It is highly probable that, based on this summer’s historically all-time high temperature records, we will very probably die in the future of way-too-much sunshine.
“Grandpa Mickey, you gotta be more positive!” said my imaginary granddaughter. “We don’t have any choice but to face the future the way it is. And the way it is is gonna be hotter for a while.”
Okay, she has a point. They have been predicting the end of the world for years and years. It was supposed to end in 2012 according to the Mayan Calendar. It was supposed to end with Y2K in the year 2000. The Jehovah’s Witnesses were expecting the end to come in 1978. And a majority of Christian humanity was watching for signs of the Second Coming in the year 1000 A.D.
We have come through existential crisis before. Two world wars, a nuclear Cold War, the Black Death, the Spanish Flu, Covid 19, and Great Aunt Selma’s Christmas fruit cake.
“Fruit cake, Grandpa?”
“If you were brave enough to eat it, Susu, there were grave consequences…”
“Oh.”
“But you are always talking about being a nudist, right, Grandpa? That’s a solution to hotter weather. We can take our clothes off to be cooler.”
There are things that we will have to do if we are going to recover from global warming. Granted, getting naked is not really a step we will be forced to take, though it couldn’t hurt. I can make a list of things that need to be underway as a method of battling climate-change Armageddon.
We need to start with the whole “Eat the rich!” thing. I don’t recommend that we literally eat them. Food poisoning would surpass heart disease, cancer, and Covid if we did. But the climate change crisis is their fault. They made profits by polluting, slashing expensive safety and environmental protection restrictions to line their pockets with more wealth than they could ever spend. So, since fighting the climate change battle is going to be hugely expensive, they should pay most of it. They would be investing in a future where we can all live happily a while longer and not even think about killing them, roasting them, and serving them for lunch. We could wait for the Devil to do that part in his kitchen.
We need to adapt to frequent severe storms and rising oceans. Cities will need to evolve into sealed domed environments, many of which will eventually be underwater anyway. The oceans will need to be de-acidified. That’s because we will have to replace cattle ranches and field crops with seaweed farms and fish ranches. Restoring coral reefs will be critical. Many of us will swim to the worksite, or travel in robotic underwater crawlers, speeders, and swimming vehicles. In the city, inside the underwater vehicles, and in water where we don’t need pressurized suits, we really don’t need clothing. Susu and I will thrive there.
We will also be building many carbon sinks of different kinds upon the land. We have to not only put purified oxygen and nitrogen back into the air on land, but we have to suck an awful lot of carbon out. Vertical forests will become a thing, where skyscrapers of many stories will be enclosed by trees on every level. We will need to become like Mowgli and Young Tarzan, naked in the jungle and at one with a new form of nature, one scientifically balanced and controlled. Weather control and air scrubbers will join windmills and solar panels on much of the Earth’s surface.
Of course, majority rules. If you all decide that a lifeless thousand-degree boneyard is the better choice so you can have your big cars, super yachts, and penis rockets for the short while that the world is burning, Susu and I are not strong enough to stop you.
“Don’t think about the bad stuff, Grandpa. You and I will be good together in the future you talk about. See, I’m naked and ready already!”
“This is Texas, Princess. It’s illegal for you to be naked on the city streets where old church ladies will see you. I’ll end up in jail.”
“But they won’t catch me. I’m not real. Remember? I will only ever exist in the future.”
“Yes, I know. But I am already nearer to 70 than I am to the average first-time-grandpa age. And my children are not likely to have any more children in the near future.”
“Don’t be sad. We’ll be together one day. I promise.”
Well, it doesn’t hurt to be positive. The future looks pretty bleak. But sunshine has a way of finding even the bluest souls. And warming them up. And a granddaughter is not impossible.
As Yogi Berra once wisely said, “It ain’t over till it’s over.”
Catch a Falling Star 