People talk about doom-laden scenarios happening in the future:

Host: The sky over the savannah burned like a bruised orange, the dying sun casting long, trembling shadows over a landscape both vast and wounded. Dust hung in the air — a soft, red veil that turned everything into memory before it even happened.

Host: In the distance, a herd of cattle moved slowly through the dry grass, ribs showing beneath skin like taut parchment. Beyond them, a few children played in silence near a dry riverbed, their laughter brittle as bone.

Host: Under the shade of an acacia tree, Jack and Jeeny sat on overturned water drums, the wind tugging gently at their clothes. The heat shimmered between them like an invisible wall.

Jeeny: (gazing toward the horizon) “David Attenborough once said, ‘People talk about doom-laden scenarios happening in the future: they are happening in Africa now. You can see it perfectly clearly. Periodic famines are due to too many people living on land that can’t sustain them.’”
(She paused, her voice trembling just slightly.) “And when you see this… you realize he wasn’t warning us. He was mourning.”

Jack: (quietly, his grey eyes squinting against the sun) “He’s right. This isn’t prophecy — it’s history repeating itself in real time. The world’s ending here one harvest at a time, and everyone else is too comfortable to notice.”

Host: The wind rose, carrying with it the faint scent of charred grass and smoke from a distant cooking fire. The sound of a buzzard circled overhead, lazy and unhurried.

Jeeny: “Do you think it’s too many people, Jack? Or too little compassion?”

Jack: “It’s math, Jeeny. Resources. The planet can only handle so much extraction, so much consumption. We act like it’s emotional, but it’s just physics with skin on.”

Jeeny: (frowning) “You always reduce life to numbers. But these aren’t equations — they’re lives. It’s not just about carrying capacity; it’s about how we distribute what we already have. There’s enough food in the world, Jack — just not enough conscience.”

Host: The sun dipped lower, bleeding red into the dust. A few goats wandered past, their bells faint against the rising quiet.

Jack: “Conscience doesn’t change geography. You can’t ship empathy to a dying field. Look around — the soil’s cracked like old hands, the rivers are ghosts, and the trees can’t even remember rain.”

Jeeny: “And yet, they still plant seeds.”

Host: Her eyes followed a woman walking along the horizon, a baby tied to her back, a bundle of sticks balanced on her head. Each step slow, steady, stubborn.

Jeeny: “That’s what amazes me. Even here, even now, people keep planting. Hope is the most irrational crop of all.”

Jack: “Hope’s a survival instinct, not a virtue. It keeps you moving long enough to starve slower.”

Jeeny: “You don’t mean that.”

Jack: “I mean exactly that. Nature doesn’t care about hope, Jeeny. The land isn’t sentimental. It gives until it can’t, and then it kills.”

Host: The silence deepened, heavy as the air before rain that never comes. A fly buzzed near Jack’s ear; he brushed it away, his jaw clenched.

Jeeny: “Then tell me — if it’s all just numbers, why are we even here? Why did you come with me to this camp? To count? Or to witness?”

Jack: (his voice low) “To remember. I wanted to see what the future looks like — because it’s already here.”

Host: The sky darkened, streaked with violet and ash. The first stars began to pierce through — small, defiant lights above a tired earth.

Jeeny: “You talk like the planet is punishing us.”

Jack: “It is. We took without balance. We mined the future to buy the present.”

Jeeny: “Then why does the punishment always fall on the poorest? Why here, Jack? Why not where the decisions were made?”

Host: The question lingered — sharp as a thorn, impossible to answer. The sound of a generator hummed faintly from the aid tent nearby, its mechanical heartbeat out of sync with the slow, organic suffering surrounding it.

Jack: “Because history’s cruel. It punishes the innocent for the sins of the comfortable.”

Jeeny: “And you accept that?”

Jack: “I understand it. That’s different.”

Host: A moment passed. Then Jeeny stood, walking toward the barren edge of the field. She knelt and pressed her hand into the soil, letting the dry dust slip between her fingers.

Jeeny: “Feel that. It’s not dead. It’s resting. Waiting. The same way the people here wait — for rain, for relief, for a chance.”

Jack: (standing beside her) “You sound like one of those UN ads — the ones with piano music and empty promises.”

Jeeny: (quietly) “Maybe. But even those ads matter to someone. Even awareness is a form of aid.”

Jack: “Awareness without action is anesthesia.”

Jeeny: “Then act. Don’t just analyze.”

Host: The wind picked up, swirling dust around them. It was as if the earth itself wanted to join the argument — to remind them it was listening.

Jack: “You think I don’t want to? You think it doesn’t haunt me — sitting in air-conditioned rooms talking about climate targets while kids here drink from puddles?”

Jeeny: “Then stop talking. Start changing.”

Jack: “Changing what, Jeeny? The system? The cycle? This is millennia of imbalance. People reproduce because they have no safety nets. They farm until the land dies because there’s no other choice. You can’t just hand out seeds and hope it rains justice.”

Jeeny: (turning to him, voice trembling) “Then what’s the point of us being human if we can’t even try?”

Host: The air between them cracked — not with thunder, but with truth. The sun was gone now, leaving behind only the deep blue breath of evening. The world was cooling, but their words still burned.

Jack: “You can try. But don’t mistake compassion for cure. This isn’t just tragedy, Jeeny. It’s consequence.”

Jeeny: “And what’s the consequence of indifference?”

Host: He didn’t answer. He couldn’t. The silence filled the space where words would have failed anyway.

Host: A distant drumbeat began — faint, rhythmic, human. From a nearby village, a song rose — weary but alive, sung by people who still believed the stars could hear them.

Jeeny: “Listen to that. They still sing. Even now.”

Jack: “Maybe that’s all they can do.”

Jeeny: “Or maybe that’s all they need to remind the world it hasn’t won.”

Host: The wind carried the song across the plain — a sound both fragile and eternal. Jack closed his eyes, and for the first time, his shoulders seemed to soften.

Jack: “You know… when I was a kid, my mother used to talk about famine in Ethiopia. I thought it was something from history books. Not the present. Not now. But Attenborough was right — the future we fear is already here.”

Jeeny: “Then let’s not fear it. Let’s fight it.”

Host: A long pause. Then Jack knelt beside her, pressing his hand into the same dry soil she’d touched earlier. The dust clung to his skin, marking him, claiming him.

Jack: “Feels like holding time itself.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe it’s time we started tending it again.”

Host: The sky above them deepened into starlight, vast and unending. The song continued in the distance — a hymn of defiance against despair. Around them, the earth waited — quiet, aching, alive.

Host: And in that stillness, Attenborough’s words echoed not as prophecy, but as plea:
that the doom we fear is not somewhere ahead —
it is already breathing beside us,
and that redemption, like rain,
must begin where the ground is driest.

Host: The wind shifted once more, carrying the faint scent of moisture — a promise on the horizon.

Host: Jack looked toward the sky.
Jeeny smiled.

Host: And the earth — tired, trembling, but faithful — held its breath,
hoping, perhaps,
for one more chance to bloom.