top of page

Beneath the Glass Skies

Anonymous

March 19, 2025

Beneath the Glass Skies

This image was generated with Dream Studio AI.

By 2040, Earth was unrecognizable. The scars of climate change had etched themselves across every continent. Rising seas had swallowed parts of coastal cities, while droughts and wildfires claimed once fertile lands. The Earth, though still beautiful, now bore an eerie, fractured majesty—an intricate mix of human resilience and nature's unrelenting wrath.

In New London, a sprawling megacity built atop the ruins of old London, a young woman named Lena tightened her augmented reality glasses and stepped outside. Above her, glass domes shimmered, shielding the city from the temperamental weather outside—acid rain, superstorms, and the occasional suffocating heatwave. These domes, known as Climate Bubbles, had become humanity's final defense against an environment it could no longer control.

Lena paused at the edge of the dome’s district barrier, watching workers in exoskeleton suits reinforce its joints. Beyond the translucent wall lay the Blightlands, a wasteland of dead soil, skeletal trees, and the ruins of smaller towns long abandoned. The land was barren, save for the scavenger drones zipping around to recover rare metals from old tech and the occasional crew of climate engineers planting carbon-absorbing bio-machines disguised as moss.

Life inside the domes was far from perfect. The air was clean, water was drinkable, and food was plentiful, though most of it came from vertical farms that spiraled skyward in shades of green and silver. But the economy was tightly controlled, dominated by mega-corporations that had stepped in to do what governments couldn't during the late 2020s. The tech giant Solaris ran everything from energy grids to public AI, its CEO seen as a messiah to some and a tyrant to others.

related stories

hallo
jennikullinger@gmail.com
I would like to see an environmentally friendly world where the economy is more evenly distributed between people, where we take care of the environment and animals and have environmentally friendly technology and development. We have a democratic policy that can work together despite ideologies. We are more self-sufficient and don't need to import that much anymore. Domestic sustainable production is favoured. We have a shorter work week and we live a more sustainable life. We eat less with meat and have free healthcare including dental care and optics. We have lower rates of sick leave because of this. We value other influencers, fillers and cosmetics. We have a balance between birth rate and death rate. We invest in research, inventions and industry that lead to sustainability. We invest in preventive measures to avoid crime and war. We work in collaboration in many areas to cope with all of the above. We also work to prevent corruption.
hallo
Futuro di pace
I wish that in ten to twenty years my grandchildren could live in a world without wars. I would like that, once the disastrous Putinian period has passed, even in Russia we return to live with the widest freedom. May all the peoples of Europe live in complete harmony and enjoy all the freedoms that a man needs.
hallo
Una città senza delinquenza e senza migranti
A city must be safe. To be safe it must be without migrants and without criminals. To do this requires certain penalties. Those who steal from Milan and Rome in the metro and on public transport should be arrested and sentenced. This is the only way to combat micro-crime. The future I have described refers to the safety and liveability of cities. I live in Turin and even the city of Turin begins to be unsafe in many areas.
hallo
Green energy and it's effect
Probably it will be very different - it is very likely that we will use way more electricity (for instance electric cars), but hopefully most of it will be produced by solar/wind energy without huge impact to CO2 emissions. And with less CO2 emissions I hope climate change will be less of an issue to the world.
Join #OurFutures now!

The future is shaped by our ideas and our actions today. Tell us about your visions of the future and help us create a futures narrative aimed at inspiring citizens, policy-makers and foresight experts alike!

Our-futures-banner-coloured_v3.jpg

The European Commission support does not constitute endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained.

ERA_logo.jpg

We support the European Research Area aimed at creating a single, borderless market for research, innovation and technology in the EU.

©OurFutures 2025, All rights reserved.

  • Instagram
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube
bottom of page