Watching the Sun

Beijing’s air got so bad they put the sun on screens. Residents watched daylight through digital billboards because the smog was thick enough to block it out. The kind of thing you’d see in a dystopian film, except it was real.

The pollution levels in the city had become so severe that you couldn’t actually see the sun from the ground. So instead of accepting that something was fundamentally broken, they solved it the way you’d expect: with more screens, more electricity, more of the exact same system that got them there in the first place. There’s something perfect about that. Humanity’s answer to ruining the sky is to watch it on television.

I think about what we accept as normal. Fifteen years ago this would have been a shocking parable about environmental collapse. Now it’s just a Tuesday in a megacity. We’ve gotten used to breathing bad air, watching the world through glass and glowing rectangles, accepting that nature is something you experience at a remove if you experience it at all. The sun used to be free.

There’s an image I can’t shake: someone standing in Beijing on a gray afternoon, looking up at a screen, and below the screen people on their phones, probably watching videos from other cities with better weather. Everything’s mediated. Everything’s buffered. We’re all just watching the broadcast now.