Life’s a blast in Geothermia
“He makes no apology for his apocalyptic predictions and has a checklist of solutions, including a new city which he calls ‘Geothermia’ to be built in central Australia on the borders of NSW, South Australia and Queensland. A new desert city? But that’s not going to happen, surely? ‘I know it’s radical but we have no choice,’
“The swiftly changing global environment tells us that Geothermia’s time has come, and that if we are to maintain our prosperity and environment then we laggard Australians must grasp it.”
So grasp it we will. Join me now as we gaze into the future and study the day-to-day life of a Geothermia resident:
Diary of a Geothermian
April 12, 2030
What a day! From midday to just after 2pm, it was nothing but go, go, go. I phoned Necrosis to catch up for a drink but we got our wires crossed and ended up in different places – I was at the hypoallergenic wheatgrass bistro on the corner of Winnie Mandela Ave and David Hicks St, and she went to the Syrian beetroot bar near Gore Uni. I swear, that girl would forget her own head if it hadn’t been re-attached by flesh-welding microbiological intellispores.
January 13, 2032
People can be so thoughtless. This evening, during our two hours of electricity, I heard a neighbour breathing – which meant he’d turned on his artificial lung machine. I don’t need to tell you how much power they drain. It was making my downloaded Kylie hologram concert flicker slightly, so I called the police. We won’t be hearing from old breathy again.
May 7, 2035
Oh, great. My parents are visiting from interstate. I wouldn’t mind, except that they stand out so much – being about twice the size and having three times as many red blood cells as us Geothermians. They’re practically soreless, too. It’s embarrassing.
December 25, 2037
Merry Carbonmas, everybody! I gave 10 carbon credits to Necrosis and you’ll never guess what she bought for me – carbon credits! I love Carbonmas; it’s even more fun than Bleeding Eyes Day, when we share Gaia’s pain by staring directly at the sun for six hours.
August 16, 2039
One thing about Geothermia – win, lose, or draw, we stick by our sports teams. About 25 of us gathered today at Mohammed Atta Airport to welcome back the Geothermia Ghandis from their defeat against the Adelaide Crows. Talk about adding insult to injury – just as were waving our white surrender flags of victory, the ruckperson’s solar-powered hoverplane was sucked into the turbine of a passing Qantas Skytanic. Everyone else made a safe landing, which was a pleasant change.
June 21, 2046
Dinner with Necrosis at that new place, Anemia. Had the gravel salad (yum!) and corn stalks, but Necrosis said her bug froth was overboiled.
May 3, 2052
Major traffic snarl on the way home. Two recumbent bicycles got run down by a vintage Prius on the Hugo Chavez motorway, blocking traffic all the way back to that windchime factory near the Al-Qaeda Memorial. They should ban those spark-guzzling monsters.
February 17, 2065
If you ask me, the debate about global warming is over. I can’t believe denialists are still disputing the science of speculative global warming prediction. It says a lot about their arguments that they rely so much on “evidence”. I just wish global warming would get here a little faster, so my ethical biodome roofing business would finally turn a profit. Or attract a customer.
November 4, 2068
It might just be me feeling melancholy about the Presbyterian riots – today is the second anniversary; our reiki district is still in ruins – but sometimes I fear for Geothermia’s future. Then again, it could be something to do with Geothermia’s major industry being arts grants and our unemployment level being officially recorded as “everybody”.
NOTE: Geothermia was declared closed in 2070, shortly after the ambitious city’s primary power supply collapsed due to unauthorised use of a Breville sandwich maker.