Introducing the Protagonist – a real-life climate change superhero.
One of the core themes of the story is mental health, as the protagonist Dr. Ben Richards’ suffers from long term Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and how he strives to find his real voice, which isn’t a voice but his natural leadership in creativity!
Once he recognises this in the story then his anxiety significantly reduces, as he realises the true measure of leadership is influencing others with his creative genius and thought out philosophy, rather than just to get his voice heard in motivational speaking. This was due to his psychological trauma of seeing his mother die from a Tsunami at a young age and crying out to her to try and save her, that caused him to have the desire of wanting to be heard!
The protagonist’s mental health is symbolic to the way our younger society is starting to feel more and more anxious about the impact that climate change is going to increasingly have on their world in the future. I would like the younger generation to feel good about themselves and make them feel uplifted and inspired by my story, to look at developing a future in STEM subjects that can help them become creative leaders like the protagonist in the story. If I achieve helping others find their inner self through this story and inspire them to create, I have more than exceeded in my mission, when setting out to write this story.
The protagonist’s innovative thinking is derived from looking at the overall science and the economics of a design solution within a particular environment rather than merely the product engineering itself. Therefore, looking at design solutions from a more artistic, scientific, and entrepreneurial mindset than ordinarily an engineer or an architect would.
His design philosophy is to create design solutions that help curb increases both in global temperature and atmospheric CO2. His initial focus on improvements in producing wind energy is just the start of his innovative thinking to produce better design solutions that will improve the atmospheric aspect of climate change which in turn has an effect on declining levels of oxygen and increasing acidification of the Earth’s oceans.
The protagonist not only suffers from autism but long-term PTSD stemming from the tragedy he witnessed of seeing his mother die in a Tsunami caused by climate change. He has the ability to use his self-motivated creative drive developed from his PTSD compounded by his innate divergent thinking coming from his autistic traits, as his strength to be able to develop creative ingenuity and leadership.
Emphasising the story’s arc having a strong moral in turning a negative into a positive and helping society identify that their weakness may actually be their strength and superhuman power!
Dr. Richards is different, and as a real-life superhero uses his unique creative gift. His creative skills developed from his autism and his experience of trauma has transformed him into a superhero that helps create innovative design solutions to combat against climate change. In today’s world, there is some of Dr. Richards’ traits, experience, and ability in us all, wanting to gain recognition for our work in helping others and the environment.
