People now don't know what it's like to feel the heat. I did everything I could to make it so.
When you're a child, you have strange and incoherent dreams. They mark a milestone in your life. In my case, it was avoiding heat at all costs. I remember that in those times, the heat was unbearable. I lived in a coastal city where the sun was merciless, and there was not a single breeze to soothe its intensity. Seeing a cloud was something extremely rare.
So with my overflowing imagination, I once drew a giant awning in school that would cover my entire city. The other children made fun of my drawing, but it was something that I wanted more than anything else for myself, and definitely for everyone. I had seen too many people suffer from heatstroke and people dying of thirst due to lack of water in the area.
I still have that drawing. I have it hanging on the door of my fridge, the same way my mother did when I showed it to her.
"Someday you'll be a great engineer, son," she said with pride.
As the years went by, the heat got worse. Due to pollution, the ozone layer was deteriorating, and climate change turned our area into a dry and desolate place, a desert in a nutshell. I witnessed the changes in the city and the deaths that were occurring.
When I finished high school, I knew I wanted to be an engineer, just as my mother said. I had a great inventiveness and genius, so I achieved it in five years. I impressed my teachers, but I also faced opposition with my ideas.
One of them was to erect a huge awning several meters high above my beloved coastal city.
"That would cost a lot of money, and it would be risky. I think you're letting yourself be carried away by fantasies and you should focus on things that are more within our reach," one of the words that a tutor told me at the university when I wrote my thesis.
"But we could use nanomaterials to erect the awning!" I argued, showing him the information I had collected. "I have taken into consideration all the factors: the resistant structure to withstand adverse weather conditions, as well as the fact that it would have solar panels to absorb and use that energy as electricity for the city. You didn't read the part on page 34 where the ventilation system was also stipulated, where there would be strategically located fans to create an artificial cool breeze for the city, these fans would operate with the electricity generated by the solar panels," I approached my thesis to the teacher who kept shaking his head. "It will also have control sensors to monitor the intensity of the sun and adjust the position and opening of the awning. Come on, don't be so negative, be open to the possibilities of innovation. I even took into account the modular design, this could be used in different cities that are suffering from climate change."
"No, don't be so fanciful. I'm proud that you have so much imagination and that your studies are backed by great mathematical calculations and you have taken all possible considerations, but..." The teacher kept what he was going to say to himself, but my impatient face made him finish.
"Do you know how much it would cost to produce a canopy like you say? And to mass-produce them? Have you taken the numbers into account? From your expression, I think you haven't," the professor smiled. "In my time, I had a classmate who dreamed of building an elevator to the moon, but that's impossible. Even with carbon nanotubes or graphene, which have recently been discovered. However, it is impossible due to the monetary cost that it would entail in a country, the economy of the city would first fall into ruin before seeing such an act of engineering realized."
"I won't give up," I said firmly. "I already have a plan to finance the project."
"It's true that I haven't taken into account those monetary calculations in my thesis, but I have taken into account the benefits that it would bring to the area. In addition, you have just given me great ideas with graphene or nanotubes," I said. "I'm not going to change my thesis for that. I'll publish it and we'll see how it turns out."
The professor took a sip of his coffee and glanced around his office, which was filled with books on mathematics, algebra, and physics, among others. He looked out his window where he could see thousands of students passing by.
"The other authorities could take it however they want. Some will say the same as me."
"It doesn't matter, I'll stick to my decision."
That day I left determined to do anything.
When I published it, it was an Iliad. My thesis was totally different from those of my classmates, which usually were based on the improvement of already invented systems. Mine marked the challenge to nature.
The professor was right. Many made fun of it, but the vast majority applauded my initiative to improve the city and the world. A world in decline that was dying from pollution and the lack of changes that could mitigate that damage or improve it.
"It's the best thing I've read in years, kid. What are you doing right now?"
I was talking on the phone with one of the most famous businessmen of the time.
"Mr. Cooler, right now I'm studying. I don't know what you're talking about, I've been publishing my studies for many years. Are you referring to graphene work and its benefits in the paint of the hulls of ships? Or are you referring to that publication I wrote about how to create solar panels that also have wind energy?"
"Kid, I'm talking about the solar canopy you wrote about in your graduation thesis. That idea is great, you could change the world. Of course, some improvements are needed in that canopy. At least I don't imagine creating a structure on top of a city, it's a lot of money. I think more about satellites that can change their shape and create a canopy that can modulate the sun's intensity, that's more profitable."
I swallowed.
"Mr. Cooler, no one has ever talked to me about that thesis that way. It's been many years. Two decades of oblivion, because people said it was unsustainable."
Mr. Cooler's voice laughed at my comment.
"Nonsense, kid. I'm 60 years old and your idea is something that needs to be squeezed. Don't you get tired of studying? Don't you want to make money?"
I swallowed again.
"Are you hiring me in your company?"
Again the laughter.
"It's obvious that since I called you personally I want you to build that canopy. To be in charge of the division that generates that canopy, because that's what we'll call it. Have you understood?"
"Well, Mr. Cooler, if I'm interested, but I have to tell you that I don't care about money. I just want to change the world," I said, thinking that maybe the guy would fizzle out at my words.
"Kid, I understand, but it's not bad to make money for knowledge. Your knowledge is gold and I want you to change the world, but you won't be a finished and crazy Tesla from studying so much, do you understand?"
I nodded, although I knew he would never see me nod.
"Did you nod, right? Well, I want you to see me tomorrow in my office to finalize the details of what will be the best change in the world."
So began the movement that made it change the world.
Second version
People now don't know what it's like to feel the heat. I did everything I could to make it so.
When you're a child, you have strange and incoherent dreams. They mark a milestone in your life. In my case, it was avoiding heat at all costs. I remember that in those times, the heat was unbearable. I lived in a coastal city where the sun was merciless, and there was not a single breeze to soothe its intensity. Seeing a cloud was something extremely rare.
So with my overflowing imagination, I once drew a giant awning in school that would cover my entire city. The other children made fun of my drawing, but it was something that I wanted more than anything else for myself, and definitely for everyone. I had seen too many people suffer from heatstroke and people dying of thirst due to lack of water in the area.
I still have that drawing. I have it hanging on the door of my fridge, the same way my mother did when I showed it to her.
"Someday you'll be a great engineer, son," she said with pride.
As the years went by, the heat got worse. Due to pollution, the ozone layer was deteriorating, and climate change turned our area into a dry and desolate place, a desert in a nutshell. I witnessed the changes in the city and the deaths that were occurring.
When I finished high school, I knew I wanted to be an engineer, just as my mother said. I had a great inventiveness and genius, so I achieved it in five years. I impressed my teachers, but I also faced opposition with my ideas.
One of them was to erect a huge awning several meters high above my beloved coastal city.
"That would cost a lot of money, and it would be risky. I think you're letting yourself be carried away by fantasies and you should focus on things that are more within our reach," one of the words that a tutor told me at the university when I wrote my thesis.
"But we could use nanomaterials to erect the awning!" I argued, showing him the information I had collected. "I have taken into consideration all the factors: the resistant structure to withstand adverse weather conditions, as well as the fact that it would have solar panels to absorb and use that energy as electricity for the city. You didn't read the part on page 34 where the ventilation system was also stipulated, where there would be strategically located fans to create an artificial cool breeze for the city, these fans would operate with the electricity generated by the solar panels," I approached my thesis to the teacher who kept shaking his head. "It will also have control sensors to monitor the intensity of the sun and adjust the position and opening of the awning. Come on, don't be so negative, be open to the possibilities of innovation. I even took into account the modular design, this could be used in different cities that are suffering from climate change."
"No, don't be so fanciful. I'm proud that you have so much imagination and that your studies are backed by great mathematical calculations and you have taken all possible considerations, but..." The teacher kept what he was going to say to himself, but my impatient face made him finish.
"Do you know how much it would cost to produce a canopy like you say? And to mass-produce them? Have you taken the numbers into account? From your expression, I think you haven't," the professor smiled. "In my time, I had a classmate who dreamed of building an elevator to the moon, but that's impossible. Even with carbon nanotubes or graphene, which have recently been discovered. However, it is impossible due to the monetary cost that it would entail in a country, the economy of the city would first fall into ruin before seeing such an act of engineering realized."
"I won't give up," I said firmly. "I already have a plan to finance the project."
"It's true that I haven't taken into account those monetary calculations in my thesis, but I have taken into account the benefits that it would bring to the area. In addition, you have just given me great ideas with graphene or nanotubes," I said. "I'm not going to change my thesis for that. I'll publish it and we'll see how it turns out."
The professor took a sip of his coffee and glanced around his office, which was filled with books on mathematics, algebra, and physics, among others. He looked out his window where he could see thousands of students passing by.
"The other authorities could take it however they want. Some will say the same as me."
"It doesn't matter, I'll stick to my decision."
That day I left determined to do anything.
When I published it, it was an Iliad. My thesis was totally different from those of my classmates, which usually were based on the improvement of already invented systems. Mine marked the challenge to nature.
"What has happened, guys?"
It was my son Royal and my granddaughter Anais, they were following my dream of changing the environment of the city.
"Well, grandfather, the politicians are very enthusiastic, but you know, they are afraid that the solar awning will go wrong."
"It's already in orbit, they can't do anything," added my son Royal.
I nodded.
"Yes, thanks to our investments we have achieved that it is in orbit. We managed to open the mesh by joining several satellites. I don't think they don't see the benefits that the solar awning will bring," I said angrily. "We have been working on this for two decades, I can't believe the government is preventing us from fulfilling our goal of changing the world."
"Well, dad, they say that we don't know, although the effects that the solar awning will bring to the world's ecosystem. That it is barely covering the city, but what you want it to cover the whole world and allow to control the climate scares them," said my son twisting his mouth a little.
"You are a politician, you are with them," I huffed. "You have told me for two years that this could cause an ecological impact and could alter the natural climate of the earth. That we could extinguish the human race and that the awning could be sabotaged by malicious entities."
I took my glass of water and looked at my office, it was not very different from the one of the professor who once rejected my idea.
"I never let anyone trample on my dream, I studied and generated a company that today has improved the quality of the city, but they do not allow me to extend that benefit to the entire planet."
"I'm with you, grandfather. Since I was born I have never felt that heat that you express in your diaries or publications that made you famous. People no longer feel hot and you have been able to change the environment of the city through renewable energy transmitted by the panels in space to the city. I feel that people are only afraid of change."
I looked at my granddaughter, she only coveted my fortune, so she made a bootlicker to make a good impression on me. I didn't like it, but at least I had her support. Although one very different from the one that my wife gave me in my youth. She was the one who pushed for the creation of the SolarSunshade company.
"Did you tell them about the renewable energy that we could cause around the world?" I insisted, wanting to see results.
"I'm sorry, dad, I don't support that. Having it in the city, attenuating and controlling the climate, is a risk that you took and it worked out, but covering the entire planet is something that I cannot allow. No one can completely control nature."
These were my son's last words before he left. After so many years of trying with his mother from nothing and he dismissed that dream as if it were nothing, for a few minor risks.
My granddaughter stayed with me saying words of comfort, but I should have followed the advice of my son, before starting the worst environmental disaster on the planet.
Cover and Banner made in Canva; Author's own image taken with Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 S, Separators made in photoshop