Date – 2070

Place – Houston, USA

“Our Eden, ours to despoil. Onwards, towards a New Eden” Rev. Elias Fassbender.

Symbol of The New Eden Movement, a quasi-religious, anthropogenic (human centred) social movement that held the political balance across North America and Europe during the mid to late 21st century.

The movement rose in reaction to the punitive measures brought in to mitigate the effects of climate change. These measures, often accompanied by messages that used shame and guilt as a method of social control, left large segments of the population feeling disenfranchised and resentful.

The Rev. Fassbender, a hugely popular television evangelist, stepped into this volatile political arena fully formed, and with a simple message; Humans held dominion over the Earth and everything in it.

Decades old ecological projects based on the restoration of natural habitats were abandoned in favour of ‘Humans First’ policies and a new focus on space exploration.

The power of this movement is starkly revealed in the policies of space programs across the world. Bending to the will of the movement, colonisation of other planets became the objective; forgotten were the mistakes and toxic legacies of the past.

The star symbol, deliberately fabricated in Polythene, the most common and one of the most problematic of the new materials of the 20th century, was used as both a dismissive gesture towards the past and a rallying call to a new future.

The momentum of the movement was lost after the death of its enigmatic founder in 2091 during the launch of a privately financed prototype mass transit deep space exploration vehicle.

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