Utopian – Year 2051
Today Torie celebrated the forest reclamation of the Oil Sands and Fort McMurray in Alberta! After decades of raw material exploitation of the area, the Global Green 2075 agreement between all nations, made possible by her contributions to Virtual Reality technology, is yielding monumental result after result. As we work as a species to find a balance between
healing the Earth and progressing mankind, her gift of virtual connections has given all of us a unified objective.
It seems hardly believable that it was only 30 short years ago that Torie’s revolutionary breakthrough in Virtual Reality programming finally brought about a concrete understanding of what our world was facing without a global shift in ideals. Struggling as an environmental activist, she shifted h
er focus to creating solutions rather than pointing out problems. Her brilliant
concept of creating a VR platform where persons developed empathy for the environment, by immersion in the role of plants and animals, has saved our world from the brink.
The continued integration of VR technology throughout our combined global curriculum, has brought about a harmonious global society, unlike anyone could have imagined. Living virtually as a tree, as they struggle to breath amongst smog and the constant threat of forest fires due to deforestation and greenhouse emissions, let us all finally understand that our world wasn’t going to make it without our help. Being a polar bear, struggling to find food as your icy home continues to melt, catapulted our sense of empathy for our fellow creatures. We owe our successes to her tireless campaigning to have her programs integrated into our schools despite several initial setbacks. Thanks to Torie and her vision we are breeding generations of environmental warriors, changing our world and our future.
Dystopian – Year 2051
Shelley felt the unfamiliar touch of a hand on her shoulder. She pulled away in disgust and a touch of fright. She was unaccustomed to human touch. It didn’t matter that it was her mother trying to summon her to dinner. She was pulled from her reality of swimming amongst the jellyfish bloom in the Indian Ocean, as a part of her biological history project regarding the extinction of 80% of marine life.
As the environment has crumbled, those who can afford it have sought refuge in the virtual; an escape from the brutal realities that surround us. In the 25 years since the devastating tsunamis, heat waves and ice melts of 2026, we have found ourselves crammed into one third of what used to be habitable earth.
Shelley had found herself quite comfortable though, as her parents were wealthy and prosperous, owning several hundred acres of land in the exquisite oceanside properties of Edmonton, Alberta. Those who were less fortunate, 90% of the global population, found themselves barely able to make ends meet to provide the most simplistic basics of survival. With resources at a premium, Shelley’s parents found themselves on oil and agriculturally rich land, desirable by everyone.
Membership in the elite has its privileges. Shelley was able to avoid the awful images of the world. Behind her walls, both real and virtual, in her fortified compound, she could enjoy the world as it used to be, living most of her life in a virtual reality. Those in the elite had their own community in this realm, apart from the misery and depravity on
the outside. She and her friends could meet on mountaintops, looking down at the now extinct, grizzly bear. What a beautiful sight! She oft times felt a sense of pity towards the others, those who toiled so they could benefit from her parent’s wealth; those who had to reside in the other world, reality, not virtual, where it is hot and unforgiving. But that pity is short lived as Shelley dives into other virtual worlds, each distancing herself further from the real world around her and any degree of empathy for her fellow man.
References
Unsplash. (n.d.). Beautiful Free Images & Pictures. Retrieved November 28, 2021, from https://unsplash.com/