The Ending

Star

Journal entry #1- September 12th, 2129, 10:49 AM

Journals are stupid. That is unless they are for scientific research, of course. A class assignment from Professor Evans has necessitated myself to write a journal recording labs and observations that I see fit to be written. It is the second day of college, and we are expected to write in these notebooks all year. He told us to write as much as we feel like, and log our experiments. Despite my lack of journalism skills, I will put in as much effort as possible. I currently have no use for my own personal thoughts to be logged, but having a good overview of the world from different people's perspectives is always useful data.

Since we were told to observe humans, I will start this journal off by saying that the world is broken, or close to it. In this day in age, the population is just millions away from reaching twelve billion. With myself being age twenty-one, I cannot remember the day that the maximum sustainability number was announced, but luckily the internet does. I researched through a knowledge chip that the greatest amount of people earth could possibly contain was 11.8 billion. And that was the already-revised estimate. I am expecting a collapse fairly soon if no immediate changes are made. Before eating and energy sources were changed, 10 billion was the maximum. When we are of a young age, our science and nature classes teach us of the dangers of non-renewable resources, and why we need to use more solar and electric power. After the food source collapse in 2083, meat was regulated and soy and coconut became one of the largest food sources. It still took nearly two years to get to that point after the collapse, but many people claim it to be the right choice. I was born in 2108, so I never had to live in a world quite like that one. There were riots that couldn't be stopped, and crime rates were higher than ever before. In my most recent science and earth history textbook, I even read about multiple cases of cannibalism.

One observation that I know every person worldwide has made is the risen water levels. In just over one hundred years, the water has rose 5.4 meters, leaving many cities in New York and other coastal towns destroyed. With cities going close to fully underwater, the ocean is further polluted, and millions of dollars in damage are having to be recovered. This is only going to continue getting worse, unless something is done to stop it. I would like to think that I live far enough away from the water not to be taken by the waves, but one can only hope.
I was told stories of how life used to be back in the early 21st century. They had bad technology and mobile phones, with unlimited food sources. Murders all happened in person, and not through some sort of internal computer, which I find considerably strange. I'm sure that like myself, the majority of the population would rather have food than phone chip implants any day.

As a late overview of myself for scientific reasons, I must add some information about my person. I am Star Enisch, a studying environmental scientist with goals of specializing in water conservation and partnering with an engineering group of scientists. Somehow, despite the years needs for safe and clean water, the ways that we clean and filter water have stayed roughly the same. I have goals of helping change that, because while everyone is aware of how polluted our water has become, nothing is being changed except the fact that we just add even more chemicals into our water in hopes of it making it better. It pisses me off.

Now that I found a way to go completely off topic, I must continue talking about my life. I live in a North East California town called Messa. My schooling life was fairly simple; I attended Messa's Science and Earth high school and am currently enrolled in Messa's local college. Schooling has changed so much over the years from the 21st century, it even amazes someone like me who was born in this time. The change to make high school specialized in different areas of whatever field you would like to pursue was made in the year 2068. Even small schools are required to have at least three different sections to specialize in. Usually a science, technology, engineering and mathematics school along with another one that includes hands on construction work. The last schools are the arts and entertainment section, and writing and language. In Messa, the schools are connected to each other, but don't usually interact much. I went to a slightly more divided professions district, where technology was a separate school, and so was science. Mathematics and engineering were combined. Although I did attend a science school, I took scientific engineering. Even specialized science school teach classes that the other schools specialize more in such as math and basic tech. Middle school extends up to 6th-9th grade, and high school is 10th-14th grade. I agree with this system, especially when you can switch schools anytime before your 12th grade year, and 13th and 14th years are optional.