The Power of Voicemails

Future coast is a very interesting game and reminds me of geocaching. The game is to create fictional voicemails that could happen in the future. When our class was told to each create our own voicemail the first thing that came to my mind was a plague or sickness. This is an issue due to climate change because eventually there will be no hospitals functioning. This reminds me of in the short story “Diary of an Interesting Year” no one could go to hospitals because all were shut down. I think Future Coast is a great project because it leaves people a personal voicemail. The purpose of the voicemails is to explain a situation that could occur. For instance, about buying extra food incase of a disaster. Also, explains what the future could look in different years. When making a voicemail you can pick what year this message is from. I think this is cool because it shows people who don’t know anything about climate change what might happen. The voicemails are very unique because it’s a individual call. It’s usually an urgent message and the person is calling for a reason. You can hear a tone in the persons voice and can evoke emotion. The purpose of the voicemails is to create emotion and the goal is for people to react.

The voicemails are an example of cli-fi because no one knows what is actually going to happen in the future. They are hypothetical situation that people think are going to happen and with research could actually. Some people in our class made up imaginary characters and situations that were cause because of climate change. Some students talked about advanced technology and how disasters are offering. Many of us talked about floods that were going to happen and how we called to warn our loved ones. I think the voicemails send a clear message about show we want to prepare people for the future. I think if someone doesn’t know much about climate change and got a voicemail it would terrify them. I personally would be scared to listen to a voicemail from the future and think about what might happen. Most stories we have read in class have different situations that are cause by global warming. The story Odds Against Tomorrow was a fictional story about New York in the future. New York is going to experience a flood that will ruin everything. The story has imaginary characters that are trying to convey a message to be prepared for the future. I think fiction is important for everyone because gives us a sense of the future. No one on this planet can predict the future but instead can be creative and use our imagination.

I loved this activity because it was personal and I could connect with some of the voicemails. One of the voicemails was someone calling their family to say goodbye because they don’t think they will make it out of the disaster. It puts you in the shoes of someone else and you imagine if that will actually happen.

2 thoughts on “The Power of Voicemails

  1. I agree with your connection between the Future Coast project and the “Diary of an Interesting Year”. I also noticed similarities between the trials that the narrator of the diary went through and the event people were describing in their voicemails. Both often conveyed a tone of panic, that serves as its own warning against the dangers of climate change.

  2. I agree with what you said about how this activity was personal because it most definitely was. When I first had to think of a voicemail to create I thought of the most logical event that could happen in the future and that was running out of water since some states are already experiencing that. I think it’s a great project because it gets people thinking of various ways that we will be affected by climate change in the future.

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