December 12, 2015 is a date that we will never forget.
That day, countries around the world met for weeks to plan actionable steps to prevent the climate change clock from winding any further. They all agreed to prevent global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius by 2030 -- a feat that would take more than one person’s voice, a feat that required a unity among nations and an international bond towards a common goal.
That was 15 years ago today.
I watched as the climate clock flashed from time to time on the buildings around me, a constant alarm telling us it was time to wake up and do something. I looked at my wrist watch and cursed time for flashing by so fast. Damn it, I only have five minutes to get to work, I thought as I increased my pace from the train station to the office building that lay 20 feet ahead.
The trains were always delayed due to the new technology that reversed CO2 emissions into renewable energy. It was a great invention that sucked something toxic from the air and gave life to the machine once more. This new invention was part of many technologies that were created in response to the UN’s 2015 agreement.
Due to this agreement, governments gave companies an incentive to create sustainable products that stalled climate change, and in return, the companies received a tax break and recognition of their efforts. As everyone knows, recognition was worth so much in these days, especially now that everyone literally embodied social media through a self-energizing chip in their arm -- another invention built in hopes that people would leave computers and cellphones behind, and thus, no longer need energy creation. This chip left no skeletons in the closet. Anything the companies, celebrities, or friends did, everyone knew in matter of seconds. For example, companies gained an increase in stock sales, while regular folks received unwarranted (they would tell people, although it was never true) attention. The chip definitely worked, but it seemed people forgot all about the intended results and good it was creating.
I walked onto my floor and looked around at all my teammates working on their gadgets, some with their heads down doing research and tests. I waved to some of them and sat down at my station in the lab. Today was the day I was going to test out my kit for water.
This invention turned a cup of ocean water into drinkable water for the masses located in areas where the dry spell was worse, all through manpower. It was pretty simple: a person would take the water cup power and pour it at the top of a box that was easy to assemble and store. The box would then move the water through micronic filters for further cleaning and on to high-pressure reverse-osmosis pumps. A simple process, but hard to contain in a box that was only four feet by four feet.
I held my breath and turned on the machine, and for second it stalled, but then it worked! All the prototypes, all the funding and grants that he had received -- thanks to his sister who had helped edit his grant proposals. If the government hadn’t funded these new programs to develop new ways to harness natural energy, his dream project wouldn’t have taken off. He remembers people talking about the UN meetings when he was a kid. At the time, he had been more interested in social media than the news. For some reason, that conference had stuck in his head.
This blog post is a semifinalist piece in the Masdar’s 2016 Engage Blogging Contest: The Transition to a Sustainable Economy by 2030.
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