I was at school, ravishing a delightful pastrami sandwich bought that morning at Nugget while listening to my friends discuss upcoming plans for winter break. Lauren Blackwell, the athletic one, had a volleyball tournament that weekend, and we all wished her luck, reminding her to spike a few craters into the gym floor. Emma Hunter, the smart pants, was going to Nevada for a wedding, while I excitedly told everyone that I was going to Disney World. We all looked at Chloe Farrell, who was silently twirling her spaghetti with her fork. “Where are you going Chloe?” I asked.

She sighed. “Well, we were planning on going to Canada, but our flight got cancelled because of Global Warming.” She raised her fork and glumly watched as the spaghetti slipped off. We all stared at her. It was very unlike Chloe to be down about something.

“What does Global Warming have anything to do with your trip to Canada?” Lauren asked, genuinely confused.

“It’s because the US is trying to limit the amount of Green House gasses they are releasing into the atmosphere,” Chloe explained, “So, airports have taken it upon themselves to restrict planes only for those that really, really need to get in or out of the country. Like situations where there’s a family death in a different country, a criminal that needs to be sent away, or when student Visas expire and non-US citizens need to go back home.”

My jaw fell open. “What? But… I’m going to Florida!”
Chloe shrugged. “We had our trip booked since June, but they cancelled it anyways.” I was speechless.

“Chloe’s right, “Emma said glumly. “My dad was just telling me a couple days ago how Global Warming might get so bad that everyone on Earth will be thoroughly baked by 2050.” Emma’s dad was a Global Warming specialist, so we all gaped at her.

“Why, that’s only 41 years from now!” Lauren gasped, doing some quick mental calculations. “We’ll only be 55 by then!” The bell rang, ending the conversation, but not Global Warming. In Economics that day, the teacher showed the class how the rise of Global Warming has caused the United States to significantly reduce international trade, worsening the recession.

“Global Warming,” She warned, “may cause a depression so drastic for the United States Superpower to crumble and fall.” She paused, peering at us over her rimmed glasses. “You guys may have to migrate to Antarctica.”
Chloe was in my class. “Global Warming is destroying our lives,” she whispered to me sadly.

I wasn’t even free from Global Warming at home. “Aw man,” my dad groaned when he opened the PG&E bill, “The cost of electricity went up again.”

“It’s Global Warming,” My mom replied sullenly. “Those electricity companies are getting charged more and more for their fossil fuel burning.” She looked up from her letter, noticing me ransacking the fridge. “Our trip to Disney World got cancelled today because of--”


“I know,” I interrupted impatiently, “because of Global Warming.” I had had enough. I was going to defeat Global Warming.

The next day I asked Lauren, Emma and Chloe to come to my house after school.

“What for?” Lauren asked suspiciously.

“To defeat Global Warming.” I replied simply. Two hours later, we were all sitting in my room. “First,” I said, taking charge. We were, in fact, all here because of me. “We need a plan.”

“How?” Chloe asked tentatively, almost afraid of the answer. Luckily, Emma was a step ahead of me. “We need to go to the source.” She said.

“Which is…?”

“Carbon Dioxide.”
For the rest of the evening we decided that finding a way to imitate photosynthesis by using carbon dioxide to form both sugar and oxygen would be our goal. The sugar part was a plus, the oxygen a must.

“But not too much,” Emma warned. “Oxygen is flammable, so we don’t want to make the world blow up.” We all stared at her.

For the next month, I spent almost all of my free time researching plants and the process of photosynthesis. Whenever I slacked off and tried to take up another activity, it seemed as if a giant Global Warming shadow loomed over me, making it impossible to actually enjoy myself. Before long, I was entirely committed to the project. I studied diagram after diagram, plant sample after plant sample. I knew what a plant cell looked like, what the chloroplasts were, and knew the complex and intricate process of photosynthesis by heart. Emma, Lauren and Chloe all seemed to share my feelings, and worked just as hard. The four of us became such a dedicated presence in the school laboratories that even the science teachers gave us a spare key, trusting us to “lock up after you’re finished”. But for a while, it seemed as if we would never finish. There were always so many things that we saw but didn’t at the same time. However, luck must have been on our side, and we chanced upon something vital to our project.

The four of us were all very carefully studying individual plant samples under very powerful microscopes when Lauren asked suddenly, “What’s that?” Since Lauren was not much of a genius when it came to science, none of us were eager to peel our eyeballs from the microscope and go see. A few minutes later, I went to scrutinize Lauren’s carefully set up Royal Palm Tree leaf sample, no longer able to concentrate with her pestering. I lowered my eye to the eyepiece, looked long and hard through the glass, and finally said, “Why, that’s nothing but an air bubble.” Emma and Chloe giggled while Lauren turned red. “I though it looked strange,” she grumbled to the floor. I didn’t reply. I was too busy staring at the minuscule flakes floating inside the air bubble. It looked like some sort of powder, and on a hunch, I isolated it and ran a few tests over the next couple of days. Luck, yet again, was on my side. The powder, I discovered, was actually some kind of bacteria that practically survived on carbon dioxide. It was this powder-like bacteria that was behind the entire process of photosynthesis; it absorbs the carbon dioxide, feeds on the carbon, and then releases the resulting oxygen molecules back into the atmosphere. This was the key to all of our problems, and we had found it. We dubbed it “Fairy Dust”. Over the next month, we learned how to extract the fairy dust from plant samples, and discovered that the larger the leaf, the more fairy dust it contained. By spring break, we had nearly 10 pounds of the bacteria. The question now was, what do we do with it?

“Why don’t we just sprinkle the dust around?” Chloe suggested. “It would definitely help the Carbon Dioxide in the air.” We did just that, but soon discovered that fairy dust does not move around on its own. My backyard became delightfully easy to breathe in, but the rest of the neighborhood stayed the same.

“We need something that would remove the green house gases everywhere,” Emma concluded. “After all, Global Warming is everywhere, not just in Anna’s backyard.”

We were stumped. For the next couple of days we would take turns suggesting methods that would only figuratively go up in flames.

A few days later, I was in my room holding a small Ziploc bag that contained my share of the fairy dust. Trying to come up with an idea, I turned the packet over in my hands, inspecting the pale green powder. It was upside-down when a small stream of powder poured out of the partially unzipped corner and coated the entire front of my skirt. I quickly set the fairy dust down and inspected my skirt. That’s when a brilliant idea hit me, the impact just as strong as if I had been hit by a sack of potatoes instead. I dashed to the hall to make phone calls to the girls.

By that summer, photosynthesizing fabric was designed, patented and then introduced to the public courtesy of the Davis Enterprise. Word spread and Abercrombie and Fitch, spotting a good business opportunity, quickly offered each of us $2 million dollars for complete rights to manufacture and sell the fabric. After a long discussion, Emma, Chloe, Lauren and I decided to turn down the offer, choosing instead to scrape together some money to begin production all by ourselves. It was tough at first, but after we got past all the legal work, it was a piece of cake. All that stood before us now and our very own company was the name.

“It should reflect the good that we’re doing,” Lauren commented. “Maybe something like Global Warming Fighters.”

“Yeah that’s catchy alright,” Emma said sarcastically.

“How does SunSprite sound?” Chloe suggested. I pondered it for a while, decided that I like it, and nodded.
It took a lot of careful advertisements, but SunSprite was an instant hit. To our delight, we quickly became billionaires, even without the help of Mr. Abercrombie. As more and more designers and clothing lines bought SunSprite fabrics, scientists reported that the amount of green house gasses was decreasing rapidly. That, of course, only made even more people eager to buy this amazing new cloth. Breathable, washable and now even environmentally active! SunSprite even became a major export, boosting the U.S. economy exponentially while fighting Global Warming all over the world at the same time.

Still, Emma, Chloe, Lauren and I were especially careful not to let any of it go straight to our heads. After the first check that came, we had decided together right off that we should not spend all of it. It was just too much. Instead, we were only keeping about $ 5 million each per year and donating the rest to charities of our choice. Of course, certain splurges, such as large house, cars or even thousand dollar boots, were perfectly excusable every once in a while. We were careful not to let greed take over our lives. Emma constantly reminded us that too much oxygen in the atmosphere is just as dangerous as too much carbon dioxide- if not more. Therefore, all of us agreed to meet every year to calculate just how much Photosynthesizing fabric should be manufactured and sold each year based on annual reports on the levels of gasses in the atmosphere.

By 2015, our ultimate goal was reached; scientists from all over the world reported that Global Warming was no longer a threat. The world had finally broken our of its fever and was on the road to recovery. A few years later, Emma, Chloe, Lauren and I were even presented the Nobel Peace Prize. To celebrate, we all traveled to Disney World. All except for Chloe that is. She decided to take her family to finally go on that trip to Canada she had missed 5 years ago.