I never seen the night nor seen a star; I’ve seen neither spring nor fall nor winter. I was born at the end of the Reining Age(刹车时代), just as the Earth’s rotation(旋转) was coming to a final stop.

The Reining lasted for 42 years, three years longer than the Unity Government had planned. My mother once told me about the time our family witnessed the last sunset. The Sun had ever so slowly crept toward the horizon, almost as if it had stopped moving altogether. In the end, it took three days and three nights to finally set. Naturally, that was the end of all “days” and all “nights”. The Eastern Hemisphere(半球) was covered in weak light for a long time then, perhaps for a dozen years or so — with the Sun hiding just beyond the horizon — its rays reflected by half of the sky. It was during that long sunset that I was born.

Dusk did not mean darkness. The Northern Hemisphere was lit up by the Earth Engines. These giant engines had been raised all across Asia and North America; only the solid plates beneath those two continents could resist the great pushing forces they exerted. There were about 12,000 Earth Engines built and distributed across the Asian and American plains.

From my home I could see the bright plasma plumes(等离子气柱) of several hundred Earth Engines. Just imagine a titanic palace, one as large as the Parthenon on the Acropolis. Now imagine countless titanic pillars rising from that palace, reaching to the heavens, each releasing brilliant, bluish-white light like a titanic shining tube. And then there is you; you are a microbe on the palace’s floor. This only begins to paint the picture of the world we lived in.

This picture, however, is not yet complete. In order to survive the melting temperature of the expanding sun, we have to push the Earth away from it. First, the Earth must be stopped from rotating. Only the forces acting tangentially(正切地) to the Earth’s rotation could slow it, so the Earth Engines had to be built to a specific angle. Those gigantic pillars of light were leaning to that angle. Now imagine what that meant for our palace, with its pillars all leaning on the point of falling down! Many who came from the Southern Hemisphere went mad when suddenly seeing this awesome view.

Worse than the view was the burning heat released by the Earth Engines. Outdoors the temperature was stuck at around 160 to 180 degrees, forcing us to wear special suits just to leave the house. The extremely high temperatures often brought pouring rains. It was always a terrifying scene when the beam of an Earth Engine cut through dark clouds. The clouds scattered the brilliant, bluish-white light of the beam, erupting it into endless rainbow light that covered the entire sky like white-hot magma(岩浆).

To my generation, born in the Northern Hemisphere, all of this was perfectly normal and natural, just like the Sun, stars and Moon had been to generations before the Reining Age. We called the entire history of the human race that had come before us the Pre-Solar Age; what a fascinating and golden era that had truly been!

The Reining Age left the earth with a horrifying result. The sea tides, quickened by the Earth Engines, had swallowed two out of every three cities in the Northern Hemisphere; then the global increase in temperatures melted the polar icecap, resulting in floods that spread to the Southern Hemisphere. Thirty years earlier my grandfather had witnessed giant 300-foot waves that had engulfed Shanghai. Even now, he could never tell us about it without his gaze slipping into a thousand-mile stare.

Our planet had already changed beyond recognition before it even set out on its journey. Who knew what hardships were waiting for us on our long travels through outer space?

The sea could be the food bowl of the future. In Jervis Bay, south of Sydney, seaweed, which is rich in fibre and omega 3, is grown and harvested.

Pia Winberg is a marine scientist who runs Australia's first food-grade fanned seaweed company. Her crop is grown alongside mussels (贻贝)and is used as an additive in pasta (意大利面)and other products.

Seaweed is also raised in large tanks, where it absorbs carbon dioxide waste from a wheat processing factory. The business is small, but could help to reduce the ecological footprint of traditional farming.

“We used ten percent of seaweed instead of wheat in breads and pastas, we've eliminated a million hectares of land, we've eliminated all of the carbon dioxide emissions associated with that, and we've also reduced the pressures on very precious fresh water.” said Pia Winberg.

Spiny sea urchins (多刺海胆虫)are another blue economy resource. They can destroy marine habitats, but a recent competition for environmental start-ups in Australia, saw them not as a pest but a delicacy (美味).

Martina Doblin, CEO of Sydney Institute of Marine Science, said, “By 2050 we will have some ten billion people on the planet, and about half the food they eat will come from the ocean. So, we really do need to pay attention to the way that we manage the blue economy-generating wealth from the ocean but in a sustainable (可持续的)way.”

Farming at sea has its challenges. Infrastructure (基础设施)has to be sound, as do supply chains and biosecurity. But get these things right, and the ocean might just be the next great economic frontier.

The future of the press?

Interesting things are happening in press. Newspaper circulation in Europe is falling and Ireland and the UK have experienced the biggest drop. 【小题1】 Global newspaper sales are increasing and revenue from ads is still very strong. Nevertheless, it is clear that newspapers need to change to meet the demands of a rapidly changing readership in a digital world.

The industry in Europe has made a number of changes, such as introducing more colour and moving from the big broadsheets to the much more user-friendly tabloid（娱乐小报）size. The greatest innovation has been the introduction of online newspapers, which have boomed since their introduction a little over ten years ago. 【小题2】 On the one hand, it is clear from the massive increase in online readers that e-papers are popular. On the other hand, their financial future is not so certain. This is basically because most people are not prepared to pay for online news. In fact, if it wasn’t for advertising, online newspapers would have a very hard time indeed.

A growing number of people are reading electronic newspapers instead of the print press and with good reason. First of all, they can read the news whenever they want. Secondly, readers are free to explore a subject as much or as little as they want. Thirdly, it is the perfect medium for‘real-time’news. 【小题3】 Readers were able to get minute-by-minute coverage at any hour of the day. Only 24-hour news on TV could compete with that.

The general view is that the future‘paper’will be a multimedia mix. Advanced technology and programming software will allow the user to create their own‘news package’. And it will arrive instantaneously, fed by superfast internet connections. The reader will receive up-to-the-minute news about everything from their local traffic problems to updates on news of specific interest to them. Nobody knows for sure what will happen, but as one expert put it,‘we won’t be saying“Here is the news”, we will be saying,“【小题4】”’