Flying Dragons, Vaporettos, and Climate Change

Any scifi fantasy fans out there? Years ago I read Anne McCafree’s Dragonriders of Pern series. Short version: Hundreds of years after settling on a far flung planet, and losing most of their technology, streams of a searing acidic rain fall upon the land, killing people, animals and whatever it touched.

People are devastated and puzzled. They abandon their homes and retreat into caves. They build strong fortresses of thick stone walls, which the thread can’t breach. And they wait out the periods of destruction.

Then they learn that the dragons of Pern breathe fire that can destroy the caustic fall, and they become partners with the dragons to defend their home. Yet they still retreat to their hulking halls during the years of Thread fall. They have learned to adapt. They have to adapt. Ignoring the Thread only leads to disaster

Two things strike me about this book:

1. They get hundreds of years between Threadfall. It is a periodic occurance. Yet they make the accommodations needed, to keep their civilization alive, to stay safe, to wait out the terrible times. They build structures to withstand the attack, and they come to each other’s aid as the crisis wheels its way across the planet’s surface.
2. We on this Earth are not going to get a single second of relief from what is happening with climate change. The clock is ticking. Loudly. Annoyingly. Inevitably. And our reaction is to stuff cotton in our ears and complain about that annoying tick-tock.

In a future Earth sci-fi novel, “New York 2140” (Kim Stanley Robinson) tells the story of a young boy living in post climate change New York City, searching for submerged treasure. The city is inundated and vaporetto boats are now the stylish means of transportation in lower Manhattan. Crops are grown in abandoned highrises. There is no more fight against climate change — there is nothing left to fight against. It is here, an undeniable fact of life and the new reality. Housing and resources are under pressure, and part of the storyline follows those who need a home taking a stand to get it. The physical world has changed faster than society adapts. Yet life is still quotidian no matter what the world does around you. The water rises, you scooch over to dry land as you go through your daily tasks. Until the dry land gets very crowded and peoples toes get wet.

Two things strike me about this book:

1. The author had made the quite reasonable decision to depict a world future where climate change has not been reined in. While I am not happy to contemplate this type of future, I do think it is the most likely. Everything in life flows around where the money goes, frankly, and right now all the politics and powers are tipped in the favor of letting fossil fuels and greenhouses gases just tootle merrily along.
2. People have accepted and created a life in this imagined future. I also think this is likely. Humans are nothing if not adaptable. What else explains our ability to inhabit this planet from its polar regions to the equator, and create cultures and societies that can thrive in both?

One thing that strikes me about today:

1. Helene is our reality.
2. That’s it, just one thing.

Climate Change Is Here.

Moving away from the shore won’t save you. Asheville will tell you that.

Recycling your plastics won’t save you.

Driving an electric car won’t save you.

Nothing you personally do can save you. We have maybe 200 years of less of climate records — a nanosecond as far as the planet is concerned. Flood risk, rainfall predictions- none of that holds water any more. All bets are off. 100 year rainfall? 1000 year rainfall? All those metrics are meaningless when faced with the unpredictability of an unstable, changing climate.

As long as laws and policies permit wholesale pollution, and provide no financial incentive to companies for being ecologically responsible, the march of climate change will continue. The scale of industrial contribution to the climate is just too enormous. In 2017 the Guardian reported that just 100 companies produced 71% of global greenhouse gas emissions. In 2024 Smithsonian magazine reports that 80% of CO2 emissions come from just 57 companies

You cannot paper straw your way out of this one.

Your biggest impact upon the future lies in your vote. Unless POLICIES AND LAWS change, few corporations will take the least polluting route when they can get away with spending less money and making more mess. Blame capitalism, blame human nature, blame stockholder pressure, but it is self-evident.

So. Vote for politicians who will encourage energy sources that do least harm to our planet .

Vote for politicians who will actually think about the long term results of what they do. Who will get into the nitty gritty of building codes. Who will help have the patience and cooperative nature to work out complicated solutions.

Vote for politicians who believe in taking care of others, because there is going to be a whole lot of ‘others’ who will need taking care of. Do not think it will always be someone ‘other’ than you. Living in a world where that care is freely given, instead of taken by force, is better for everyone. Housing is just going to get more pressured as stock is destroyed by weather, and laws and policies need to promote fair and affordable housing options.

Vote for politicians who will put their energies toward solving the problem instead of being the problem.

Who are not angry, vicious, racist, retributionist scum.

You can recycle an entire lifetime of aluminum cans and it will never outweigh your vote.

So go

☑️

And check that box.