Populus Caelum

March 28, 2022

Populus Caelum

16 March 2072

To Who is Concerned,

I write to warn you of the dangers that could arise in the future and to inform you of the shortcomings of our government that resulted in the landscape being changed to the horrid place I am now writing from. It has been 45 years since the summer of 2027. The year that Fenton first dried up. Fenton was a large lake surrounded by mountains and was the main water supply for Hobart. Everyone was shocked as it had never happened before in living history. As well as a record hot winter there was hardly any rainfall at all. We all hoped it was a once off and the next year it filled up again and everyone in Hobart was relieved. It was full for two more years, until it dried up again in 2031. Over the next decade, Fenton was completely dry again in 2033, 2035, 2037, 2038, and 2040. Tasmanians went crazy. Water prices skyrocketed and people started queuing in cars for kilometres for natural clean water sources, like the springs on kunanyi.

In one farm near Campania two farmers squabbled for a shared dam, a gunfight ensued. Thousands moved to Huonville as climate refugees, tens of thousands more moved to Strahan and the west coast. These areas had more rain and slightly cooler weather. By 2045 the lands just to the west of Oatlands were classified as desert by the Bureau of Meteorology.

Despite the climactic disasters unfolding, the Premier of Tasmania, David Walsh, started to grow in popularity. His posters sprawled across the sides of most of the buildings in Hobart. He used propaganda to convince the people in rural and urban areas alike that the opposing party was not fit to look after Tasmania's water with false data supplied by his political ally Taswater. Through his false statistics and fearmongering, he gained a large following.

Several of his strongest political opponents died of ‘natural’ causes. He became so popular that in 2046, with the help of at least 50,000 people. He took control of parliament house. Anyone who wasn’t in his following, ‘Populus Caelum’, were either too scared of being ‘silenced’ by a member of his following, or were blinded to the truth and instead being drawn in by the appeal of his fear-inducing propaganda.

Most Tasmanians ignored the degradation of Tasmania's democracy and entered a state of blissful political ignorance. There was a small group of brave protesters, who marched on the Parliament's lawn, but the ‘Imperium Caelum’ who was Walsh’s new government formed by workers of Taswater, passed laws unanimously declaring protests were ‘antiprogressionist' and should be punishable by immediate arrest and locked up. Rebellion was quelled and there was no major unrest in Hobart in the years following.

In 2055 David Walsh died, his daughter, Sunday Walsh took control over the Imperium Caelum and Tasmania. In the intervening years she removed internet access from the Tasmanian public and took control of the last remaining, partially independent media company, Tasmania's ABC. Sunday made it illegal for anyone to move residences. She did this I believe to stop the diminishing population in Hobart from shrinking more, which would result in the abandonment of infrastructure already existing, and to further stop people from trying to independently move closer to natural water sources.

By the year 2069 all resources were distributed and acquired by Sunday’s, Imperium Caelum.

This same year I was on the run.

With the dream of perhaps reaching a billabong on the west of the island, I grabbed my bike in the middle of the night and started riding from my bungalow in the east of Hobart. I headed up the dry rocky valleys to a small lake heavily guarded by Imperium Patrols. I headed further west on foot for many more days until I climbed over a surprisingly well vegetated saddle. I was starved when I saw the glint of a building's roof in what looked like a large town. I knew I couldn’t survive much longer and decided to investigate. I was met with multiple rusty gun barrels pointed at my face. A few days later their council accepted me as a citizen of their city. This society I learnt was called Melaleuca. A city of what could be ten thousand thrived between the mountains and the sea. Melaleuca had somehow rebelled and escaped control by the Walsh empire.

In the three years since, I joined Melaleuca, the community has unfortunately greatly diminished in strength and numbers. A heatwave, followed by a harsh drought, killed many. I am writing to you now as I fear that the resistance is failing, and it won’t be long until there is no one left to resist. I write to you, future person, in the hope that you will be able to smell the rare and beautiful lemon scented Boronia,

in the hope you will be able to hear the lonely currawong call, in the hope you will be able to see the rare swamp gum of which so many I have seen in my life and in the hope that you will be able to feel the cold air brush against your skin on top of a craggy wild mountain top.