“Wasn’t
he fun?” Heather asked the entire team from her seat.
The room erupted with nervous laughter.
“Sorry about his attitude,” General Bo-seklin said, turning to look at Doctor Ko-silma. “Considering his disrespect of women, there’s no way he could be on the team.”
“Thanks for subbing for me, Betty,” Heather said with a grin. “I owe you one . . . or maybe two or three.”
“Any time. After twenty years in academia, my skin’s pretty thick.”
“He seemed to know his stuff,” Heather admitted, “and what he described, in general, matches my memories. I can, and will as time allows, give you details about multi-year snow droughts, super-storms, blocking anti-cyclones, fire storms, land hurricanes, major cities abandoned as sea-level rises, including our capital, and all the other gory details, but that’s not as important as today’s topic.”
She stood up and looked around. “Why is the climate changing? Why will the average annual temperature go up so quickly? Why, if we trust my memories, will the population of the world crash within the lifetime of . . .
anyone about my age or younger?”
Doctor Po-selem raised his hand timidly.
“Chris?”
“I know we’re not supposed to interrupt, but you did phrase it as a question, so I thought I’d offer a possibility . . . if you want.”
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Heather grinned sheepishly. “I did phrase it as a question, didn’t I?”
Everyone chuckled or smiled at her.
“Sure, let’s brainstorm, see if you, or anyone else, can come close. You have the floor, Chris.”
He stood and rubbed his chin for a moment. “Some scientists have become concerned about the heat energy we’re releasing in the modern age.
Ships, trains, cars, trucks, airplanes, electrical generation, building furnaces, industry . . . it all comes to quite a bit. Most physicists think the planet’s ability to radiate heat away into space, at least at night, is sufficient to compensate, but that notion is untested.”
“Interesting. Anyone else? Richard.”
Doctor Tu-feltin the historian stood, but stayed by his chair. “As I understand it, we don’t really know where we are in the ice-age cycle.
Perhaps this inter-glacial period is just destined to be much warmer than the world currently is, and so it’s a natural continuation of what began eight or nine thousand years ago.”
“Also interesting. Anyone else? Sarah.”
“I’ve read that our use of antibiotics might lead to highly drug-resistant diseases. Could that cause such a population crash?”
“Thank you, Sarah. Anyone else?”
With facial expressions, they surrendered.
“I appreciate your thoughts, and many people in the future will look in those same places, because the real cause is so . . . surprising.
“Chris, you get half a point for proposing an anthropogenic cause — a man-made cause. Every school kid after 3715 will be able to say anthropogenic climate change, even if they don’t know what it means. But no, the extra heat we generate is not the problem, although it certainly adds to the problem.
“Richard, half a point, as you are completely correct about that possibility, but the speed of the heating trend in question has another cause.
“Sarah, half a point, as you also mentioned an anthropogenic cause, and diseases, especially drug-resistant ones, will play a large part in bringing the population down. But that is a proximal cause, not a primal cause.”
Colonel Ma-soran nodded.
NEBADOR Book Nine: A Cry for Help 151
“Remember on Monday I said it’s not even on our radar yet? Everyone take a deep breath, hold it for five seconds, then let it out.”
They did, a little self-consciously.
“There. That’s the problem.”
After a few seconds, Doctor Ko-silma’s mouth dropped opened. “Oh my God. Carbon dioxide.”
Heather drew the offending molecule on the blackboard, along with its formula, CO2. “This little beastie is not on any scientist’s or environmentalist’s radar because it’s as natural as apples and daisies. Every animal, and even plants at night, release Carbon dioxide. Also any fire, all decomposition, and many other chemical changes.
“It’s
a
greenhouse gas, acting just like the glass on a greenhouse by letting in light but trapping heat. Every school kid will know that term before the end, too.
“Since it’s completely natural, the ecosystem has ways of pulling it back out of the atmosphere, and has been doing so since the beginning. Plants in sunlight do most of the work, but water and soil help, too.
“So it’s not the presence of Carbon dioxide in the air that’s causing the heating trend, it’s the presence of too much. Like I said on Monday, it started very slowly in about 3500. Today there are more than three billion breathing people in the world. About a third of those are driving cars, trucks, airplanes, and such. Most are heating their homes, and cooking, with fire. There will eventually be seven and a half billion. All of them want to breathe, drive cars, and heat their homes.
“By the time the world recognizes the problem, in about 3710, here’s what the situation will look like.”
She turned to the blackboard and drew four boxes. “This is rough and simple, but it’s the single most important thing I can give you from the scientific thinking of the future.
NEBADOR Book Nine: A Cry for Help 152
“We know the ecosystem of the planet can handle half a billion people living in caves or huts, and cooking on little campfires. Scientists of the future think that about the same number could have a small modern home and a little car. As another option, maybe a larger number could have the caveman life-style, but that’s very debatable. What’s not debatable is billions of people having a modern life-style. The Carbon Cycle of the planetary ecosystem can’t handle it. Hard, cold reality. Death trap. End of story. I’m very, very sorry.”
Heather sat down.
The silence, as they gazed at the blackboard, stretched for several minutes.
Heather hoped Doctor Tu-feltin, the blind historian, could visualize it.
“I open the session to questions.”
Still the silence lingered for another minute or two.
“So . . .” Doctor Tu-feltin finally said, “this is the scientific consensus of 3730?”
“Society was in shambles by then, Richard. Most scientific thinking and writing on the subject will be done in the teens and early twenties.”
“And the population right now is . . .” Doctor Bo-leden inquired.
“Three and a half billion,” the historian informed.
General Ba-kerga wore a suspicious frown. “How did they arrive at half a billion as a workable population?”
Heather spoke from her seat. “Primarily by looking at world population before Carbon-based energy sources — coal, oil, and natural gas — began to make our modern lives possible. They correlated that with Carbon dioxide data from bubbles trapped in the ice caps. The planetary ecosystem does not seem to be bothered by half a billion cavemen or peasants, and their typical activities. The belief — or at least hope — that half a billion could have
NEBADOR Book Nine: A Cry for Help 153
modern, comfortable lives is based on the very best in efficient housing and transportation — tiny, well-insulated apartments, and itty-bitty cars or scooters like used overseas. Forget big luxury cars, airplanes, and most modern industries.”
Another minute of silence passed.
“What, exactly, will be the direct cause of two-thirds of the people dying?”
Colonel Ma-soran asked with a long, sad face.
“The collapse of commercial agriculture as we pass the plus-one-degree point. It’s completely dependent on a stable climate, modern transportation, electricity, hybrid seeds, chemical fertilizers and pesticides — all produced far away from the farms. When any one of those becomes a problem, it can usually be fixed. When all of them become problems . . .”
After a moment of thought, Sarah nodded.
“There will be warning signs. When the honey bees die off on land, and the little sardines in the sea, you’ll know that human civilization is doomed.
That will happen in the teens.”
Several people cringed.
“Growing food will still be possible, even in the 3730’s, as long as you have a source of water, such as a stream coming from a mountain canyon. Gardens and small fields, worked by hand, sent food to the little store near my house, and probably continued to produce and sell food somewhere after I was gone.
But we don’t, and indeed can’t, feed billions of people from a few little gardens and fields worked by hand.”
The silence lengthened as noon approached.
“Heather, in your opinion,” Two-star General Bo-seklin asked, “is this the future event we should be most concerned about, and maybe . . . do something about?”
Heather looked at him and took a deep breath. After blinking several times, she slowly nodded, just once.
