2050: Reflecting on 2020

 2020: The time we all wished we could be outside. 

The new decade started; everyone was clinking their champagne glasses as the clock stroke midnight. Little did they know the events that would unfold. They called it the nightmare year, one shock after another.

Starting with devastating Australia’s wildfires. It destroyed large parts of Australia, that today has only just become habitable again, allowing houses to be built on the once scorched earth. It burned over 18.6m hectares of land and killed over one billion animals, some of which we only see on history websites or in museums.

Then the coronavirus came locking down the globe, causing everyone to be stuck inside for months on end. Thousands went crazy panic buying, grabbing anything and everything off the shelves, with no care for anyone else, not even key workers or the elderly. People were alone in their houses for a long time and they started to run out of patience

Everyone turned to technology to communicate, everything moved online. Work, school, events, family gatherings, quiz nights the list was endless. This was the pinnacle moment when the internet took over our lives. From then on everything was done online, the internet became our life.

Face masks became the new normal and became the next rubbish problem. It didn’t take long to find them floating around in the sea, attached to birds, inside of fish, clogging up pipes, they were everywhere. As if they need another piece of rubbish to end up in the sea, this was back when we used to throw everything away and only recycled 50% of our rubbish now that number has almost doubled.

With food being a problem for some people during the pandemic it became a large ambition for many cities after this time to be able to grow their own crops and food at home, or in the city, they lived in. They stopped relying on other countries and started focusing on producing food and goods locally, this led to an increase in food storages around the world, now everyone has access to fresh food wherever they live.

It became a time where people dreamed to be out in the countryside, to breathe the fresh air. After people were allowed out it became the ambition of many to make green areas more common in cities. Which is the main reason why now we have so much nature around us. In 2020 the only places you could find large numbers of trees were in parks, forests, and in the country, which was one of the main reasons why climate change was much worse back then. Now trees and nature are part of our lives like never before, we have reconnected with mother nature allowing us to grow into a healthier world.

This was the true changing point of when the world became a more green, self-sufficient, and renewable place. When people truly started to care about the environment and this planet, we call home, which has since grown into a place of pure nature and fresh air even in built-up cities.