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a letter from 2049

April 22, 2019 By meerasub Leave a Comment

 

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I don’t normally do speculative fiction, but when In These Times told me they were doing a special climate issue and asked me what our world might be like if we were to achieve a net zero carbon economy, I found myself writing a letter to my cousin-brother. 

Dear Harish,

Hello, my sweet, faraway cousin-brother! As we approach our—gasp!—80th birthdays, I felt inspired to resurrect the old tradition of letter writing.

It seems like yesterday we were sitting on your parents’ rooftop, taking in the night sounds of Besant Nagar, in the days when I would impulsively buy a ticket from Boston to Chennai without much of a thought beyond my bank account balance.

Remember when a ticket cost a few weeks’ pay instead of six months’? Has it really been 20 years since I last flew to India? I have forgotten the smell of the jasmine flowers women sold along the streets. Remind me again of their fragrance…

Do you see more stars now that the coal plants have shut down? Are the streets quieter without the roar of motorbikes? I suspect the electric vehicles still honk just as frequently and drive as wildly.

Perhaps everything is a little calmer, without the overwhelming crowds? But I imagine there’s an eeriness to that calm, knowing the cost at which it came.

Read the rest here.

Filed Under: climate change, journalism Tagged With: carbon-free economy, climate change, family, future, In These Times, india, net zero carbon, speculative fiction, The Tumult

cloned sheep, cattle-driving maps & the disease of gigantism

November 3, 2016 By meerasub Leave a Comment

2016-10-01iph-402

I had grand hopes of frequently blogging while on the Knight Science Journalism fellowship. Alas… With a nod to Harper’s Findings, I was able to manage this instead:

Telomeres, the mysterious ends of chromosomes whose lengths can reveal age, seemed to know that Dolly the cloned sheep, was older than she was. Massachusetts’ city kids thrive in charter schools more than suburban kids. Second Chance, the cloned replica of the beloved gentle Brahman bull Chance, was just like his original, except for that he had a tendency to maul his owners. If you wanted to drive your cattle from Texas to Fort Yuma, California, you would consult the map my great-great grandfather drafted in 1870. Jardin de Lorixa, a comprehensive 14-volume herbal detailing the plants of Bengal in the 18th Century, sat unstudied for over two centuries. After embracing Western models of big development, Jawaharlal Nehru had a belated change of heart, wondering if India was suffering from a “disease of gigantism.” Of the planet’s coastal poor, 27% are Indian.  When a Boston clock maker wanted to make a model of the solar system in 1776, the Grand Orrery, he called on Paul Revere to cast the bronze elements. (But the orrery in this photo was prettier.) #KnightKnowHow @KSJatMIT @SophiaRoosth @JPAL_Global #clone #botany #India @sunilamrith #JamesDelbourgo

Filed Under: Knight Science Journalism, peregrinations Tagged With: #KnightKnowHow, biotechnology, botany, Cambridge, development, family, genetic engineering, india, Knight Science Journalism, maps, Texas

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