How We Saved The World

Everything changed that fateful day. Despite us being equipped with warnings from the past and knowledge to prepare for the events that unfolded. All we could do was watch it happen. On that eventful day of May 27, 2051, an earthquake triggered a tsunami off the coast of California. Within days, two-thirds of the West Coast seaboard had submerged. Many were unable to evacuate in time. They fell off-grid, just gone and whole cities had fallen off the face of the earth.

A few of those who could afford it, or heeded the warnings were fortunate enough to have flown out in time. Those who were left behind and stranded were given a reprieve with further attempts at mass evacuations following the disaster. Though the plans did not fall through, as lands were engulfed. With its collapse, no one or nothing was spared, not the Golden Gate Bridge nor remnants of Hollywood. The collapse stretched from San Francisco Bay, all the way down to New Orleans. We don’t think of ‘Sweet Little Sixteen’ anymore when we hear that, just a reminder that the city by the bay and by the bayou, no longer existed.

By that point, coastlines of North America, Southeast Asia and Europe were already sinking from rising sea levels. The continued acceleration of climate change throughout the early twenty-first century had been irreversible. Worse was that no priorities were set out to alleviate the imminent catastrophe. We can no longer pretend that we had not seen it coming. Nevertheless, the events that followed the tsunami triggered a wave in our priorities.

The visions of mass evacuations beamed across the world. Never had a major western nation and its citizens become the face of immigration. Overnight scores of people found themselves on boats, seeking refuge. Amid mass migration, areas of the Andes, Himalayas and Ethiopian Highlands saw influxes of migrants who once desired to visit these places to only tick it off their bucket list, now just to make such places their permanent residence out of necessity, out of survival.

From wherever these migrants roamed, they grew to understand the importance of finding refuge. All around the world evidence of previous civilizations had sunken beneath the oceans — as did natural habitats and ecosystems that were further degraded by the rise of wildfires, droughts, flooding, ecosystem collapse and pollution. Everyone around the world now had hoped that their leaders and even themselves had heeded warnings from the past. Perhaps if they had all done their part when we hit a tipping point, we would not stand here as we are today.

For a while I imagined all sorts of scenarios, one where we had taken on lessons from our parents who were born during one of the most turbulent decades the world had ever known, but no as my mother says humankind was always doomed to repeat their mistake because they fail to acknowledge it. My mother was born at a challenging time herself when a deadlier virus emerged beyond the Covid-19 pandemic. As waves of mutations continued to sweep through, my mother said we had become almost complacent until the price was too costly. Eventually, governments around the world instituted a minimum one-month quarantine stay at home order for all citizens. It may seem trivial now, but it eventually drove out the virus. You know how they achieved this right? Simple really. They invested in building centres all around the world, that supplied water, food, medication, shelter, and health care for the people, enough to last a month and subsequently long enough to stop the spread. Sure, the loss of billions to the economy that resulted was only short term — it equated to the loss of the lockdowns and the funds it took to keep our barely functioning healthcare system from being overwhelmed. Not forgetting the long-term toll on the survivors meant there was a minimal workforce. The economy took a dive.

Of course, we eventually recovered as did the economy. But more trouble came afterwards when the world reverted to its ways. When the global population stretched beyond 10 billion, food supplies fell dramatically low. Desperation to meet the supply of the population saw the degradation further drive demand for resources we had already depleted. Not forgetting the earth's lifeforce, the Amazon rainforest already being laid to waste, with the release of CO2 from the Amazons’ destruction – there was no turning back.

Meanwhile, few major companies gained global control of all major resources. When its CEOs were not rocketing it out of space they invested heavily in seeds and farming, to milk more profits. Their workers were still getting paid the bare minimum, struggling to make ends meet. As their bosses continued to monopolise on all resources, everything continued to only gain value when it was dead, not living. That said it all really how such populations find ways to profit from the death of things or people. By population, I refer to those who have access to unimaginable power and money, enough to tip the scales and to repair the world.

In a world of consumption, there’s no surprise that it rewards the cunning nature of possession, in this world, the winner takes it all. Though in the end, even the winners lose, it’s all just short-term gain. You see, consumption just requires more and more supply, it’s not something we should always put a price on. Nevertheless, production prices had been driven up to counteract the demand and supply but the continued production wreaked irreparable havoc on the environment. The neglected use of renewable energy proved even more costly in preventing further destruction.

Hitherto, we all knew right from wrong, but never did we attempt to change things. That all changed after that fateful day when we all became refugees. That’s when I joined the mission. That’s when we all did. How could we not when decades later, more homes were submerged, and we ran out of food. Our mission had just one overarching task; finding ways to plant the seeds for the future, with our main goal being the preservation of all species, humans, animals, plants and all living things. From all walks of life, a group of earth’s migrants came together in this mission.

As such, my partner on this mission is Zari, a talented botanist. She had come from a generation of refugees; her parents, grandparents, great-grandparents — you name it. There had always been disasters, natural and man-made, that drove her family to migrate and seek refuge. Between her and I, we shared one thing in common. We both appreciated nature and our purpose was to understand it — both out of curiosity and survival. We are one of many teams deployed to aid in the protection and retrieval and harvesting of seeds from the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway.

Zari herself had been born in the year our supply of food crops diminished and here we are, immigrants of different generations, rather, nomads wandering the earth in search of their next meal. Such a calamity could only exist in food crises and humanitarian disasters, right? You know many did not survive the greatest mass migration the world had ever seen. Whoever did, dedicated their lives to the collective effort to ensure survival.

Another team in the mission was sent to Baekdudaegan National Arboretum Seed Vault Centre in South Korea to begin seeding wild plants and to add to further conservations. Many of the worlds plant species had already been facing extinction, yet efforts for conservation was never considered, as with animals and ecosystems. Leaders had neglected the importance of biodiversity and its necessity in nature. It aided in adaptability and variety to ensure more optimal opportunities to be stronger and evolve. Essentially, diversity makes us stronger. That’s nature. The same applies to working together for mutual benefit. Cohesion ensured survival. This became a blueprint for the survival hubs we created all around the world after the catastrophic events.

Governing bodies were elected with representatives from around the world who represented the interest of the global population, not neglecting any group, even all native tribes on the outskirts of the globalised world were accounted for and had their interests protected. Wherever was deemed habitable, they built community hubs surrounding a five-mile radius. These survival hubs were akin to an agrarian city replacing the urban infrastructures, yet they still maintained the bureaucratic processes, governing bodies, and concentration on growth. But money did not drive these agrarian cities. It was a self-supporting mechanism that sustained itself with self-sufficiency and at no cost to anyone. It even eradicated homelessness all over the world.

At the centre of these survival hubs, were sophisticated greenhouses for crop production, that provided housing for both humans, animals, and plants. These green spaces allowed humans to be in touch with nature once again. The hubs consisted of farmers, builders, doctors, and scientists, who not only taught skills for survival to the hub populations but also worked tirelessly together to better our predicament. As a result, everyone in the hub population was well versed in methods of crop production. Every child around the world had the chance to learn useful skills. By the end of their schooling, they all specialised as trained doctors, builders, botanists, scientists, and farmers with intention of passing it on to future generations.

Despite their efforts, it was still necessary for teams to be sent to seed banks in Norway or South Korea. We had a mission to revive many of our plant species that were on the verge of extinction. When honeybee populations were decimated, it resulted in extremely low crop productions. Whatever could be grown, yielded unsatisfactory amounts to supply the dense populations. Therefore, we had to seek out more seeds. It was the only way to ensure our survival and we had a duty to propagate more of these species. Our survival depends on it.

A lot of time had passed when we were first deployed to reach these vaults. When we finally made it to the vault, many of the fruits and crops had already begun to be propagated by the botanists. They had been so full of cheer at the sight of us. They even allowed us to freely pick from the fruits. Zari picked from the pear tree, with guilt and delight. It was neither a sinful act, it was one of necessity. For our original sin was when we began to neglect and lose reverence for what sustained us. It was the greed that carried on with our hoarding, all those plays for power, land, sovereignty and even expression for supremacy. From where we stood, this was the closest we could come to the Garden of Eden or an alternative ark if Noah had taken two each of every plant species instead of animals. Zari takes her first bite of the golden variety, savouring the sweetness and the juice of the fruits and of our labour. It amazed me that as botanists we had never known of the taste of such a sweet and delicious fruit. o

In my childhood, the smells of the blossom were not kind to my sensors. My mother reiterated to me the smell was a way for the pear tree to attract pollinators. Never had there been a time more crucial in understanding the importance of pollinators and especially bees. When I was a child, my mother used to sing me a lullaby about paved paradises, DDT and only knowing what we have when it’s gone. When I grew up, I found out she was imparting me the lessons from Joni Mitchell’s ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ who in part took inspiration from the brave visionary, Rachel Carson.

I wonder if we had heeded her warnings more than a century ago, how different our trajectory could have been. Could we have foreseen the levels of environmental degradation that would have come from centuries of mass production and indifference to the earth’s destruction? The answer had been in front of us the whole time, we just ignored the warnings until it was too late.

But now, we really understood the necessary cycle of life that involved nurture and renewal. Like nature, we must recycle — whether it be knowledge or seeds. If we are to continue in our survival, we must sustain the health of everything around us, which means other living things and the environment.

Zari and I savoured the sweet pear along with the opportunity to revive a species while appreciating its incredible journey and makeup. From that day forth, nothing was wasted, not even the seed, with it we propagated more. And though we had a long way to go, that’s how we saved the world - with hope and planting seeds for the future, one seed at a time.