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The Earth in
21 8
By Verity Hawley 9s
A Brief Introduction:
For thousands of years humans have inhabited
the Earth, with different natural and man-made
threats affecting it each and every day that we live
on this planet. The Earth has changed incredibly
in the last 100 years which makes us wonder what
will happen in the next century. I am going to
portray a few possible outcomes that I have come
up with, which, if they were to actually happen,
would only come about if particular actions were
taken. I will display these ideas in the style of a
number of diary entries from the point of view of a
teenager living in the 22nd century.
Disease
Illness doesn't really exist any more. A humongous team of
scientists devoted their lives to discovering cures to various
fatal diseases about 20 years ago, and one legendary
woman, Sarah Stapleton uncovered Trepisilicone – the drug
of all drugs. We simply get our annual Trepisilicone implant
check-ups and cancer, malaria and all other terrifying
illnesses of the past are kept totally at bay. Hospitals are now
simply for accidents and pregnancies. The only problem is
that this increases the population so much (because of
everybody being so healthy) that after the age of 70 you have
the implant removed, and my friend Chrissie heard that if
you're not dead by the age of 80, the government pay people
to put you to sleep! But that's just a rumour. Nobody really
knows what happens to the old folks after they're carted off to
the care homes.
Pollution
Cars are a thing of the past. I was so looking forward to
having my own 6 wheel drive when I was 20 and visiting other
parts of the country, but 8 years ago, 4 years into WW4,
Prime Minister James Deeshaw II called an absolute ban on
cars and all of them were collected in and melted down for
use as bombs and guns. These days you walk or get on a
tram to wherever it happens to be that you're heading, or if
you're crossing seas then you go by boat. Did I mention that
there are only 3 continents now? There's Europia (where I
live), Asiana and The New Americas (TNA). Everywhere the
universal tongue is American-English. The main pollution now
is the nuclear waste and dust from the bombs. A thick,
lingering smog hangs over each town from where the bombs
have hit the ground. Lucky we have our Trepisilicone implants
to prevent lung disease from all the tar in the bombs.
Overpopulation
This country has been absolutely over-flowing with people
ever since Africa was taken over by Asiana and all the
Africans migrated, terrified, to Europia and TNA, and
obviously the new illness-defying drug doesn't help with the
population crisis. Each couple is only allowed 2 children or
less now, and if they choose to have 2 they must have 1 girl
and 1 boy (unless of course a woman is pregnant with
identical twins, triplets or more children at once). Each family,
has 2 bedrooms, a bathroom and a shared kitchen to live in,
no matter how rich the family, although the posh snobs
obviously have much grander and more elaborate rooms, up
to 5 times the size of an average working class family such as
my own. Thousands of soldiers and scientists are currently
living on satellites in space, the soldiers dropping bombs
through the atmosphere, the scientists constantly trying to
develop ways of allowing the victims of war to live in space on
The Moon until the fighting ends.
War and terrorism
Europia and TNA have been at war with Asiana ever since
they invaded Africa. As it so happens we haven't seen any
bombs for days, but that's just because it was the birthday of
Sarah Stapleton on Monday (an international holiday) and
everybody, including the army have been celebrating.
However, we all know the bombs will be back by tonight; the
ear-splitting explosions, the mountains of rubble lining the
streets, with nobody allowed out after 5.00pm – not that
there's much to do anyway! Recreational activities just don't
exist these days. Well, except for young lads' army training if
that counts. The leader of Asiana is called Shanya Freyesco.
Everybody says that she's totally power-mad and wants
control over the whole world, wanting the Earth to just be one
gigantic continent; Asiana. Most people call her Hitler #2, only
this time the entire world has gone nuclear!
Global Warming
Since all of what used to be the Antarctic has melted, the sea
levels are higher by 3 metres, meaning that thousands of tiny
islands that used to be in the middle of the ocean are lost
now. Personally, I like the temperature change we've
experienced due to global warming. We get tropical summers
– reaching 60ºC and in the winter it's constantly snowing, and
the general temperature's around -10ºC! We really do get
those special white Christmases now. But there are also
millions of flies, wasps and mosquitoes everywhere from
Spring – Autumn and you never see rabbits or badgers in
England any more because they can't live in their original
habitat due to the greatly increased temperature of England.
We only use renewable sources or energy, meaning thatevery
couple of days we are plunged into darkness without
electricity, meaning that most people use candles to light their
homes for most of the time, as though we were living in the
past!
Space
As I said before, thousands of people actually live
in space presently in satellites that are orbiting the
Earth. Also, many astronauts frequently visit the
Moon to investigate new ways into allowing
humans to live there. They've put things such as
solar panels, heaters and gravitational fields
around the Moon to try and make it an inhabitable
human-friendly planet. Some people are appalled
by this idea of ruining an unspoiled lump of rock
that just so happens to orbit our planet. On the
contrary, I believe that seeing as the Earth is so
dangerous and overcrowded, a perfect solution
would be to branch out to the Moon.
Famine
Food and drink availability is totally different to how it was
20 years ago. We still have supermarkets and online
shopping, but no food is shipped in from other countries
so it's just traditional English cooking each day for us. I
love it though – the traditional Hamburger and fries, salad
and everybody drinks weak beer instead of water as the
pipes were poisoned a few years back. Personally I love
drinking alcohol every day – it helps to drown out the
terror that lingers outside in the form of my generation's
world war. It's not like it used to be my parents say; a
world where millions ate too much, and even more too
little, dying from starvation. That is one of the few
advantages of war. Everybody gets their fair share of
food; not too little, not too much.
By Verity Hawley 9s