My vision

Environment   Sep 25, 2015 by Hanna Hasselqvist

What is my vision for a sustainable world?

My vision for a sustainable world is such an utopia. Green cities with majestic trees reaching for the sky instead of cars filling up the roads. There's houses covered in plants, roofs filled with solar panels, small gardens and parks wherever you go. It's a beautiful world, with forests and coral reefs as well as villages full of families and seas bubbling with life. We travel it, occasionally, but gone are the short weekend trips to London - now, we go further and longer, just not that often. Boats and trains are the most common transportation system when we go on our trips around the world. For shorter distances, we prefer electric cars, buses and bikes. Aeroplane flights became expensive since the climate compensation kicked in, but soon enough they were adjusted to new types of fuels - the biogas developed to be more effective and engines powered with electricity were created. It's easy to travel the world to experience, since the nation boarders have become more loose. There's no need to keep our gards up, because there are no more wars. We are sharing our resources the best we can, and whenever a sticky situation appears, we deal with it together, through our global court and international panel. We still have different countries with different cultures, but we aren't so scared to be influenced by on another.

We share things, ideas, even clothes. Libraries aren't for just books anymore - party dresses, bags, kitchen tools, skiing jackets - we can all borrow it. There's no need to own as much stuff as we do today, instead we are living a simpler life. If we have to buy something, we often go second hand. We no longer have to look through the fruit disks to find the ecological, more expensive alternatives - toxic bug sprays and harmful, chemical fertilizers are no longer used. And in the stores, we no longer see only stressed mums trying to remember what's written down on the shopping list. We see dads. We see moms and dads. We see dads and dads. We see people. Men and women and everyone in between - it doesn't matter. Humans are humans and we are all treated as such, by our governments as well as our schools, offices and shops.

But how do we power this world - our cars, our cities, our homes? The sun. Solar panels, windmills, water power. Gyms are powered by the people working out, phones have batteries lasting a week. Besides having mobile phones and computers and access to Internet all over the planet, we also all get the nutrition and the clean water we need daily. Meat is more of an expectation than routine, instead of the other way around. People working on farms, in textile fabrics and cotton plantages all have salaries to live on day-to-day as well as having the possibility to save up an emergency sum. All children are going to school and students The global warming has stopped, and now we are even reducing the carbon dioxide in the air, as well as the air pollution. Our ecological footprints are at last small enough to make room for everyone.

How am I planning to make this vision a reality?

I try to make my own negative impact on the world as small as possible, by buying clothes second hand, eating more vegetarian and ecological food and recycling everything I can, even small candy papers. I'm engaged in the environment group at school and we've worked with the school to create a so called green wall in our canteen. It's not finished yet but I think it can turn out great. For the sustainable world I wish to see, much more must be done. I hope that I can find a job that makes me able to have an impact on the road to becoming sustainable. I don't think I will be a politician, but perhaps a scientist and researcher at Stockholm Resilience Centre or someone working with the administrative ways of getting things done about the climate. I'm not sure yet. So far I try to listen and learn. Johan Rockström and Hans Rosling are two big inspirations of mine. 

This is what our green wall looks like right now. For me it works as a reminder of the world outside. Also, it's pretty.

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