by Paul Briggs
“But why is the one in Europe so much worse than the others?”
“Two reasons. First, Europe normally gets more rain, because of moisture from the North Atlantic. Especially heavy storms. We’ve actually had an above-average hurricane season this year—it doesn’t seem that way because only three of them made landfall in the U.S. Most of them stayed out over the ocean until they lost force and the prevailing winds pushed what was left of them into this mess.
“Second, meltwater from Greenland is being carried into the North Atlantic through the Denmark Strait, where it’s hitting warm water from the Gulf Stream. At the same time, we’re getting cold air from off the ice cap hitting warm air from further south. So this whole part of the ocean has turned into a giant storm factory, and most of what it’s making is heading east… for now. But I wouldn’t be surprised if we see some bad weather on this side of the Atlantic later this year.”
Yuschak nodded. “What about next year?”
“Next year I would expect all this to happen again,” she said. “There’s nothing to stop it. I wouldn’t expect it to always happen in the same parts of the world. The reason it’s happening in these particular places is that that’s where the polar jet stream is breaking down this year, but next year it may happen in different places.
“But I would expect this… monsoon season or whatever you want to call it… to become a regular feature of the weather in the northern hemisphere. In fact, most years I would expect it to be either more intense or more widespread, and to hit places further south.”
“Why is that?”
“The Arctic Ocean isn’t through changing. Next year, the ice-free moment is likely to be even earlier. At some point in the next few years it should stabilize, but we don’t know exactly when.”
“So… this isn’t even its final form?”
“’Fraid not. And I have to mention that even if it stabilizes, it won’t stay stable as long as greenhouse gas levels stay out of balance.”
“I had a feeling you were going to bring that up.”
“There isn’t really a way to avoid it. I mean, not only do we have to bring down our own carbon emissions, we have to bring them down even more to compensate for all the outgassing from the Arctic clathrates.”
“Yeah, I meant to ask you about those. How do you know that all this outgassing hasn’t been going on for centuries? How do we know that’s not what’s really behind all this?”
Isabel was stunned for a moment. Then she remembered that Yuschak had promised not to claim it wasn’t happening. He’d never said anything about admitting it was caused by humans.
“I mean, it’s not like the Arctic is heavily explored,” he added.
“Well,” said Isabel, “we have testimony from the Inuit, who’ve lived there for thousands of years. They say the ocean never used to belch at them before. And coastlines that have been there for the whole of recorded history are eroding now because the permafrost is collapsing.”
“But doesn’t the level of CO2 normally go up and down anyway? If you look at the fossil record, haven’t there been other periods of warming, caused by volcanoes and changes in the sun?”
“You might be thinking of the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum,” Isabel said. In fact, she suspected Yuschak had never heard of the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum and was only vaguely aware that Earth’s temperature had gone up and down in the geologic past, but since he’d raised the subject, she was ready.
“Explain that for our viewers,” he said, instead of what the hell are you talking about?
“The PETM, as we call it”—pet-em, that was one embarrassing acronym—“is the closest thing in the fossil record to modern climate change. At least, the earliest part of it is. It happened about fifty-five and a half million years ago. Average global temperatures rose about six degrees centigrade over the course of—”
“How much is that in real degrees?”
“Eleven degrees Fahrenheit.”
“So it’s like what’s happening now.”
“Not exactly. The big difference is, the temperature rise during the PETM took place over about twenty thousand years. The increase in global temperatures we’ve already measured is equivalent to about forty-five hundred years’ worth of the PETM increase, and it happened in less than a century and a half. So to answer your question, we know it’s not natural because we know what natural climate change would look like, and this isn’t it. It is much, much, too fast.
“Oh, and here’s an interesting statistic about volcanoes. In 2010, there was a volcanic eruption in Iceland that released 150,000 tons of CO2 every day—and yet it caused a net decrease in carbon emissions for that year. You know why? Because the air traffic that was cancelled due to the eruption would have released more than twice as much.
“And about the sun—yes, it does go through cycles. However, there haven’t been any significant correlation between changes in solar irradiance and changes in global temperature since around 1980. So… not volcanoes this time. Or the sun. Sorry.”
“I feel like you guys want it to be our fault somehow,” said Yuschak. “Like you enjoy being all gloom-and-doom.”
“Seems to me you’re being a lot more gloom-and-doom than I am.”
“What?” Yuschak looked genuinely shocked. Probably no one had ever accused him of that before.
Isabel pressed on. “We’re already agreed this is happening, right? We’re not going to pretend it isn’t?” Yuschak nodded. “So if it turns out you’re right, if it’s a natural phenomenon and human civilization can’t affect the climate at all… we’re screwed. Our food and water supplies are going to be yanked out from under us and rearranged God knows how, and big parts of the world are going to become too hot for humans to survive in, and there’s nothing we can do about it.
“But what I’m saying is, to the extent that we’re still causing it, we have the power to change it. The damage we’re doing right now—we can stop doing that. We can fix this.”
“Whoa!”
“Or at least keep it from being any worse than it has to be.”
“Wait. Slow down. Hang on here. You keep saying we. We can stop. We have the power. Who’s this ‘we’? Who specifically are you referring to that’s going to do all this?”
It took Isabel a moment to think of a reply.
“I was thinking… humanity in general,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking of anybody in particular.”
“Well, you should,” said Yuschak. “Or maybe not you, but somebody should. ’Cause—listen to me, this is important—humanity in general isn’t all going to get its shit together and start doing the same thing at the same time. Just not going to happen. Humanity in general is just a big bunch of people all looking after their own needs. You can talk some individuals into changing their habits, but if it turns out that’s not enough and you keep saying ‘we gotta do something’ it’s going to end up being the government that does it. That’s what scares me.”
“I don’t really care who solves the problem. If somebody invented a machine tomorrow that could fix the air, that would be great. We could just turn it on and be done with it.”
“There’s that ‘we’ again.”
“My point is, it doesn’t have to be the government.”
“But it’s going to be,” said Yuschak. “No matter what you intend, that’s what’s going to happen. People aren’t all on the same page, nonprofits are too small, and corporations are busy making money—it’s going to be the government.
“What I’m saying is, I’m more afraid of the government than I am of the weather. People you can tell to get lost, corporations you can refuse to do business with, but the government can tell you what to do. It is fundamentally… an instrument… of coercion.” He tapped his desk as he spoke, to punctuate his words. They were almost out of time. Isabel tried desperately to think of some simple way to get her point across.
“Seems to me,” she finally said, “the more people step up and do what need
s doing of their own free will, the less we’ll need any kind of coercion.”
Yuschak shook his head. “‘Do what needs doing of your own free will, and we won’t need any coercion.’ Sure hope you never hear that on a date. Isabel Bradshaw, ladies and gentlemen.”
* * *
Isabel’s face might have been turning a malevolent shade of pink, but she kept her composure until she was off the set and well away from the cameras. Then she stomped into the greenroom, yanked her jacket off the coat rack and picked up her purse. The only person who was even trying to meet her eyes was Lisa.
“Um… don’t forget your gift bag,” said Lisa, holding it out nervously. Isabel snatched it out of her hand and glared inside. There were a couple of books, a T-shirt, a hat, a pot brownie, and a couple of bottles of liquor that were just the right weight to smash over somebody’s head. Or to drink from until she blacked out. Either would feel pretty good right now.
Lisa was biting her lip again, looking at Isabel as if she wanted to apologize for having been in the building at the time. “Is there something else?” Isabel said, trying to keep her voice neutral.
“Yeah. Um… I’m sorry that ended like it did, but… the thing about Walt…” Lisa bit her lip again. There was a long silence.
“What about him?” Isabel finally asked.
“He wouldn’t have said that if he didn’t… um… if he didn’t think you could handle it.”
“Yeah, he’s only nice to people he doesn’t respect,” said Adam from the corner.
“Thank you,” said Isabel flatly. “I have to go.” Lisa stepped out of her way as she left the greenroom.
* * *
Back in the hotel room, bearing in mind that Walt’s show had agreed to pay her hotel and travel expenses, Isabel was vengefully raiding the minibar. She took a moment to look in her gift bag at the books, which turned out to be Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, because of course they were.
Even though Yuschak had suddenly turned skeptic or denialist or whatever it was you wanted to call somebody who kept resurrecting every single discredited talking point that anybody had ever made in the last few decades, Isabel thought she’d been doing pretty well. Until the conversation had gone to the question of what to do about it. She had to admit that public policy was not her strong point. And that little parting shot of his had been… unnecessary. Not to mention just plain yecch.
Of course, now that she was well away from the studio, she thought of all sorts of things she should have said to him. For example: Hey, you know what else is coercive? Two feet of floodwater in your living room. Coerces you right out of house and home. And unlike the government, when nature declares eminent domain over your property it doesn’t even try to compensate you. Or: So, your entire argument is basically “global warming can’t be our fault, and it can’t be anything we have the power to affect, because if it were we’d have to do something about it and that would be terrible.” I have news for you—the laws of physics are not going to rewrite themselves to accommodate your political preferences. Or better yet: So government regulation is like date rape? Tell you what. Tomorrow I’ll visit the DMV, and you can visit the prison shower, and afterward we’ll compare notes and see who had the worse day.
But that was why Walter Yuschak had a show and she didn’t. He was one of those rare people who could come up with everything he needed to say right on the spot.
Her phone rang. The ringtone was Epifania’s “I Won’t Forget,” which meant it was somebody in her immediate family calling. “It’s Chelsey,” said the phone, just as her older sister’s face appeared on the screen.
“Hey.”
“How’re you feeling, chunkybutt?”
“Not so great.”
“Yeah, I saw you on the screen. Pop’s gonna lose his shit when he finds out.”
“Let’s not tell him about this, okay?”
“Yeah… for what it’s worth, I thought you came out ahead on points.”
“Thank you.”
“Rod said, ‘He’s a dick, but I respect his principles.’”
“Well, that’s his opinion, I guess.” Isabel had always looked at national problems with the same pragmatism she looked at her own problems with. If the toilet was clogged, you unclogged it. You didn’t pretend it wasn’t really clogged, or that being clogged was part of the natural cycle of toilets and you shouldn’t try to interfere with it. You grabbed a toilet plunger and got to work. What Yuschak seemed to have been saying was that you shouldn’t be allowed to do that, because with that plunger you should have power too great and terrible, and over you the plunger would gain a power still greater and more deadly… or something like that. It was an interesting point, and she made a mental note to think about it some more when she was less pissed off at him, which (“Sure hope you never hear that on a date”) would probably take a while.
No sooner had the conversation ended than her phone rang again. This time the ringtone was Rodomontade’s “Peligro,” which was reserved for just one person.
“Hi, Hunter.”
“Hey… you all right?”
“Fine. Just… kinda humiliated.” There was a tightness in her throat. Isabel hadn’t cried since she was a child, but she was suddenly very close to it.
“I’m so sorry. I wish I was there in person.”
“I kinda need to punch something right now.”
“Okay, then I wish I was there in person wearing one of those padded suits they use in self-defense classes.”
Isabel managed a chuckle. Then there was a catch in her throat, and the tears came. She didn’t make much noise, but she knew Hunter knew.
“Oh my god,” she said, “I’m using up all your airtime listening to me cry.”
“You’re more than welcome to cry all over my airtime.”
Isabel blew her nose.
“But I’m gonna have to charge you for blowing your nose on it. Hey, if it makes you feel any better, some congressman is saying Yuschak needs to apologize on air.”
“Really? Is it my congressman?”
“Nah, it’s somebody named Darling from Ohio. He says, quote, ‘My parents always taught me to treat women with courtesy and respect. My teachers taught me to treat women as equals. Yuschak didn’t do either one of those things.’”
“Oh, darling.”
“Uh… me or him?”
“Ain’t tellin’.”
“Oh, hey—I know you’re not into games, but I’ve got my own airship now and I could really use a first mate. How about it? Just you, me and a bunch of NPCs helping the Republic of Clovia fight off a chthonid attack?”
Joining an MMORPG as a noob seemed more likely to be a cause of humiliation than a cure for it. But if her boyfriend was going to be the only one watching until she got the hang of it… that might not be so bad.
Climatologists were divided on whether to call it the Autumnal Subarctic Extreme Precipitation Event or the Northern Monsoon. The first name implied that it was a unique disaster that would not be repeated, while the second implied that it was the first occurrence of a new annual event.
By whatever name, it came to an end in early November. The bands of rain retreated north, around the Arctic Circle, and turned to sleet and freezing rain, then to snow. In Germany, the Netherlands, and the Scandinavian states, nine million people had been rendered homeless by flooding. They would need to spend the winter somewhere warmer, until their homes could be rebuilt. The northern countries sent emergency funds to France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Greece to help those countries look after their people.
* * *
It was the day after Election Day across the nation, but for Carrie in Virginia it was just another day at the office. Right now she was talking with a congressman and a naval official. The congressman was doing most of the talking, which gave her an excuse to let her mind wander.
Last night she had considered staying up until she was sure who the next president was going to be, but it still hadn’t bee
n resolved at 1 a.m. and forty-five was too old to be pulling an all-nighter when you had to work the next day, especially if all you were going to do was sit there and watch events unfold that you had no power to alter. Anyway, watching Virginia’s results was a nail-biter for any Democrat—results from the northern counties always came in last.
Just as well she’d gotten some sleep. The morning’s news wasn’t great. They were going to recount the votes in Ohio and Florida one more time, but it looked like Pratt had won.
The system was what it was. The Founding Fathers might never have intended a permanent two-party duopoly for the nation, but if they had, they would have done nothing different. The White House was the biggest prize in politics, and in the race for it there was no silver medal. We keep waiting for the Demographics Fairy to just hand us the nation wrapped up with a bow, thought Carrie, and it keeps… almost happening. And meanwhile we keep tripping over our own feet, or each other’s feet.
Unlike George W. Bush or Donald Trump, Pratt seemed like a real administrator. You couldn’t count on him to turn everything he touched into shit. That might not be good news for the Democratic Party—or for her specifically if she was going to be running against him in four years—but at least it was good news for the country. Anyway, with the Democrats holding a one-seat majority in the Senate and the GOP holding a fourteen-seat majority in the House, it was an open question how much of his agenda Pratt would actually be able to get through Congress… especially since a lot of Republicans didn’t like him all that much.
As it happened, Steven Radcliffe, R-VA, was one of those Republicans. He had run unopposed this year, which meant he didn’t have to spend today recuperating. He was maybe thirty, with a glossy head of blond hair, and looked fresh out of college. Carrie felt old just looking at him.