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
Leben und nicht überleben
Well-paid work for all, price adjustments for low-income earners. Work shyness that doesn't want to work to make work necessary or else cut the citizen's money. Lowering electricity, heating and gasoline costs should remain affordable and not be a luxury . Equal curricula for the federal state prevails with the same pace of learning.
hallo
Le monde utopique
Serein’mobile technology without war without famine with care accessible to all and housing down and education for all and especially without hatred with respect for others in all its forms including Religion and above all more fairness and government and politics that work for the common good and not for their personal benefit and this requires salaries in an honorary and capped capacity and above all without being able to benefit from preferential treatment. There will always be rich but more distributions and no longer work in atrocious conditions for MEN including children who must all be schooled and not worked in factories or fields. And stop destroying our habitat we are our worst enemy and despite being the most evolved animal we do not learn from our mistakes
hallo
Évolution au travail
I would like us to have spent a long time in the 4-day work week, that teleworking allows us to work from anywhere. That finally in France we recognize the pain that women can have during their cycle and that like many other countries we are entitled to one day per month of paid stoppage due to our sometimes unbearable pains. Let the world change positively. That there is a self-help day imposed paid but not worked in the office rather to help the elderly.
hallo
L'avenir en 2040
In 2040, I would like there to be a lot of green , small buildings not very high Lots of safety in cities and countryside , That cars are no longer polluting.That roads are better maintained. That in schools we learn what is necessary and especially that children learn tolerance . Let each one be content with what he has.Let care be given to all
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