Message 87, 2034 “The average temperature has risen by 5.5°C. Those who cannot bring themselves to eat their remaining pets, rats and vermin, inevitably starve. Resentment, hatred and war holds sway. Nuclear strikes and counterstrikes destroy the basic conditions for life on Earth once and for all. The last human in the world dies.”
The end of the Anthropocene has been anticipated by scientists for decades. But no one listened. Mankind marched into its doom with eyes wide open. Every climate action and agreed target set by the IPCC since 2015 was missed. Panic set in everywhere as the world found itself confronted by the drastic and catastrophic consequences of its inaction. Individual countries came together by forming ineffective federations in the futile fight against the rise in global temperatures. They built dams of gigantic proportions, pumped CO² and methane back into the ground or, with the aid of huge sails in orbit, even tried to cover large swathes of the Earth’s surface in the shade to prevent solar rays from reaching the polar ice caps. Other countries deliberately sterilised their population and built high walls in an effort to keep out the ever-swelling masses of refugees. At the very latest in the year 2032, however, it was clear to all that the fight against the self-inflicted climatic disaster was lost. The world did not need an extra-terrestrial invasion or cosmic intervention, no nuclear war or uncontrollable technologies to bring about its demise and extermination; all it needed was to carry on as before.
„The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.” Albert Einstein