent, sea levels are rising to varying degrees around the world, and New York has built levees to keep out the water. Some coastal cities, such as Houston or Shanghai, have been abandoned due to hazardous weather.I was watching the news at home that something was going to get flooded again, and I couldn't but remember how I had to move away from my hometown by the sea and escape to live on the mainland. Watching my town disappeared in the water wasn’t easy to accept. TV hosts repeatedly stressed that there is no greater threat to the environment, that it is inevitable that cities will be submerged, and that there are precedents in all countries, but it was like the first half of my life had lost its meaning.
Thanks to rapid advances in artificial intelligence and robotics, as well as the promise of biological and nanotechnology, the impact of the climate crisis may be mitigated. Artificial intelligence is increasingly becoming involved in government and corporate public services and control, providing detailed predictions of weather and climate models. Although many have doubts about the use of AI in social affairs, the threat of climate is more immediate so we have to rely on AI's timely warning and social resource allocation to reduce the impact of climate disasters.
The idea of the Anthropocene has become familiar, in order to improve living conditions and survive against a backdrop of gradual environmental degradation. In these 75 years human beings have begun to take measures to slow down the negative impact of human beings and the deterioration of the environment, but this has only slowed down the speed of environmental deterioration. We need to use technology to find a more effective approach. And I hope that I can return to my hometown one day beside the beautiful beach.
Seventy-five years on, the earth's environment has deteriorated and is no longer suitable for human life. Some of the selected humans escaped from Earth in a spacecraft and multiplied on the spacecraft. There are only machines and humans on the spaceship, and humans rely on technology to get material from the universe to survive. Jack saw the image of the earth in the past when looking for information, and had a great yearning for the forest and other natural landscapes. He secretly took a small spaceship to leave the space base and return to the Earth, and searched for the green according to the content of the image. After painstaking efforts to find the target, he finds it is just a projection, an image of green plants. Still Jack decides not to return to the ship, but to stay with the projection and die on Earth.
Today is July 14th, 2096. As a surveillance camera, I stayed quietly on the street and recorded 75 years of life and witnessed 75 years of changes. About 70 years ago, I recognized the word “Anthropocene” from the way humans shaped their mouths, which seems like a very bad time. As the years went by, the streets became less crowded and the corners I could record became more and more dilapidated. By the time I reached my durable years, no one remembered to replace me. I had a vague question: Why did this street go from prosperity to ruin? Why are there fewer and fewer trees in the streets and the whole world changing from green to yellow? Why are there fewer and fewer people? Until, by chance, I connected it all to the word “Anthropocene”. Maybe the Anthropocene is the end of the world, like security cameras that will have reached the end of their lifespan and will have to be disposed of. The beginning of the Anthropocene also means the end of humanity. The emergence of the concept of the Anthropocene was a wake-up call for human beings, but they did not seize the opportunity to change, so their era ended.
If any of the stories individual students have submitted as final projects inspire me the way these do, I'll share them too!
