Re-Greening The World.

Water sloshed around my ankles, though that was nothing new.

My parents told tales of a world where there was much more land above sea level, where the North and South poles were much larger than they are now. A world with clean air. A World Before.

Before wars started by those hungry for glory and power, no matter the cost to others, filled the sky with missiles and rockets. Before endless bushfires covered the world with smoke and ash where there had once been lush forests. Before Evil men dismantled every gain that had been made since the days of my great-grandparents, because it was cheaper to destroy the world than it was to save it.

A world before me.

For all that I wished I could have seen the peaceful world of my parent's youth, I'll freely admit to being glad that I didn't live through the chaos that brought our Earth to the edge of destructions. So will most of my generation. The ones who did live through it were lucky, and they still wish they hadn't.

The children that claim they would have loved to have been there... well, Mum says they'll grow out of it. Dad says they're morons with no clue what they're talking about. Grandma scoffs about their mouths writing checks that the rest of them can't cash, which necessitated an explanation of what a cheque was. Almost no-one uses physical money anymore.

I was born two days after Peace was declared.

Apparently, that is something of an oversimplification, to merely say that peace was declared. Peace had not been at the forefront of anyone's mind, not even those who genuinely wished for it, but were distracted by the tragedy around them. Then Fate struck.

Some called it tragedy, some fair fortune. Some claimed human intervention, from some agent who had the sense to keep their heads down and their mouth shut. Most agreed that it was well overdue, no matter who was responsible.

The biggest sabre-rattlers, scattered across multiple countries, dropped dead within 24 hours of each other, right as the world was on the verge of destruction.

CEOs, Presidents, Power-Brokers... all dead in a single day.

In the scrambling that followed, cooler heads managed to prevail. Not without cost; a great many people died in riots, in lone-wolf rampages, in disasters where relief was delayed because there was no-one in charge to give the order. But, slowly, the world settled down, and people managed to agree on what behaviours were acceptable and not acceptable, and eventually, agreements were reached with words instead of guns.

It wasn't enough, not totally, but at least healing was still an option. We came close to the point of no return, but didn't pass it.

Yes, a great deal of what had been beachfront estate was now underwater, but only a few inches, as opposed to several feet. Techniques to irrigate desert and drain disease-infested marshlands were shared, making the dry inlands of multiple continents more habitable. Regulations and limitations were put in place, and properly enforced. No more cutting corners for profit and getting away with a fine that was only a fraction of a percentage of that year's profit.

Now, penalties were designed to hurt, and compensate the victims appropriately.

I splashed in the water outside the front door, which now only came up to my ankles. The weak spots in the ozone layer were healing, and as a result, the Poles were beginning to freeze again. It didn't make much of a difference, day by day, but measured over the span of a year... this time last year, the water came up to my mid-calf, and my own natural growth didn't account for all of the difference.

The waters were receeding, and one day, the artificial reefs built under most coastal houses as mini-fisheries would be cut off from the oceans entirely. My mother was already talking about the possibility of repurposing ours as a marine animal rehabilitation space, where inured marine wildlife could heal away from predators. My father prefers turning it into a spawning pool, where fish can be brought to lay their eggs, and the resulting young fish, not having been decimated by things that eat or accidentally destroy said eggs, can be taken to reinforce endangered or gentically-restricted fish populations around the world. Or prevent over-population, in cases of introduced species with no natural predators that are in danger of wrecking delicate ecosytems.

Australia did that with rabbits, monitering burrows and removing the young once they were weaned, taking them to areas where rabbits were almost extinct, the animals that fed on them beginning to starve in turn, and revitalising those areas.

I didn't know which parent I supported, since both sounded like excellent possibilities. The wise path was to stay silent and let them sort it out themselves, so that's what I did. Personally, I preferred the possibility of doing both, at different times of year, but no one was asking my opinion.

Outside my bedroom window, a tree branch waved in the wind, covered in green leaves. Not dry and brown from drought, or blackened from fire, but lush and green and growing. The branch was already lined with tiny buds, ready to blossom in a month or two, which would then be pollinated, and eventually fruit.

When I leave home, I'm going to plant an olive tree.

A lot of people laugh when I say so, because olive trees take forty years or more to mature to the point where they start to produce fruit.

That's the point, I tell people.

Even if I'll be old when the first olives are picked, even if I never profit from the tree, future generations will.

Greedy people who thought only of what they could gain brought us to the brink of destruction, and nearly over it.

It's time to start thinking not just of our own lifetimes, but of future generations, and to create a healthy, green world that they can live in.