In 2031 humanity was facing an existential crisis. Climate change was running rampant due to decades of misinformation campaigns by big energy companies, politicians that kept talking empty words about the need to curb CO2 emissions, but they were afraid to make any changes, and consumers who were not willing to change their behaviors until it was too late.
Massive areas of red tide caused by large bloom of toxic algae in oceans was killing all animal life. Millions of tons of dead fish washed on the beaches on Eastern Seaboard causing horrible diseases and ever-present rotten, poisonous stink that forced people to move out from their homes.
Category 8 hurricanes with wind speeds up to 320 mph brought total destruction of large coastal cities. In the last 4 years alone cities like Miami, Tampa, New Orleans, Houston, Charleston, and Norfolk were all decimated. Over 100 inches of rainfall and 50 feet storm surge destroyed everything that was left after these enormous hurricanes had passed. Over two million people had lost their lives and over ten of million relocated from the coastal states having lost all material possessions.
Record heat domes with surface temperatures over 140 degrees in Alaska was killing over 50,000 people in just 2 weeks. In Western and South Western states over 23 million acres of forest was burning as the long expected rainfall never arrived. Entire towns were consumed by fire due to dry and windy conditions and air was thick with smoke across from Pacific through Northern Rockies.
In Siberia the tundra was melting and forests were burning across the continent, with huge new methane and CO2 emissions speeding up the global warming. Greenland had lost over 50% of its ice coverage and over quarter of Antarctic ice shelves had collapsed in last five years.
There were many political protests and climate activists like the well known Swedish woman who had been organizing climate strike for over 13 years, but humanity was addicted to fossil fuels and nothing but a total annihilation would divert people from their current collision course. Majority of people were trying to just make a living, working in a system that was designed to maximize profits with a goal of eternal economic growth.
On August 1, 2031 a new viral wearable gadget from Transform Inc. hit the global market. The gadget was small, about size of two quarter coins and had two parts that were to be attached to both temples. This gadget was able to make a direct brain computer interface using some advanced technology. The gadget was generating a whole new experience that was difficult to describe, but enormously satisfying for the users.
Within an hour all the social media influencers were talking about it. The gadget was available worldwide and during the first day over 150 million units were shipped using automated hyper-optimized 15 minute drone delivery systems. The following five days over 1.3 billion units were purchased online. This was the fastest and largest volume product launch in the history of mankind. Soon everybody was talking about the new experiences and how wonderful it was. More and more people wanted to try it out and within a month over 50% of the world’s population was using this gadget. Sales team estimated to reach 75% of the population by end of 2031.
Image from Premier Health
Transform Inc. was the brainchild of Finn Ericksdotter (he/she/they), a transgender entrepreneur from Iceland who had two Ph.D. degrees, one in neuroscience from Stanford and another one in biomedical engineering from MIT. During his Ph.D. studies he found out a whole new pathway in human brain. With proper modulation this pathway was able to transform person’s perception of the world and create whole new transformative spiritual experiences when activated. These experiences could be controlled using software and a sophisticated quantum magnetic field modulation.
He had spent last five years in Shenzhen to develop a consumer product out of the discoveries he had made. The Transform gadget was connected to the Internet and users could choose new experiences using their smartphone. Finn wanted to ensure large enough beta testing pool of users for testing new experiences, so by default the company had also rights to push experiences to all users according to the terms of service agreement that everybody had agreed to. His business idea was to make money by selling experiences and offer the gadget at low cost, copying the well known business model of game consoles and game software.
Finn was totally surprised by the unexpected success of his venture. He owned 70% of the stock so he had tight control over the company. After thinking through a new vision for Transform Inc. he decided to refocus company efforts from gaming to solve some of the biggest problems of humanity.
He tasked the experience design team with a new goal — creating a new highly impactful spiritual experience that connected the users to Mother Earth, nature and other living beings that are sharing the world with humans. The experience was to be powerful enough to make a real change how people are living their lives, change their priorities what comes to natural world and take actions to protect the habitats. The spiritual component of the experience was to address the moral questions on short term benefits of fossil fuel usage vs long term sustainability of the life on Earth, shifting perceptions and beliefs that people might have.
During the alpha and beta testing during the following weeks the team was improving the experience score until Finn was fully satisfied. Finn decided to roll out the new experience worldwide in six waves on Nov 1, 2031. The analytics team was collecting data from real time feeds across the planet to see the outcome.
In Washington D.C. the right wing WolfNews had been pushing big corporate friendly messages and climate misinformation for decades. The news anchor Tyler Cooper had been the harshest critic of “left wing environmental propaganda” and had questioned the wisdom of curbing CO2 emissions for the last 22 years.
He had bought Transform’s gadget just previous night because his son and daughter had been insisting that he must try it out. He had put it on and had a really good experience where he had felt to be really close to God. He was planning to share his experience in the news cast with a group of evangelical leaders the following day.
Tyler Cooper received his Transform push experience on wave two, just an hour before the broadcast was starting. He was moved beyond words — tears were falling down as he was crying. He felt passionate love to protect the nature, stop all pollution immediately and change his long time red meat heavy diet to vegetarian only. All his previous beliefs and perceptions about “American way of life” were replaced with burning desire to do the right thing and protect Mother Earth.
The broadcast started and Tyler Cooper started the discussion with the group of five evangelical leaders. This show had over thirty million followers so it was quite popular especially in the red states.
“Have any of you tried out this new fangled thing called Transform gadget?”, Tyler started the show.
Three of the leaders acknowledged using the gadget and everybody was talking highly of their experience with it.
“I think this is the best things since sliced bread, absolutely! Just last night I tried it on for the first time and I had the most wonderful experience. I felt amazing, almost like flying like a bird and I felt to be really close with God,” Tyler said touching the gadget on his temple. “For all the God loving people in the audience this is an absolute must have gadget. You can get yours by clicking the button below.”
The three evangelical leaders shared their experience using the device, and two remaining ones asked some questions. One leader was skeptical and expressed concerns about the safety of the device.
“Well, talking about safety, I must share something,” Tyler said. “For the past 22 years I have been doing this show I have been misleading our audience. We really need to stop all carbon emissions at once, stop eating red meat and stop polluting the environment by fracking for oil. We need to start protecting Mother Nature and all the living creatures on the planet Earth,” Tyler continued watching directly to the cameras to make a bigger impact. “I have been wrong to question the climate science for these past years. I apologize for all the lies I have been telling you. I am being paid by the oil companies to sell their propaganda and I am really sorry for …”
The broadcast was cut off and announcer said that “we have some technical difficulties” before the advertisement for new 700 horsepower internal combustion engine truck was turned on. The executive producer who decided to cut off the show received her Transform push experience on wave three, and realized in a few minutes that Tyler was telling the truth. She was crying at the control room.
At the eleventh hour the Transform push experience rollout was complete. 65% of the Earth population had a new vision about the future. 95% of these people were from the countries responsible of most of the pollution.
Within five days new laws were passed to prohibit CO2 emissions, stop drilling new oil fields and producing internal combustion cars in all major countries. The world was finally focused on solving the climate crisis instead of talking empty words and focusing on economic growth. All available resources were harnessed to restoration efforts, cleaning up the oceans, air and land. People who were previously desperate and just trying to make living in the corporate structures found a new purpose for their lives.
With a new vision the dominant species on planet Earth not only survived, but changed the course of the history.