The dome city has fallen. Less of a story, and more of an editor’s note reflecting on the Influx magazine’s creation and how Charlotte’s tale closely reflects a generation of lost youth; living in a bubble, yearning for something more, and seeing injustice in their peripheral but not knowing how to combat it. Chapter eight shows a glimpse of a new age.
Although this is not the first edition of Influx Magazine, it is the first issue where the class was able to meet in person. After years of seeing each other through tiny, pixelated video chats over Zoom, we were finally given the opportunity to interact in the same space and truly experience journalism’s collaborative nature.
Twice a week, 30-some journalism students piled into Murphy Hall, masks on and laptops open to produce this magazine. Each of us have different skill sets, experience, writing or art styles and backgrounds, but we all had the same goal – to try and make meaning of our scattered, fearful thoughts about the future and turn conversation into action, into art.
A term that continued to crop up was “climate nihilism.”
Let’s face it. Our Earth and our future, is both in danger and in flux.
Our generation was told that the world would be our oyster, but our world is on fire and we have to teach ourselves how to put it out.
We were taught the names of icons and legends, made to memorize the dates and death tolls in wars; histories we don’t want repeated.
We were told to speak up, but to raise our hand to do so — then to lower our voices and keep it to ourselves, because they don’t want to hear it and they don’t want to fight about it.
We were told to be normal but exceptional. That we’re special but special means too sensitive, too naive, too obsessed with having a little world in our hands, “So no, don’t be special, actually.”
Maybe we watch screens because looking up and seeing the fire we didn’t start is scary and when we were young they covered our eyes and told us to look away.
They told us to rely on a god that many fear has left us, on law enforcement that hurts us, on a government that uses us. Are they surprised we didn’t turn out to be their version of normal?
Climate nihilism asks the question: Were we made to live and love like a forest fire, made to consume? The world is turning to ash beneath my feet and even if I knew how to fight fires, I wouldn’t know which fire to focus my efforts on.
Nihilism, to me, is understanding that we were let down. It’s understanding that I don’t have all the answers. Does anyone? There’s no magic solution to climate change.
It’s okay to be scared. It’s okay to feel hurt, conflicted and disappointed by the people who were supposed to make the world a better place for us. It’s okay to feel helpless sometimes. It’s also okay to allow yourself to find hope and happiness in small things.
A school magazine discussing topics related to the climate isn’t going to change the world. But who knows? Maybe the stories about young climate activists will inspire someone. Maybe introspection on the evolving coffee industry will teach someone something about the world around them. Maybe the fictional dome city zine will show someone that they don’t need to live in a bubble.
It’s time to pay attention to the calls to action from climate scientists. It’s also time to pay attention to the good others are doing, and the good that can still be done. There are people, young and old, who are trying to make a change. Big, institutional ones, but also small changes in their daily lives, and you can too.
Being optimistic in a world that demands nihilism seems impossible. It’s important to remember that although the Earth may be doomed, our lives aren’t meaningless. There can be beauty in the pain and tragedy. There can be a positive product of justified anger. There can be an act of kindness that sheds even the tiniest of lights on someone overwhelmed by darkness. There can be hope.
There are other generations of kids — our siblings, cousins, neighbors, nieces and nephews — who we can teach to find hope in this beautiful, wretched world.
Maybe we can find all hope in each other.
