The Future of the Future
The Washington Post set this fact in front of the reader without comment: it is reaching 90 degrees in the Arctic Circle. I saw it a few weeks ago and have seen the news repeated in various places. It’s not new news; scientists have been pointing out that it’s warmer in the winter, warmer in the summer. Scientists are not surprised, though I keep getting stunned every time I encounter this fact.
There is talk about difficult-to-live-in spaces becoming unlivable. Of temperatures becoming too hot for humans. If it’s 90 degrees in the Arctic Circle, what hope do traditionally hot areas of the world have?
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As we were riding through Glencoe in Scotland, our driver commented that Scotland has the most freshwater in the world. This statement turned out to be wrong, but I mentally went with it at the time because he continued unpacking the idea. “The end of the world is going to be a fight for drinkable water. And when that happens, Scotland is going to need to protect itself because we have a lot of water. Scotland is going to be one of the last ones standing at the end of the world because we have so much water.”
I instantly started panicking because I’m reading a dystopian mystery trilogy and that is exactly what happens at the end of the world: people are murdering each other for drinking water. I started Googling things like, “How difficult is it to move to Scotland” from my bus seat.
It turns out that the UK as a whole is 54th in terms of drinking water. I’d be better off heading to Brazil (#1) or simply staying home in the US (#3). Though what does any of that even mean if the world is ending?
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The world is not ending.
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Except it feels tenuous. It feels politically tenuous and environmentally tenuous. It feels like it’s so large that you can’t see where anything begins or ends. I feel like I need to spend some time today just staring at the ceiling and not thinking.
8 comments
I am not a worrier, but these things have been making me anxious of late. 🙁
It’s reaching 90 degrees in the Artic Circle. Like so many scientists, I’m also not surprised but just resolved in sadness. Change is rapidly coming to this planet we call home and those who hold fast to false information are soon to be faced with no other option, resulting in having to deal with that fall-out too.
What I do have hope for is that there any some who are working on solutions for the future. It won’t fix what is happening, but it will provide a chance for something else.
I can’t think about these things too much or I can’t sleep. The world feels very tenuous.
I don’t read dystopian stories about future fights for drinking water because after taking a class about water law in the U.S. 15+ years ago, they seem all too real to me.
We’ve been having some heat waves followed by torrential rain in the Toronto area lately, and there was some bad flooding downtown last night — not for the first time in recent years. They rescued two guys from a flooded elevator, with just a foot of breathing space left. I just can’t believe that with everything going on and all the evidence staring us in the face, there are still people who refuse to believe that climate change is a reality and refuse to even try to do anything about it. 🙁
When I lived in the middle east, where dams can dramatically change the geopolitics of the region, I remember thinking how something I take for granted is actually a really really big deal.
I think water availability would depend on where you were living in any one country – even in water rich NZ. Also, per capita (which is what counts) renewable shows that the USA is way down the list, though still several times better than the UK, but no figures for Scotland as an individual country. Top places to go – French Guiana, and Iceland. Avoid Kuwait. (ref: http://chartsbin.com/view/1470) Though these were 2008 figures, and I wonder how much they have changed already.
But yes, I have a No Kidding blogger friend who lives in Lapland in Finland, and has had temperatures in the 30s. And I’ve read several articles recently talking about reaching a point of no return (I guess, the tipping point). It’s scary.
This is why polar bears make me sad. I can no longer separate the cute fluffy bears (that would rip my face off in person probably) with the emaciated ones scrambling up rocks that used to be ice-covered, dying because the Artic Circle is so warm. But 90? I had NO IDEA. That is terrifying. I did see what Mali’s talking about with the going past the point of no return, and it makes me so sad and so scared that all the dystopian, apocalyptic stuff I love to read is going to become survival manuals.
I do think about how I live near the Great Lakes, and away from the coasts, and not near any of the traditionally major metropolises, so in end of days type scenarios we’d be okay, for a while at least. I wanted to start keeping those big jugs of bottled water in the basement but Bryce said that was a little crazy, a little too prepper-like. BUT NOW LOOK! I should totally stock up. (Also, I like to keep a constant extra supply of toilet paper in the house ever since Buffalo got that 7+ feet of snow in a day, and a friend told me that toilet paper became a commodity that you would shovel your way out to your neighbors to get. Not quite murdering people for drinking water, but it could be a thing.)
It’s so scary to think about how the world will change (more than it already has) in our lifetimes, and what that means for future generations. Now I have to join you in ceiling-staring to lower my heartrate, or maybe go look at your backyard beach photos again…