📍Nassau, Bahamas
'Life in 2075: Worlds of Our Dreams and Nightmares' is a speculative, science fiction short story anthology a part of the Environmental Justice in Tech Project by Earth Hacks. The series explores solar punk and cyberpunk futures in cities around the world. These locations were specifically chosen due to some form of personal connection to the authorship team - whether it be the place they grew up in, the place they came of age, or their hometown for generations.
"In the late 2020’s, things were looking bleak for The Bahamas. Up until then, the island nation relied on close relations with the United States, Canada, and other wealthy western countries to maintain its economy and provide a decent life for its people. However, the old world order was crumbling as rich nations fell into turmoil — increasingly turning inward, favoring authoritarianism and nationalism over their past global presence. For The Bahamas, a nation whose fate had for decades been tied up with the fate of the United States, this was an existential threat. It was also the opportunity to chart a new course.
...The Bahamas soon embarked upon its first large-scale mission to give power back to the people. The goals of this endeavor? To transition to renewable energy, build community power, and improve the livelihoods of all Bahamians. To do this, every resident underwent a training program to enhance their skillset and make the transition to green jobs for resilience. This included solar installation, farming, disaster risk management and a host of other vocational training that allowed every resident to be better equipped to support their community. The nation, through the power of community organizing and community-based investing, then set thousands of citizens across the country to work installing solar panels in every subdivision and connecting them together in small neighborhood grids. Community assemblies were also set up to strengthen disaster preparedness and reduce energy burdens. These solar projects smoothly transitioned into agrivoltaics, with residents utilizing the land beneath the solar panels to grow food...
...the community agrivoltaics project proved to be a rousing success, a new construction program began to build comprehensive, modular seawalls around each and every island in The Bahamas. This project, even larger in scope than the solar endeavor, came paired with a jobs guarantee for every resident of the country who was willing and able to chip in. Justice and resilience were the priorities achieved in this project, making it a success.
Next time an ominous hurricane swept through the island chain, the solar-powered, community-owned, flood-shielded country remained intact with minimal damage. With this rock-solid foundation of energy, infrastructure, and independence to build on, it was only up from there for The Bahamas.
No longer were The Bahamas at the whims of fickle foreign billionaires; the nation and its people—after years of colonization, post-independence dependency, and disproportionate geopolitical vulnerability— were finally free to chart their own course."
Read the full story and others, including the cyberpunk version at www.environmentaljustice.tech.
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