Global Warming – An End of Days Diary,.

This is a fictional short story about the effects of global warming. A first-person view of how the Earth will be affected in 2100 due to global warming. PANS ?https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2108146119? inspired the story, and the US National Academy of Sciences ?www.igsd.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Well-Under-2-Degrees-Celsius-Report-2017.pdf?also inspired it: a global rise of 4°C would expose 70% of the population to deadly heat and disease; the Earth’s temperature has risen by 1 °C since the Industrial Revolution.

 

Please take some time to read this story, which tells the inner monologue of a 20-year-old in the face of the apocalypse, by way of diary, in the first person – so that the reader can feel more involved.

 

The focus of this storytelling is to expose the deeper meaning of current human behavior: the fact that humans have always turned a blind eye to current environmental damage, believing that it does not have a significant impact on the environment but that it is these problems that have gradually led to environmental problems. Through this story, I hope to guide and promote social and personal thinking about environmental sustainability: we sacrifice the environment for future generations for our benefit. The nature of this social issue has changed: global warming is no longer an issue, but a real problem that needs to be addressed.

 

Thank you for taking the time to read this story, the story which is described in the following paragraphs.

 

Diary in the End of Earth Times

November 15, 2100 at 3:00 am

It is so hot!!! I cannot remember how long this dark day will last, looking out of the window in disarray, it’s as if we’re all used to the heartbreaking howls of the homeless people downstairs. It was hard to stay outside at night when the surface temperature could fry an egg. In a few short months, clothes, perfume, and make-up are no longer the most precious things: the limited supply of drinking water and the five eggs for 50 Australian dollars in the supermarkets are the most sought after. I don’t need a bed anymore but lie on the wooden floor in an attempt to feel more cold air, as there is no electricity after 9pm.

I opened all the windows in the house and felt the somewhat scorching breeze when I suddenly heard intermittent sobbing next door and learned that the grandmother who had contracted the virus a while ago still had not made it through the month. The global temperature has risen dramatically, plagues are frequent and national research teams can only mend their ways in a desperate attempt to develop new vaccines, yet the virus is always one step ahead of human research; we now need to be vaccinated three times a week to ward off the virus. It is now a luxury to even have a small burial plot after death; most people are put straight into an emergency cryo chamber after death and disappear into a small pile of dust after a series of process. Thinking about this, I began to fear that if I were to die, there would be no way to find a trace of my existence. Fear fills my body instantly. I didn’t know what would happen tomorrow: maybe tomorrow I would be robbed of all my food and water by a mugger; maybe I would catch the plague, or tomorrow I would go into shock from heatstroke.

It’s all as if I’m even breathing wrong.

 

30 November 2100 9pm

The situation was getting worse, the melting millenniums of permafrost had gathered into the sea and was closing in on the city, the water in the streets was up to my thighs. I wouldn’t have touched all the rubbish, dead rats, and cockroaches floating on the water, stinking, if I hadn’t developed plague symptoms and needed to go to the quarantine zone. The streets were filled with people marching and crying. They held up signs saying “There is only one planet! “We need to protect the environment!” As if they were heroes saving the world, they kicked aside the rubbish floating in the water. I just felt the irony as I looked on. They didn’t really want to protect the environment but were sitting back and enjoying themselves because of the dire consequences of what was happening and wanting others to protect the environment. It’s not great that they are moving themselves and calling on others to do it because all you need to do is spread the word and shout and others will hear your voice, but what is really great is that you can actually work hard for the cause from a practical point of view and not give up even if there is a small quantity of hope. In the face of such a big problem, how can you influence others and convince them to change if you can’t even do it yourself?

 

February 3, 2101 6:00 am

I’m still in quarantine, and it’s no different from the outside, the doctors and nurses are getting less and less every day, my symptoms are getting worse every day, the virus is gradually spreading from my lungs to my whole body, and this virus that can infect each other by breathing is always the hardest to protect against. Occasionally, I still feel how unfair it is that I am the one who has to pay the greatest price for the environment that I have not destroyed. As my grandmother said to me the last time, I saw her.

“You are my children, and watching you face such problems at birth always makes me regret until I pray to God in the middle of the night that everything will change for the better when it is not you who is at fault, but us, my fathers, grandfathers and even my ancestors before me, and yet you did not even have the most basic childhood happiness.”

 

Yes. My childhood memories are of masks that I had to wear even when it was hot enough to get heatstroke; of daily virus tests; of air that I never really breathed; of looking at a puddle of smelly river water and finding it hard to imagine why my grandmother said she had fun in the river with her friends as a child. It was the blue skies and white clouds that could only be imagined in pictures and novels.

 

“So, Grandma, why did it turn out this way?”

“In my generation, and even generations before that, they were greedy. They eagerly plundered the gifts of nature to invent many things that were convenient to them: like cars and trains. But the price of making it convenient for them was the constant need for oil, the endless amount of carbon dioxide emitted into the air…”

 

I vividly remember my grandmother saying these words with sadness and some look in her eyes that I could not read.

It was the first time I had ever seen her so emotional

“We were greedy for much more than that: we invented the car, and we always wanted him to be faster, we developed new engines, which meant that purer oil was needed; we were no longer satisfied with ordinary cotton and linen clothes, we began to use many, many chemical dyes to turn our clothes into brilliant colours, even mink, crocodile skin. Even putting in lots and lots of disposable cutlery because it was convenient. There was no end to all this greed, and we never thought about the price we had to pay behind all this convenience”

“Everyone thinks that what they use doesn’t have much impact on the environment, but the tons of chemical waste discharged into the sea and the mountains of plastic floating on the surface are all caused by the fact that little by little we don’t care! That tons of waste may have a pair of your disposable chopsticks in it, and some of the carbon dioxide emitted into the air belongs to your car.”

Then she stroked my head, and I saw the tears.

“I wanted to show you the beautiful blue sky and white clouds, the seven-colored rainbow after the rain, the sunset that was different every day, and the huge swathes of the city that had been flooded; I wanted so much to show you the freedom of not wearing a mask, of being able to go on happy weekend hikes, and the many, many joys that were within my reach as a child.”

At the time, I reassured her, “It’s okay, Grandma, I can still play on the computer; it’s fun too! The new toys Mum bought me are fun too; I’m happy too!”

At the time, I didn’t know the reason for the lingering desire to speak after my grandmother responded to this comment.

But today, I understand.

Maybe one day I will be able to go and see the world that my grandmother talks about.