Carbon: A fictional story becoming our Present

Not long ago, I came across a short film on YouTube titled Carbon: The Story of Tomorrow. The title and thumbnail piqued my curiosity, and I decided to give it a watch. Featuring actors like Jackky Bhagnani, Prachi Desai, and Nawazuddin Siddiqui, the film presents a haunting vision of the future: a world where technology has advanced, but humanity has lost its most basic lifelines, clean air and water.

Set in 2067, the Carbon film imagines a dystopia where oxygen is a priced commodity, water is rationed, and war is waged over what were once freely available natural resources. The elite breathe easy, while the poor gasp for survival. As the credits rolled, I found myself thinking, This future isn’t mine. But in 2025, I’m beginning to wonder, was the film fiction, or a prophecy?

Take for instance, the recent deforestation of the Kancha Ganchibowli forest in Telangana, a green lung of Hyderabad, sacrificed in the name of development. According to the Forest Survey of India (2023), Telangana lost over 2,100 hectares of tree cover in just one year. That’s equivalent to almost 3,000 football fields of green gone forever.

Meanwhile, India faces one of its worst heat waves in decades. In March 2024, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) reported that temperatures in parts of northern India touched a staggering 46°C (114.8°F), the highest recorded in over a century for that month. These extreme events are no longer rare; they’re becoming the new normal.

The World Bank’s 2023 report warned that by 2030, 40% of Indians will have no access to clean drinking water if current patterns continue. A report by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) found that in cities like Delhi, air pollution is reducing average life expectancy by 9.7 years. Imagine buying breathable air in cans, just like in Carbon.

After completing my Postgraduate Diploma in Aizawl, the capital of Mizoram, I returned home only to struggle with the drastic weather contrast. In Aizawl, a quiet habitat among lush hills and cloud-covered mornings, nature still whispers. But back home, the sun scorches mercilessly, the nights offer no relief, and the trees, what few remain, stand as silent witnesses to our self-destruction.

The climate crisis isn’t an abstract fear, it’s here, and it’s multiplying. According to a Lancet study (2024), more than 160,000 Indians died prematurely in 2023 due to heat-related illnesses. Our rivers are shrinking, groundwater is depleting, glaciers are melting, and we are still debating tree counts on Excel sheets.

Carbon was meant to be a cautionary tale, but we’ve turned it into a blueprint.If we continue to equate “development” with deforestation, “progress” with pollution, and “growth” with greed, soon there will be no hill stations to escape to, because the hills won’t exist, the forests will be gone, and the air will be unbreathable.

The question is no longer “what if the future turns bleak?” The question now is: How much time do we have left before the future becomes our irreversible present?

Edited By Pranoy Shukla