May 2062: Twenty years after the pandemic changed the world.

       It is hard to believe how the world and we have changed in the 20 years since the pandemic forced us to rethink who we were and why we were here. I can't believe while Derek and I are 38, Ron and Reg are now 19 and have taken over the day-to-day operation of Hutchins Construction. 

       Leaving Derek and me semiretired, but still heavily involved in planning what to do next. Most of it has been to counter the horrific climate change and its consequences I'm seeing from the 20th century now wreaking havoc on the 21st and all of our young people's lives.

       Not only have both of the boys… I still call them boys, although each of them has children since they were 17 and I have 3 grandchildren… taken on full responsibility for construction projects that I only dreamed of in their industries… 

       But, they both also have advanced degrees. Ron has a doctorate in mineralogy and Reg, a doctorate in astrophysics, leading our company into the space-based manufacturing that we are doing in addition to general, sustainable construction.

       But let me first tell you about the climate. While we have noted that the CO2 in the atmosphere has begun to decline rapidly and some parts of the Arctic permafrost have returned with increasing cold spells during the winters, during the past decade we have seen some of the greatest droughts that history has ever recorded: more violent storms requiring new scales of severity, hurricanes, tornadoes and derechos making much of the North American and Asian continents very dangerous places to live, except underground or in steel structures able to withstand 200+ mile an hour wind and hail the size of cantaloupes. Hail has killed more animals, birds and humans than the previous yearly climate killer, lightning, in the last decade.

       Shortly after the Great One 2 in the LA area, while we were rebuilding the fish market and the dock for the Rambler, we noted a rapid water rise. Wondah informed us that the ice cap covering Greenland had completely collapsed and so had parts of the continent ice of Antarctica, as seen from space.    

       The exposed bedrock grew green during the long summers for the first time, ever, in recorded history.  Projections were for the oceans to rise 69 feet and we have noted 45 feet so far in LA–rebuilding and restoring accordingly. We have been resorting to floating docks rather than rigid ones built on bedrock to accommodate these water level changes so rapidly happening.

       The bad news is that most of the California beaches are gone because it takes at least a thousand years to create a sand beach. The rising water is now crashing, sometimes, very violent waves, against the crumbling coast heights, making the scenic Cal 1 totally unrepairable in most places. With coastal avalanches and cave-ins on the rise.

       The bad news continues with global photos showing so many of the world's islands simply disappearing under the waves. To be gone for a thousand years more unless an Ice Age comes along again soon. Many of those islands protected by coastal reefs or mangroves, all gone now. 

       Coastal cities around the world, despite heroic effort to save them like Miami, Amsterdam, Venice, New Orleans, Sydney New York City and London were for naught.

       While the Santa Catalina Island remains, the popular Cayman Islands are gone along with many others like the Florida Keys that existed for centuries just a few feet above the, mostly calm, ocean waves.

       Sea water leaking into the volcanoes in the Azores, caused one to erupt in 2057 with a massive landslide of half of the island. We have reports that a 100 foot tsunami hit the East Coast from St. John's, Newfoundland to Miami, killing many of that growing population and setting the US government back again with Washington DC under 50 feet of water and the classic buildings like the Capitol and museums destroyed. Those that survived have vowed to rebuild, but I think it will take a long time and require us to get involved at some point.

       The good news is that the kelp forest off the coast of California has more than doubled in size, making fish and other aquatic life that live there much more common and providing us with food and fertilizer in abundance for our greenhousec and changing paletes of taste. 

       While many of our young people have become vegetarians, our meat diets have also included much more wild game, fish and insects than ever before the pandemic. Some species have suffered greatly from climate change, others are more adaptive and have reproduced by the millions like Brahman cattle and bison in the Great Plains making them good sources of wild natural food with few chemicals in their bodies.

       Our government, before the tsunami, was back up and running, concentrating on recovery, reintroducing key manufacturing, often through cottage industries that have sprung up making things that are needed for reconstruction and moving forward.

        Most of the governments in the world have also started back up and no longer are at war. Some of the poorest areas hit hard by drought or flooding have called on our military to help them recover. But our military budget has been redirected mostly towards climate mitigation, space exploration and scientific discovery, making it less likely to step in on disasters. Studies have shown that many people during disasters have tremendous resilience and have recovered without help.

       We are engaged in removing hazardous waste by sending it on a course towards the Sun. Have done limited mining on the Moon and Mars to provide resources here on Earth that would require additional devastating mining our fragile ecosystems can no longer tolerate. These initiatives were unheard of before the epidemic changed everything.

       We have restored all of the freeways but they are mostly used for heavy hauling and lightly traveled. Many of the railroads in the country are now running solar/wind powered trains with AI running the lead locomotives that spot and stop them long before they reach any anomaly ahead, spotted by cameras, laser radar and infrared detectors.

        Not only are the trains and trucks running without people; we have had very few train and truck accidents in recent years. The West Coast BulletLiner is completed from Vancouver to San Diego. With plans for it to run down the West Coast of Mexico all the way to Mexico City in the next 10 years.

       AI taxis carry most people around town. But there are also AI assisted personal aircraft that fill the skies along with drones of many kinds. Their AI functions result in following paths of least resistance amid other flying objects, wires, buildings, poles and other structures that have caused accidents in the past.

        These AI devices are not completely foolproof. We have had accidents, but they are much fewer than when we had planes, helicopters and drones flown by highly trained humans with autopilot assists. We humans are just too slow and unreliable when it comes to determining all kinds of potential hazards while at speed. When AI fails so rarely, human intervention has been known to save lives, too.

       Because of the redistribution of wealth and the available property left idle because so many people of wealth and ownership died, most of the residents of LAX, like us, have left for some of the more palatial compounds formally owned by the stars and moguls, CEOs and other captains of industry, the arts and business. 

       We have relocated our family to join Daphne and her consorts at her Uncle Louie's retreat in the Hollywood Hills. It suits our outdoor lifestyle much better and the children just love roaming the woods whenever they have free time to do so.

       Efforts to save species have accelerated and been improved. In our greenhouses we are growing exotic plants and fungus in mass quantities, not only for food but for preservation when they can be replanted in the wild once the climate settles down again to a more constant and viable seasonal pattern.

       One of our most and fervent efforts is to maintain coral that have been destroyed by rising waters and high water temperatures forcing many fish, mollusks, mammals and other sea creatures to modify their patterns of life or migration routes in a remarkable way that we didn’t foresee. 

       Many species prosper in spite of the loss of so many others. Life, especially of those of us who are human or intelligent like dolphins and the apes, are very adaptable and can change rapidly when necessary in order to not only survive, but thrive–like we have done in the face of some, seemingly impossible, challenges.

        I believe I will live, now that I am 39, to see the end of the century and the planned Earth-sized habitats built orbiting the sun within easy transport of the Earth. They will be built from asteroids and comets that are abundant to be mined. And also, to see the first deep space probes to find other suitable planets like the Earth in many stages of evolution that may or may not be anything like the Earth and far stranger than any fantasy we can dream of.

       Gramps died last year just after waiting for his 102nd birthday before allowing us to give him euthanasia having, as he put it during the celebration with all of us around…

       “It’s really hard for me to believe what I’ve seen in my long life. And how I have overcome so many changes in recent years while so many others died and didn’t get to see. I have to hand it to you, Drake and Derek, for coming to my rescue so many times when I thought all was lost and rewarding me with such a wonderful life here after all the trials and tribulations we’ve seen together.

       “Tomorrow, when you put me to sleep for the last time, leaving all these aches, pains and irritations behind I don’t want anymore, you’ll be looking forward to a future that looks so bright for all in spite of what we've done to try to destroy our planet before. I plead guilty to be a part of that." He sighed and began to cough… one of the reasons he wanted to go away… from smoking in his youth.

       After several of his favorite margaritas made fresh from his own lemons and tequila from agave grown on the farm and distilled in the village, he grew sleepy and went to bed early from his 102 birthday party looking forward to the next day.

       On the morning of July 4, 2061, we woke Gramps up to a rather, late for him, breakfast of steak and eggs, helped him get dressed and into his AI assisted personal hovercraft for a spin around his growing 2000 acre farm. Most of the spring crops, like corn and alfalfa, were already harvested as the land became totally parched from the hot sun of summer drought.

       Gramps returned to the shade of his 400-year-old oak tree in the yard and a lounge where we all gathered around and gave him his lethal dose of Fentanyl as he raised his last glass of margarita with all of us toasting him knowing that he would be passing painlessly.

       Able, with the help of his mother at 17, had already assumed running the growth and productivity of the farm using many hired helpers from the village. Derek and I were grateful to him for taking over stewardship of the Hutchins's foothold in the great Central Valley of California.

       With our AI assistance for almost everything we did and many implants and bots making us healthier and more powerful in many physical, sensory and intellectual ways, the harsh climate of the earth no longer seemed insurmountable like it had just years before when the ecosystems were collapsing and extinctions increasing with no end in sight and few of us left from the pandemic to fight it.

       I looked forward to a brighter future but had no idea except what AI was telling me what it would be.

Copyright 2024 © Ronald W. Hull

5/18/24