What They Weren’t Right About by Tamara Wilhite
Michael could see the houses covered in deep protective blankets of snow as his hunting party came over the ridge. The makeshift refugee camp was growing into a neo-medieval village. Those who had not the energy or endurance to hunt had collected their supplies to gather on the ice. Some cut blocks of ice to melt into fresh water, the snow being suspect from chemical fallout from far away refineries and factories left burning in the riots several years prior.
He could see the trails of smoke rising into the sky from their fireplaces. Fires he wished he could be near for warmth, despite the toxic danger of all the trash and asphalt they burned to keep from freezing. Oh, how he hated the cold, which seemed to never go away. Even the summers were mere thaws of the ever-present cold. Michael carried a few rabbits in his pouch, knowing his family would be grateful for the red meat. Anything was better than yet more coi and trout from the frozen over lake they fished day after day. Michael corrected his thoughts. No, he should be grateful to have found this refuge during the Chaos years. They had hunting options, and actually found rabbits sometimes. All the deer and horses and cattle had long since been caught and consumed. There was worse than having fish when he had no game from his hunt. The worst was to have no food at all.
A few birds circled overhead, seeking the fish caught by the ice-fishers. Perhaps Michael would set out snares to catch them, adding more variety to their diet. Michael came down the hill, seeing the girl he wanted to be his “partner” and her cousin walking across the frozen stream, the closest thing they had to a road in town in winter. No, he would offer it to her father, instead of a food reserve. Maybe then he could join their family, instead of his own. A better future lay there than staying in his parents’ overcrowded cabin. The thought warmed him as a heater of the olden days might have.
Memories of heaters reminded him of electricity. And his anger when it started to go away. The high prices as the oil ran out, as his parents had thought it would. And their sensibility to come here, to a small town in the wilderness, where the riots and starvation were merely a few shoot outs and hunger.
His environmentalist parents had been right about Peak Oil. What they weren’t right about was global cooling. He wished they’d been right about Global Warming instead.
You mean Global Warming is a farce, Tamara?
electivedecisions
October 15, 2008 at 7:27 pm
gloBULL warming is indeed just THAT.
bull.
and may this scenario never arrive.
salome
October 15, 2008 at 7:52 pm
His panty wetting whackjob parents weren’t even right about so called ‘peak oil’….there are enough proven recoverable reserves…including oil shale and tar sands to meet our petroleum needs indefinitely.,..not even counting coal gassification….as for anAL GOREtentive and ‘global warming, let’s not forget that this is the guy who isn’t even man enough to apologize to the American people for trying to steal the 2000 Presidential election in Florida….and one would have to be an utter cretin or scientific illiterate to take what he says about ‘global warming’ anyway
Robbins Mitchell
October 15, 2008 at 8:39 pm
Very interesting scenario. I’d say the global cooling ticket was a fun angle; but put this on for size (and this is what I thought you were doing): In Soviet Russia, after WWI and the Bolshevik revolution, you couldn’t find animals anywhere. In the northern Siberian tundra or along the southern borders. The reason was that a socialized economy couldn’t deal with agriculture, and the country’s food supply dried up. Plus, they were forcing dozens of people to live in places meant for couples–just like your families. Most eco-nuts are of the socialist variety; so imagine this: Global Cooling AND an economy without the means to feed its population.
Gives me shivers, no pun intended.
Kevin Bennett
October 15, 2008 at 9:38 pm
Climate is cyclic. Fifteen thousand years ago, the world was a lot colder than it is today. Average world temperature, since the ice ages started their cycles 40 million years ago, is lower than it is today.
Yet 10,000 years ago, right after the ice ages thawed out, it was warmer than today.
If we warm up, it will be our pre-civilization “normal”. If we cool off, it will be our pre-human “normal”.
We may have some influence on climate, but one solar flare or asteroid strike and we’re back to hard-scrabble survival.
Tamara Wilhite
October 17, 2008 at 12:15 pm
In short – pick a normal!
Back when the dinosaurs were running around, even the poles were sub-tropical.
So compared to Earth’s whole known and guestimated history, we need to warm up to get back to “normal”.
Tamara Wilhite
October 17, 2008 at 12:16 pm