It is six in the morning, I hate standing up early, but I need to help my parents move. We need to finish packing most of their things before 11:30, otherwise it will be too hot and we will violate the governments midday break policy. For this morning the plan is to go through the last of their stuff and some of my old stuff. Then we will have our normal midday break, to avoid getting over heated. After that we will get my mother’s plants ready for the move. But first I need to get there, so I make myself an espresso and eat my eggs with some veggies. I take one of the share bikes and cycle to my parents. My sister is already there and hands me a box with my old stuff. So I start going through it and digitalizing it. There lots of drawings, old record cards and pictures. This is from 40 years ago, I still was in primary school at that time. I still remember how 30 degree Celsius was extremely hot. The climate has change dramatically since, from just having less snow to now where we have flooding or extreme heat. I don’t think that my younger version of myself would have imagined that my parents are moving back to Germany after 50 years because of the climate and the overcrowding of Eindhoven.
From the living room I hear my mother asking me to help with form for the driverless truck. Since I will join them I also need to fill in my information. However we have a bit of a problem. As the AI has decided that my birthplace is invalid and that it does not exist anymore. Which is true as Leiden is underwater, but it is still the place where I was born. So I take out my phone and ask it “how to fill in underwater city in auto truck form?”. After a long conversation with the AI form my information is complete. Back to my box and digitalizing it, I pull out a hand written report I wrote. It was an exersize to imagine yourself in the future. And I wrote that I would live in a big home with an garden full with trees. That would be nice, maybe at some point in the future.
It is 11:30, time to stop and have our midday break. So we close all of the curtains and start preparing our lunch. A fresh bean salad with tomatoes, kale and bell pepper with some bread on the side. We clean up the table and we all lay down and relax a bit. I decide to watch my favorite livestream channel. Now that it is 14:30, we can get started again. My father and sister finish packing the books. My parents do not want to digitalize them because it is a nice feeling to hold a book. Which means that I get to organize them by hand in their new home, how fun. My mother and I start wrapping the plants in old paper and a few of the plastic bags we have been reusing. Now it is time, to water the plants before they get moved. This is where it gets tricky, do we have enough collected rain water or do we need to order a cloud? I look at the water gauge, it is 1,55 liter for about 20 plants. That is not enough since we will also need some water for cooking dinner. So we need to order a cloud. We open the cloud app, we need a rain cloud and we need 0,95 liters. But there are only options for 1 liter or 0,5 liter. So we select 1 liter, then we get to pick the time, for in an hour its 100 euros, in 1 to 3 hours its 50 euros and 3 to 8 hours it is actually free since it is night then. We choose the 1 to 3 hours option, and input the cloud location and order it. Now we arrange the plants and an extra bucket in a square, and tape reflective tape around it. This helps the cloud drone to locate where exactly it should rain. Since it is now 15:00 and the cloud could get here at 15:40, we go inside and help the other two. At 17:25 we hear the drone outside, so we go outside and look at how it rains. This never gets old, it still feels a bit magical that a tiny cloud appears and rains, hails or snows. With the rain finished, I put the extra bucket in to the water storage. My father asks me if I want to stay for dinner. I look at my fridge app and tell him no I still have some leftovers at home that need to be eaten. So I say goodbye to everybody and ahead back home.
References pictures:
- “Smart city 3D light cloud computing cityscape. Intelligent building big data exchange storage online futuristic business concept future technology. Urban banner vector illustration” (Image by LuckyStep48 / Alamy Stock Vector, 2018)
- “Drone America’s DAx8 multi-rotor aircraft deploys two cloud seeding flares during a recent flight test in Reno.” (Image by Kevin Clifford/Drone America, 2016)
- “Hybrid electric truck being charging at charging station – Stockfoto” (Image by Chesky_W/ getty images, 2016)
- Freepik AI image generator (2024)
References literature:
- Andrea Willige (2024). These 3 climate disasters will have the biggest impact on human health by 2050. Retrieved on 21th May 2024 from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2024/01/climate-change-health-impact-mortality/
- Climate Central, Inc. (2021). Land projected to be below annual flood level in 2050. Retrieved on 21th May 2024 from https://coastal.climatecentral.org/map/7/7.8368/51.9347/?theme=sea_level_rise&map_type=year&basemap=roadmap&contiguous=true&elevation_model=best_available&forecast_year=2050&pathway=rcp85&percentile=p95&refresh=true&return_level=return_level_1&rl_model=gtsr&slr_model=kopp_2017
- European environment agency. (2023). Heat and cold — extreme heat. Retrieved on 21th May 2024 from https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/europes-changing-climate-hazards-1/heat-and-cold/heat-and-cold-extreme-heat
- FoodPrint. (2022). What You Eat Has a Water Footprint. Retrieved on 21th May 2024 from https://foodprint.org/blog/what-you-eat-has-a-water-footprint/
