Title: "Rebuild of Evangelion: 2.0"
Series: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Original Topic: The March of Technology
As we mentioned in the original article, the charm of the Evangelion series is that it is over a decade strong, and as such, it has been subject to many aesthetic changes thanks to real world changes in technology. Now, that article was written over nine months ago. Since that time, many changes in the real world have already manifested which coincide with futuristic tech predicted by the film. It's a good thing too, because most of these predictions have to do with the global water supply.
Here's a bit of perspective: California, the US's most diverse agricultural and economic region, is currently facing its most severe drought in history. As of today, over 50% of the state is in the highest drought level, to the point that wasting water has become illegal. Needless to say, if we want to continue to sustain water needs, we need to bring in water from elsewhere. The best place would of course be the ocean, but that requires removing dissolved solids from ocean water first.In the "Rebuild" films, one of the key background points was how the Second Impact occurred across all of Antarctica, tainting the water supply of the southern oceans before spreading to cover all interconnected bodies of water, turning it all a deep red. In order to reverse this, oil rigs were converted to giant water treatment facilities in order to clean the oceans year over year. Since the release of the 2.0 film, there have been numerous new water purification technologies in the works.
First on the list is Float Lab, an experimental container which floats on an open body of water. It takes that water into itself, purifies it and continues to hold it in storage. The design is going to be used to create +Pool, which is a series of large movable swimming pools for human use to be built on contaminated water. Then you have a special carbon-graphite material which uses solar energy to purify water. It's currently in a small-scale production, but larger systems could be made which utilize solar mirrors.
Of course, all of this technology costs money and will only be funded if the need for it is dire, the way it was in Rebuild. Some would say that time has already come, while others are holding out for just a while longer, squeezing the land of every last drop (no pun intended). The bottom line though is that if we do nothing, we will be subject to the same challenges and tribulations as those in the dystopic world of science fiction.
