C Campbell_Week 8_Time Travel

Time Travel

I find myself today, May 1, 7010 standing at the top of the world which when I left was the Arctic Circle but is now a tropical rain forest! As I look out past what I can only describe as the Amazon, I can see the ocean lapping against the shores of the North American continent in places it should not be. 

I notice almost immediately that something is missing - PEOPLE! So I set out upon an expedition to see if I can find any clue to what may have happened to our beloved planet. I must admit though, it is quite surreal seeing alligators and boa constrictors cruising through the arctic...

Deep into the forest canopy, I happen upon what appears to be an ancient village, primitive in nature with any signal of my modern life completely erased. I am immediately surrounded by tribal men who much to my surprise have maintained language that I am familiar with! It is laced heavily with spanish influences, but still something I can understand. They are relieved as well, to hear that I share their language though cannot understand the clothing I am carrying which I've shed in the heat, or my pale skin. 

I spend many hours with this tribe and learn of the violence the Earth has undergone in the previous 5,000 years. I learn that the coronavirus pandemic of 2020 lasts three more grueling years on the population but it was not enough to drop green house gases below the 400ppm by the end of the century needed to avoid catastrophic global heating. 

I learn that reforestation took hold with the remaining population which had dwindled to below 500 million after the pandemic and that the virus has eventually mutated with a mortality rate that rose to 60%. The reforestation efforts in those early years is what saved the planet, and mankind, a worse fate. Roads had grown over, electric grids gone down and the few that remained after the virus had to learn to live with the elements or succumb to them. 

Most of Earth's remaining population migrated to the poles as the equator and latitude lines closest to it became impossibly hot to survive in and surrendered long ago to drought. Many of the northern peoples were able to remain closer to home, pushing equatorial communities farther into the northern hemisphere. The oceans had risen over 80 feet and drastically reduced livable land masses and communications had gone completely out nearly 3,500 years ago. 

People, though they destroyed the Earth that was handed to them seemed grateful for being given the second chance they had. The world had changed drastically but also seemed more peaceful and balanced. I thanked them for their hospitality and found my way back to my time machine. Given my background in geology I was disheartened to hear of the hardships on mankind but accepted the inevitability that a virus would wipe out the population. I took solace in the fact that the Earth had survived and would again give birth to another civilization of unknown origins when the time was right.