A Fictional Reality
San Jose, CA
2022, Junior, Creative Writing
Her mother used to tell her stories. Grand, sweeping tales of mystery and intrigue that plagued her nightmares and filled her daydreams. She loved these stories—her heart raced with the heroes, she stood against the villains, and touched everyone in between. She read science fiction and fantasy as if the words could reach into her soul and draw out something tangible. As she grew older, that thirst for something other never changed, it never left. What did was the world around her.
It was another one of those days. Sweat licked her face and settled on her brows, painting damp pictures on her blankets. She sat up, turned on the lights, and poured herself a cup of water. Her computer screen blinked open to the document she’d been working on last. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard, and she spat out a few words before immediately stealing them back. The document blinked at her, ever empty.
She’d always wanted to be a fantasy novelist and write the stories her mother told her, but instead she’d settled for journalism. It seemed more pertinent, when her world felt more like science fiction than anything else she could write. When giant hurricanes ripped through her city, and she sat in the Red Cross shelter, watching her home get torn apart, she wrote (“When Hurricanes Tear Apart Your Life”). When the government did nothing but smile and laugh, she wrote (“Congress Turns Dystopian”). When she had to move because her beach house had been flooded, she wrote (“Climate Change and Our Coastlines”).
Her latest piece, her biggest one, could make or break her career. People were looking forward to it. It was the first time in a long time that the President had shown interest in solving climate change, and she’d been assigned to cover it. Even now, her screen was blinking with an update: the President’s speech in the aftermath of the meeting (“LIVE: President Addresses Climate Change Conundrum”).
She leaned back in her chair and remembered everything. She’d watched as the first man stood up, all plaid blazers and ironed pants. With a grand reveal he introduced SunShades, the greatest geoengineering feat of a lifetime. The goal was to send something up into space, much like giant sunglasses, that would make the sun’s glare less harsh. They only needed to cut off two percent of the sun’s rays, which amounted to sending up three trillion small spacecraft.
The second man introduced his idea: to seed the ocean with iron, which would then produce a large population of plankton. These plankton would feed on the carbon emissions in the air. It was simple and effective!
The third man had an idea to seed the air with sulfur particles, similar to what happens when a volcano erupts. Sulfur particles are ejected into the atmosphere, and they naturally cool down the environment below. These scientists can emulate that.
The fourth person presented the idea of building underwater sand berms to prevent glaciers from breaking off and thus stop sea levels from rising.
The journalist had frowned after each person had finished speaking and scribbled notes into her notebook. She opened that notebook and traced each inky marking her pen had made.
Most of all, she remembered standing up herself when the floor was opened for questions. She remembered tapping at the mic, drawing herself up, and trying to appear bigger. She remembered clearing her throat. She’d asked them a question that had been on her mind since the beginning: “What about renewable energy? Solar, wind, or even hydro–.”
But before she’d even finished her sentence, she was skewered with angry faces. The scientists stared at her with murder in their eyes before they started chortling, laughter turning their faces ruddy red like the sunbaked dirt outside. She remembered this and swiveled around in her chair to face her computer.
Her fingers settled on the keypad, and she typed out a headline.
“Solutions to Climate Change? More like Science Fiction.”
Reflection
Reflection
When I was brainstorming ideas for this story, most of them focused on the causes and effects of climate change. What I realized is that not many are directed towards solutions. Now that climate change is happening, what do we do about it? How do we prevent global warming from getting worse? What I realized when I started researching is that some scientists have decided to go for the extreme options, researching new and seemingly far-fetched ideas to solve climate change. It felt like they were ignoring the obvious solution: renewable energy. It felt surreal and more like something that would appear in the sci-fi books I like to read than the real world. At the end of the day, my story is a satire—an exaggeration of all things that could go wrong by feeding into these sci-fi solutions.