Aashna Sharma
A Future Reimagined: Intergenerational Hope on a Warming Planet
Set in the year 2109, Human Hibernation is a powerful speculative narrative that blends climate science with human emotion, as seen through the eyes of an 89-year-old man and his 5-year-old granddaughter, Tshering, hiking through a transformed Himalayan landscape. Once home to a vast glacier, the valley now hosts a cluster of proglacial lakes—products of a century of climate change. As they reflect on the past and navigate a future shaped by collective environmental responsibility, the story introduces the concept of “human hibernation”: a global pause twice a year, designed to give Earth the time to heal. Rich in emotion and ecological foresight, the story is both a warning and a hopeful vision of resilience, adaptation, and the legacy we leave behind.