2022 (20 page)

Richard, Sue, Olivia, and Diane used the
satellite television in Diane’s RV to watch the launch of both
rockets. Everything went flawlessly, and Richard said he would work
over the next few months on building a receiver and antenna to pick
up their transmissions as they approached the red planet.

“It’s been only weeks, and there are already
reports of breakdowns in infrastructure in several major cities.”
Diane said. “I wonder how much longer we’ll be able to get
television and radio.”

“Another month or two at most,” he said.
“Then we’ll be in the dark. I’ll get Olivia to destroy all traces
of the virus here and then tell the other villages to do the same.
It’s something this planet should never see again.”

His estimate wasn’t wrong as the last radio
station signed off six weeks after the last Mars launch. The elders
picked up a few people broadcasting, but it turned out to be
government officials and prominent VIP’s who had hidden in a
virus-proof shelter that was a considerable distance away. There
was a sick humor in listening as they desperately tried to make
contact with anyone. With limited supplies, no survival knowledge
and no one to govern, their broadcasts finally stopped.

********************

Richard looked out over Percipience from a
picnic table on Windmill Hill. Since the virus release, he visited
the location regularly over the last few months, enjoying both the
view and the privacy offered. Although meditation helped, he found
that writing entries in his journal was more effective in easing
the pain endured from the billions of people who had lost their
lives.

April 30, 2023

The solution to the ultimate puzzle required
tough decisions and a great deal of luck. The decision to have
Mikhail lead the research division turned out well. I knew
beforehand that he was affiliated with CURE. I knew that allowing
him access to unlimited money, autonomy, and the virus would
provide more than enough bait for him that he could not resist
putting his own plans into action. Although at the end, had I not
threatened to fire him, I’m not sure if he would have been
successful in releasing the virus before the government moved
in.

Olivia always was crucial to the overall
project. However, she fulfilled her purpose of creating the
vaccines needed only because I planted the printed documentation
for Mikhail’s Virtuesh-B where she would find it. Had I not done
this, the outcome would have been very different.

My goal was to have the virus released and
not to generate suspicion that I was involved—quite the opposite,
in fact as I wanted people to believe that I did everything in my
power to stop it. I may have overplayed the situation when I showed
Mikhail, his family. He surprised me by conceding to a deal. I
didn’t believe he would accept an offer with several hundred
members of CURE already vaccinated. His plan would have still
succeeded. When I entered the room with the signed deal, I had
resolved in my mind that I would have to kill him. When he moved
towards the computer terminal, my finger was on the trigger of the
gun in my jacket pocket. Then I was given a gift—Spencer! What
would happen if people knew it was I who made the calls to have him
brought into the DIR in the first place?

Somehow, beyond all odds, it worked out.
With several witnesses watching me as we tried to stop Mikhail’s
plans, no one suspects me. Now I can participate in, guide, and
nurture this village and the others for the rest of my life. With
much of the human population eliminated, there remains the chance
that my plan to solve the ultimate puzzle will succeed.

“
Processed data is information.
Processed information is knowledge.
Processed knowledge is Wisdom.”

- Ankala V. Subbarao

"The test of the morality of a society is what it
does for its children."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

There are four areas identified in this story
as major concerns for our world: pollution of the planet, natural
resource usage, economics, and the integrity of our social fabric.
The next book in the series,
2222
, will explore these topics
in more depth, but the underlying idea throughout is that there is
a finite limit to how much can be borne within each sphere of
influence at our current scale of consumption. Eventually, a
breaking point will be reached where the supply capacity in each
area will be unable to fulfill our unyielding demands.

The issues remain complex and carry a
staggering amount of data. To gain a better understanding, we need
time to study the data and collect accurate information. We need
time to convert the information into knowledge, and finally, even
more time to combine our knowledge, experience, and judgment into
practical solutions.

But time is really not on our side. In the
areas discussed, the strains continue without long-lasting
solutions. Demands are actually increasing and leaving us less time
to come up with the answers. With an increasing amount of data
needed to be studied for accurate information, we truly are burning
the candle on both ends.

How much time do we have before the candle is
used up? I often hear how “future generations” will have to deal
with global conditions, and while a true statement, I fear we’re
approaching a timeframe when future generations specifically refer
to us, our children, and our grandchildren.

I care about children, especially my own.
I’ve worked hard to provide not only physical comforts but formal
education and behavioral values in the hope they will enjoy as
productive and happy a life, if not more so, as I have had. I
believe that this is true for most of us; we care about children
and want them to have the best life possible.

Let me paint a fictional view of the world
fifty years from now—a time when your children and grandchildren
will be living their “best life possible.” I sincerely hope that it
remains fiction, although no one can be certain about the
future.

In fifty years, people will have to work
harder than ever to earn enough money to survive. They will pay not
only for basic needs but also for the currently escalating economic
deficit and grossly underfunded health-care plans that we are
currently building up. With at least another billion people on the
planet, diminishing supplies of fresh water for irrigation, and a
collapse of the ocean’s ecosystem, food will be in short supply and
they will either have to pay significantly more for it or eat very
different than we do today (would you like one or two scoops of
grubs?).

Continuing with our current consumption
patterns plus the consumption from another billion people will
result in more pollution, resulting in worse air and water quality.
“Do not leave the house because of air quality” days will be more
common. Greenhouse gas levels are higher than they have been in a
long time due to more factories and cars along with a significant
amount of methane released from thawing permafrost regions, causing
different weather patterns; hence, additional costs as people try
to adapt.

There will be shortages of vital natural
resources such as water, copper, phosphorus, and oil, for the
simple reason that there is a finite supply and past generations
will have effectively exhausted reserves.

Is this the kind of world we want to pass to
our children? Is it fictional? There is considerable data
supporting such a world within a fifty-year timeframe, yet most of
us continue to overconsume and pollute. What we are saying to our
sons and daughters would seem clear:

1. We don’t care.

2. We trust our leaders to handle it.

3. We don’t appreciate how bad the problems are.

4. We have processed all the data and
know
that the world we’re leaving you will be as good as, or better than
it is now.

Which is it?

I believe the reason for our apparent lack of
urgent concern is twofold: We trust our leaders to arrive at sound
environmental and social policies, and we do not fully appreciate
the magnitude of the issues we face. I believe that relying on our
leaders will offer too few solutions at too late a point in time.
Economics nearly always trumps environment and social needs. Lack
of appreciation and understanding of the seriousness of our
problems strongly suggests our assumption that the data revealing a
much darker world is completely false. This is dangerous
assumption. What if even part of it (or maybe the majority of it)
is correct?

I believe our current path of increasing
demand on finite resources is not sustainable, and I fear that in
several areas we are close to reaching a breaking point. Those of
us on this planet who care about children and their future must do
more. We must use less and try to provide enough time for long-term
solutions to be found. This action does not require laws,
regulations, and lobbying. It’s simply a matter of each of us
drastically reducing our consumption and caring more for other
people. Failure on our part will result in a future far less
pleasant than what we have envisioned for our children.

Some believe that lowering consumption and
being more compassionate are the solutions themselves. While in
some areas that may true, for others it may not be. For the same
reasons we cannot continue our consumption practices, we cannot
declare that we simply consume less and less; our consumption would
then go to zero and, as a species, we would cease to exist.
Solutions will be a combination of new and old thinking, taking
advantage of technology to live with purpose and in harmony with
the planet and each other.

I believe it is time not only for discussion
of these points but also to take carefully considered and effective
action. Please visit my website
www.the2222book.com
for information, debates, and ideas on what we can do to make this
a better planet for our children.

(*) I love word puzzles and the title of this
appendix, if you haven’t already guessed, is an anagram. The answer
is three large, pertinent words for the topic discussed. Once you
have the answer, can you come up with another anagram for the same
words? If so, please share it at my website.

In today’s world, we are immersed in the
economic machine and the way that it wants us to live. We must be
productive and we must consume. Different ways to live or
suggestions that there may be problems with the growth engine are
met head on through vehicles like the mainstream news media,
regulations and well-funded lobby groups. As a result, I feel that
many of us are not as informed as we could be on the major issues
facing us on this planet due to the abundance of conflicting
information that is out there.

Initially, I just wanted to do a bit of
research into the major areas of concern to get some perspective of
how bad things really are. One of things that staggered me as I
started to dig in was the amount of positive and negative
information that is out there on nearly every topic related to
sustainable living on this planet. Take for example the human
population on this planet. There are groups that say we do have a
population problem and there are groups that say we don’t, both
with convincing arguments backed up with data.

I concluded after a while that the reason
there are so many conflicting opinions is that the problems are
very complex and a complete analysis of all related data is nearly
impossible to do. Hence, groups state their opinions and back them
up with the data that agrees with what they are saying, making it
sound legitimate but only really saying part of the story. This
works for normal debates, but in issues related to the long-term
viability of our species on this planet, I fear it will fail. This
normal debate process will delay action until there is a time when
overwhelming data points to one side or the other. If the data
eventually shows us that there is a problem, it will probably be
too late to act.

This, in my opinion, is the real issue that
we must address. Are we willing to take the risk that we can delay
action on potential problems in the hope that there is no problem
at all? So far the answer to this question has mostly been yes.

This conclusion led me to take on a different
approach to my studies. Instead of trying to do the impossible task
of analyzing all of the arguments, I instead started to focus on
the amount of time we have left to come up with solutions
if
the issues are real. My reasoning is that this would give me an
idea of how long we can debate items before we will reach the point
of no return—the point where even if there is an issue, it is
really too late to do anything about it.

I am still constantly reading and trying to
get more informed, but my initial conclusions related to timeframes
were shocking enough that I felt compelled to write this series of
books.

Below are some areas either that have short
timeframes or have a major impact on them.

CFCs and the Ozone Layer

Most of you probably know that
chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are very destructive to our ozone layer.
There should be little debate here: The release of CFCs into the
atmosphere introduces a chemical reaction that depletes ozone. This
was discovered as early as 1974 yet it took until the year 1990 for
countries to setup regulations to ban CFCs in developed countries
by the year 2000, and developing countries by 2010.

The good news is that the ozone can replenish
itself fairly quickly. Recent reports are indicating that by
roughly 2050 it should be back to the same level as it was in 1970.
There are still several chemicals used in industries that impact
the ozone layer and there are ongoing meetings and new regulations
to control these.