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
hallo
A future of support and care gor each others wellbeing and mental health
In 2040, Europe has blossomed into a society where kindness is the foundation of everyday life. People naturally support each other’s mental health, treating one another with compassion, patience, and respect. Bullying, cruelty, and exclusion have faded into the past, replaced by communities where empathy and understanding are taught from childhood. Workplaces, schools, and public spaces are filled with encouragement, and mental well-being is nurtured as carefully as physical health. Neighbors look out for one another, strangers offer warmth, and love and solidarity are the true currencies of the future.
hallo
My vision of the European Union is a Union of tolerance and understanding, where people can actively listen to each other, regardless of age, gender, race, nationality or other factors. In this EU, from a young age, at all levels of education, children will be guided not to memorise and pressure on performance as human stands, but will be more encouraged to use different sources of information, including digital books, but to learn through intergenerational sharing of knowledge and experience between children, parents, grandparents and educational institutions : Primary schools, secondary schools, colleges, universities, leisure centers, social services facilities and so on. Thanks to the automation of many processes, people will not be so pushed into performances, but they will have more time to care for each other if, for example, someone gets sick or finds themselves in a difficult life situation. I dream, also, of a future where healthy competition among people in school collectives, at work, but also among people in personal life will remain, but will be limited by ethical principles of decency, kindness and emotional intelligence. The teacher will no longer be the owner of the truth, he will lead his students to critical thinking using various tools and technologies. I would like society to be less polarised in 20 years, to focus on what unites us, not what divides us. I dream of a modern and progressive world that will be more accepting and where people will be people again.
hallo
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