The sky was gray. Seas were high and spirits low. The air had thickened to a point where men had to wear masks when waving their families goodbye each morning on their ways to work. It wasn’t always this way. Years ago, the planet had a beautiful clean atmosphere with luscious air and whimsical woods. However, years of carbon emissions and greenhouse gasses had completely destroyed the once striving and beautiful planet. Despite years and years of warning by scientists, the people seemed more interested in denying and disproving their wrongdoings rather than taking steps to fix them. It’s a sad day when the importance of the human ego overtakes the importance of human life and unfortunately that day had come.
Each morning, astronomer Dr. Arques would sit in the laboratory on his computer, searching all ends of dark space for another habitable planet to move to. However, each night he would leave the same lab disappointed. It didn’t help that all of Dr. Arques colleagues were long gone. After years of failing in their attempts to find other habitable planets, the researchers left the lab and decided to spend their last years either drinking, partying, or living life to its “fullest”. They seemed content in letting the world destroy itself. Like those who had denied the budding climate disaster, these scientists denied that anything could be done. Their egos got in the way of their research and they seemed fixed on getting back at the “deniers” by letting the world be destroyed. Their egos could not resist this so to speak ultimate “I told you so”. However, Dr. Arques was different. He resented their loss of hope and decided to persist in his mission no matter the circumstance. When Dr. Arques approached them they would laugh, call him insane and tell him to give it a rest. While insanity is sometimes deDined as “doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result” , Dr. Argues defined it as “giving up”.
Each day, while searching for a new “home”, Dr. Arques had plenty of time to think. His thoughts would range from the darkness of coffee to the purpose of life itself. He wondered if the universe was created, just to destroy itself. After all, he found it very ironic that technology, once thought to be the planet’s biggest advancement, actually ended up causing its demise. One day, in between these thoughts it finally happened- his insanity paid off. Dr. Arques stumbled across something he had not seen before. It was a planet located in the “Goldilocks zone” of a nearby galaxy, with an atmosphere rich in oxygen and liquid water! When testing the planets metrics, Dr. Arques could not believe how favorable its conditions were! He thought that perhaps all the smoke in the atmosphere had caused him to hallucinate. However, after checking another three hundred times, he realized he was not imagining it! He left the laboratory skipping! He spent the next few days contacting his former colleagues informing them of the news. Unfortunately, they didn’t even listen to him and refused to believe anything could be done. Maybe it was the alcohol, but it seemed that at this point the colleagues actually preferred to die than be saved.
Nevertheless, the doctor decided to continue the mission on his own. Dr. Arques still had access to his company’s space ship which at this point was covered beneath tons and tons of shrubs and ash. Dr. Arques fixed up the ship himself and decided that he would try and bring his wife to the new planet himself.
Traveling in space was tough. Dr. Arques and his wife had to live on tiny amounts of food and recycled urine for years. The quarters were cramped and the lack of gravity dizzying. Days were spent philosophizing and nights crying. However, all was not for naught.
After years of traveling, Dr. Arques and his wife finally arrived at the faraway world. By this time, they notice that their home planet’s atmosphere was completely blocked from the sun and its citizens long dead. The couple decided to have children and raise them on this new planet and continue the future of life. However, since they had seen life destroy itself through greenhouse gasses and harmful technology, they decided not to teach their children of their past planet’s technological advancements and history. For life would have to start completely anew, make its own choices and avoid the harmful fate that came along with the history of the past planet. As the young astronomer and his family stood on the top of a snowy mountain he declared that the name of this new planet should be titled “Earth”.
