I can’t help but see dystopian futures everywhere I go. I see coastal towns buried beneath rising waters, forests reduced to ash, fields of wilted crops and huge crowds of people fleeing from heat that makes living impossible near the eqautor. These images haunt me. These immersive nightmares are vivid, unrelenting warnings that will not go away – they are not dreams, not imaginations. I feel the heat of rising temperatures on my skin even when I am cold and I feel the hunger after failed crop harvests even when I have just eaten. The most detrimental aspect? It seems like no one else has these visions. I feel alone, weighed down by a future that only I seem to be able to witness. It feels like I’ve been cursed with a terrible gift that causes me to see, in painful detail, the consequences of our inactivity to even slow down the climate change.
I watch people go about their lives, not realizing the impending catastrophe that is so obvious to me. They live as though tomorrow is certain, they laugh, and they make plans for their careers, their childres – their happy future. I’m entrapped in these terrifying visions in the interim. Knowing what lies ahead of us and feeling completely alone in this battle – it’s intolerable.
My days are clouded by the weight of these visions, and my nights are racked by restless slumber. I witness animals dying as their habitats disappear, children in dirty cities struggling for oxygen, and severe weather uprooting entire populations. The agony is unbearable and I don’t know how long I will be able to continue living this way.
But I can’t just give up. Is nobody else seeing what I see?
photo credit: Dr. Matthias Ripp
