There’s a silver lining to every devastation, or rather, a transparent lining that masks the remains of the forests in our world today. The Amazon with smoke billowing, reaching for the sky in a futile escape is a scene we’ve pushed far from our minds. And at the root of this voluntary ignorance, is the See Clean Project. It’s not so nice when we think about what we have allowed ourselves to lose. To see to outdated pictures, that reminds us how it really is underneath. This is not new news. I know just as much as the next person what we chose to hide. But we’re living with it, it’s what we’re doing. Seeing as it is in human nature to wish for the best it can be, it makes sense that we may even pretend it is. But, forgive me, as I point out how desensitized we have become. This is not some preachy, “make a change” campaign you are reading. I am showing you, and myself, what we have become. I present to us, the hard truth. This is not a problem we can brush under the rug forever. As we reach the 40th year since the See Clean Project was first created, we are confronted with the brutal reality.
We all know, in 2040, the United States had opted to provide an alternative to fixing the devastation we called our forests. A high-tech, see-through sheet of heat resistant nylon, that was stretched across the Amazon. Digital installments in space perfectly projecting a false reality, of beautiful forests with banana leaves and marmosets, with trees untouched by man. Originally it was slightly dysfunctional, as although the sheet across the forest did allow transportation within it, the projection deep in the forest was glitchy. We were then faced with a more pressing flaw in the design. The blanket trapped the fires ignited within the forest, creating a hostile, smog-filled environment. It is quite insane to think about, the hours we must have crowded over a desk, thinking up a glamorized way to run from our problems. Around 2045, tech advancements were made, errors fixed, and this phenomenon spread to where a partnership was made, the Hallerbos Forest in Belgium. Then the rest of the world. It became a new normal for our forests that we live with today. To see what we wanted to see, but not to have done what we needed to do.
I remember as a kid I tried to wrap my brain around the See Clean Project. Thoughts of repulsion swirling around my head as I detected something, although ever so young. This is our deceit. We shut out our looming knowledge that things weren’t better now. These thoughts did stick around, but I had since tried to adopt this mindset that many others had. After all, we are seeing safety and beauty, and nature, no matter how fake it may be. I put away the doubts, and yes, quite shamefully I admit, I put away these thoughts for 20 years. I am no different than you, no less to blame for the world we live in. I have accepted my environment, leaving me lazy, and hopeless. It wasn’t until a few months ago that I was confronted with how much we have strayed from facing our dilemmas. I was informed that my coworkers’ son, who is twelve, was on a trip with his middle school to the Amazon. To learn about this, See Clean Project, and where it first started. Praises towards the creators so lovingly ingrained in our newest generations’ head, just as it was mine. While a tour guide led his sixth-grade class through the “forest” he saw it. A tear in the blanket, or rather through that tear, a tree burnt to nothing. Mounds of broken branches, smoke. He, understandably distraught, could not continue on the trip. He was shaken up; he saw what we are taught to be blind to.
Something sticks with me every time I have thought of said instance, since. Something that drives the every word you read right now. How scared he was, to be confronted with the undeniable truth. How sickened he was to see through a long-lasting fallacy. How we sympathize, for a kid who was lucky enough to truly see what for decades we desperately tried to pretend didn’t exist. To see both the pain from the past and the cruelty of the present a blessing in disguise. It disgusts me that it took something like this for me to write this. It disgusts me that we run from something so unavoidable. That we have become so selfish that, as long as we don’t have to face it, it never happened. I hope this wakeup call sits heavy in your mind, as it does mine, and that our administration sees this. Sanctioning the mass-production of the world’s newest delusion. The water-resistant blanket to cover the heaps of plastic that litter our ocean. Leaving a bitter taste in people’s mouths, “Sea Clean”. A juvenile play on words isn’t fooling anyone. Not like we’ve fooled ourselves since 2040.
We all know, in 2040, the United States had opted to provide an alternative to fixing the devastation we called our forests. A high-tech, see-through sheet of heat resistant nylon, that was stretched across the Amazon. Digital installments in space perfectly projecting a false reality, of beautiful forests with banana leaves and marmosets, with trees untouched by man. Originally it was slightly dysfunctional, as although the sheet across the forest did allow transportation within it, the projection deep in the forest was glitchy. We were then faced with a more pressing flaw in the design. The blanket trapped the fires ignited within the forest, creating a hostile, smog-filled environment. It is quite insane to think about, the hours we must have crowded over a desk, thinking up a glamorized way to run from our problems. Around 2045, tech advancements were made, errors fixed, and this phenomenon spread to where a partnership was made, the Hallerbos Forest in Belgium. Then the rest of the world. It became a new normal for our forests that we live with today. To see what we wanted to see, but not to have done what we needed to do.
I remember as a kid I tried to wrap my brain around the See Clean Project. Thoughts of repulsion swirling around my head as I detected something, although ever so young. This is our deceit. We shut out our looming knowledge that things weren’t better now. These thoughts did stick around, but I had since tried to adopt this mindset that many others had. After all, we are seeing safety and beauty, and nature, no matter how fake it may be. I put away the doubts, and yes, quite shamefully I admit, I put away these thoughts for 20 years. I am no different than you, no less to blame for the world we live in. I have accepted my environment, leaving me lazy, and hopeless. It wasn’t until a few months ago that I was confronted with how much we have strayed from facing our dilemmas. I was informed that my coworkers’ son, who is twelve, was on a trip with his middle school to the Amazon. To learn about this, See Clean Project, and where it first started. Praises towards the creators so lovingly ingrained in our newest generations’ head, just as it was mine. While a tour guide led his sixth-grade class through the “forest” he saw it. A tear in the blanket, or rather through that tear, a tree burnt to nothing. Mounds of broken branches, smoke. He, understandably distraught, could not continue on the trip. He was shaken up; he saw what we are taught to be blind to.
Something sticks with me every time I have thought of said instance, since. Something that drives the every word you read right now. How scared he was, to be confronted with the undeniable truth. How sickened he was to see through a long-lasting fallacy. How we sympathize, for a kid who was lucky enough to truly see what for decades we desperately tried to pretend didn’t exist. To see both the pain from the past and the cruelty of the present a blessing in disguise. It disgusts me that it took something like this for me to write this. It disgusts me that we run from something so unavoidable. That we have become so selfish that, as long as we don’t have to face it, it never happened. I hope this wakeup call sits heavy in your mind, as it does mine, and that our administration sees this. Sanctioning the mass-production of the world’s newest delusion. The water-resistant blanket to cover the heaps of plastic that litter our ocean. Leaving a bitter taste in people’s mouths, “Sea Clean”. A juvenile play on words isn’t fooling anyone. Not like we’ve fooled ourselves since 2040.
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