Letters From 2030

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

THE JOURNEY AND THE YEARS TO 2030.


During the years from 2000-2010, weather anomalies grew in strength, and our planet found itself suffering a food crisis. As in decades past, the third world countries suffered most. Prices for staple foods caused more protests; the rising increase in floods and severe drought conditions greatly affected the crops; barley, rapeseed, wheat, rice and corn production massively diminished around the globe.

By the year 2012, the Arctic and Antarctic were ice free during the summer months, adding to solar absorption in the Northern Latitudes with areas warming at 6 degrees C, four times the global average. Methane clathrates destabilised in the shallow coastal shelves of Siberia and Alaska, adding to the ever increasing manmade emissions by a further 5 billion tonnes per annum of CO2-e in methane. The projections of the Science community in the first decade of the 21st century had not accounted for the catastrophic climate change that would follow this methane release, a greenhouse gas 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.

Kilimanjaro had also become free of its historical ice cap. The Swiss and Italian Alps saw increased rock slides as the permafrost line moved up the slopes destabilising the areas. Summer snow melt during those early years of abrupt climate change caused landslides and erosion, with some towns being totally abandoned.

By 2014, global emissions from manmade and the natural system were contributing the equivalent to 5 parts per million (38.85 billion tonnes) annually into the atmosphere. This added to the best estimates of parts per million (ppm) rise during the 21st century that had not been included in even the best advice from the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) in their predictions for upper level scenarios during the first decades of the 21st century.

The permafrost melt in Siberia's release of methane had reached the equivalent level of emissions of the US and China combined; a total of 50% of global manmade emissions at the levels of 2010, equal to 12 billion tonnes per annum.

In February of 2014, the Ross Ice Shelf (an area the size of France) destabilised due to the warming seas at it base, and collapsed. A large portion of the shelf had been grounded upon bedrock, and its collapse brought with it a six foot rise in the oceans of the world. Hundreds of millions were displaced worldwide -- the abrupt sea rise submerged cities from Florida to New York, the Mexican Gulf States and low lying coastal areas of California to Washington; it swept into Bangladesh, Shanghai and London, and submerged many island nations including the Maldives. The tsunami caused by the disintegration swept so quickly across the oceans few were able to escape and millions perished.

Humanity failed to see this as a wake up call, blundering ahead in their self absorbed dream. The inundation of many coastal industrial centres caused massive toxic pollution events around the world, and inundated coastal ground water supplies relied upon in major population centres, including Florida & Shanghai; the poisoned water supplies further debilitated recovery and tens of thousands of the tsunami survivors refusing or unable to reach safe ground then too perished.

Starting in 2014 and running through 2020, major Red Tides and Cyanobacteria Blooms started drifting their poisons over the coastal cities of the world, coastal wetlands and their ecosystems were wiped out. The blue green algae reached into inland river systems, many of which were already depleted of oxygen and dead of life, or inundated by sea water from rising seas. Sparse to no pockets of agriculture survived, intense heat and radiation having torched the soil; the virus-like spread algae left no areas of water to feed the crops.

From 2014 through 2016, H1N1 combining with West Nile and H5N5 (Bird Flu), mutated and swept the globe with a lethality level of 10 percent killing 750 million people. Right wing radio shows proclaimed in live reports, “As the majority of deaths are in third world nations, this will help with the food shortages upon the planet.”

In 2015 the Hail Mary Project implemented by the United States military as the ‘Plan B’ crisis attempt to geo-engineer the weather by anthropogenic intervention to reduce runaway global warming, resulted in sulphuric rains across the planet, making crop production anywhere in the world almost impossible in the open air. Food riots broke out across the global and rioting and looting in the streets became an everyday event.

Culminating in 2017 the rise in temperature of the tropical Atlantic, now exasperated by a five year Atlantic El Nino created severe drought condition over the Amazon Rain Forest, resulting in the world largest forest fire, burning for months. It was reported that over 70 percent of the rainforest was lost. Media reports at the time tried to assure the public that the smoke from these fires would act as a balance to global warming.

Methane Clathrate eruptions from warming costal areas in Siberia and Alaska occurred, and in many of the areas of the ocean that had until then remained too cold, now were observed with methane welling up across thousands of locations. The results were seen from the air. As the methane rose it depleted the oxygen in the oceans causing dead zones across the globe. It killed everything from Whales to Tuna to tiny krill; the surface of the globe was awash and spreading outward with the global fish die off. Dead and decaying fish filled with toxins from the methane clathrates killed millions of birds feeding off the carcases.

In 2019 with the increased sea temperature, tropical storms churned off the coast of Portugal and Africa. Drawn through the Gibraltar Straight by the warmer waters of the Mediterranean a H1 hurricane hit Sicily head on, completely wiping out the entire population as it worked its way to the Turkish coast and almost completely destroyed Istanbul as well.

In March 2020, the "Big Thunder" began on Greenland and continued for a three week period. The initial break was caused by, they speculated, a deep underground earthquake, with approximately 20 percent of Greenland’s ice cascading into the oceans. Tsunamis began sweeping into Europe and North America. Roughly ten days later the outside perimeter ice, around 15 percent of Greenland’s ice cover crashed into the sea, with the Media on hand to broadcast the event to the world. Mandatory evacuation of coastlines all along the Atlantic were ordered, the world descended into chaos. Three days later, the vast majority of the ice left on Greenland was displaced as the land mass which had been relieved of its weight, shifted upward, displacing the remaining ice sending forth the tsunami. Thus began the domino effect and another monstrous tsunami emanating from the collapse of the Canary islands volcano. The Greenland ice collapse caused an exponentially rapid rise in the oceans of the world as it spread out and circumnavigated the globe, levelling out at a 29 foot sea level rise to the levels of pre-21st century.

Mass chaos had gripped the planet. Untold hundreds of millions more people perished in the global flooding along the Atlantic seaboards. Nations of the Pacific scrambled to evacuate their coastal properties, and broadcasts continued telling the populous there was no danger, there was still time. Panic ensued and mass violence erupted. Remaining Island nations of the globe attempted to evacuate their elites, only to find mainland countries refused entry, in some cases aircrafts were shot down. Poor island nations awaited their fate. Media coverage reported survivors taking to the high seas in small fishing vessels seeking coves and shelter as they became refugees and fugitives at the same time.

By June of 2020, Global ‘Just-In-Time’ delivery systems broke down with supplies becoming scarce. The world in three short months had been thrown into a new Dark Age. Plagues began to spread.

The resulting inability of what was left of humanity was unable to intern the corpses of humans and animals alike washed upon the new shores of the re-surfaced planet. For four long years from 2021-2025 plagues swept the globe, reducing humanity to a mere 750,000 lost and tepid souls, interspersed with mad marauders serving their own selfish desires.

Now in 2030, no one is safe to live a life any longer without threat of death by violence, disease, or extinguished by nature. The planet now has to again adjust to its new state. Those that have survived in the few areas that still support life fight daily for their lives, or what's left to them.

Saturday, November 28, 2009

BLACK EYES

New visitors to the chronicles from the future may first wish to visit the past, by reading the earlier hologramletters. (see the older listings on the right, go to the bottom and click the link to the earlier hologramletters)


February 5th 2030

He walked to the monitors and switched the dial to receive. Slowly the transmission began to load and the hologramletter emerged onto the horizontal display. As he looked into the dark eyes that greeted him a sense of dread filled him. He had seen the face before. He had known they would still be out there surviving as they always had by preying on the weak and manipulating all those that they could. They were to a great extent a major cause of the fallen world of humanity; the rulers, the takers, the rich and the powerful.

He had heard of their enclaves being set up in the years after 2015 but had never been in direct contact with any of their number before this day. His immediate reaction was to switch off the transmission before they could hack into his archives, but realised it would already be too late. Their technology would be far more advanced than his rudimentary system. The voice spoke calmly and opened the communication with. “Bob I am not here to do you harm.”

That reassurance was of little comfort but the predator went on. “If I were here to cause you harm, we would have already destroyed all your communication systems and rendered you helpless to ever communicate with the outside world again.” He believed this to be true. And said out loud “So what is it you want of me?”

“We have been monitoring your communications for quite sometime. We know you have the capacity through your memory monitor screens to walk through our recollections and see our emotions and thoughts as we relay them. So suffice to say apart from our direct surroundings here which you will be able to see, I will not be revealing any recollections or feelings in this initial transmission. There will be time enough for that once you have considered our offer.”

He was looking at the memory screens for any glimpse of recollection or feelings being emitted and there were none! This predator’s heart was as cold as the black eyes staring at him.

“As I said we have been monitoring your hologramletter transmissions since the very first day you made contact from your hideaway there in Perth. We have already hacked your system and have all your files including your archives so there is no need for any further concern on your part. We know every thought you have transmitted and all the thoughts and memories of every one of your small band of contacts. At this time we have no malice intended for them either. They are small and insignificant to our purpose. We have naturally hacked their systems also and at this time our determination is to let them go on with their petty existences.”
He glimpsed a reaction on the memory and emotions screens and he saw as the predator spoke these words, a sinister mockery of all those human inhabitants outside his own band of powerful contacts.

“We know your purpose in communicating with these people is to share a little hope with them that the world can heal itself. You and I know this will never happen or that it will return to the idyllic planet of your memories. But your efforts do not conflict with ours and we may mutually benefit from your open communication with them. Time will tell. Our offer is to have you feed certain communications in order that some information gets to them that will benefit them.”

He again glimpsed an emotion on the screens and saw this offer of help to the others for their benefit was a lie. They had no intensions of helping anyone but themselves. He held any feelings or understanding of their motives away from his conscious thought in order that they wouldn't sense his reaction to them, or their offer. That would come later once he had heard what they would do if he didn’t wish to cooperate with them.

“As I said we hold no malice towards you either. You are an old man and have little time left and can do us no harm. There are others we can convince to join us in this role, so should you not wish to assist us we will not take any action against you. We can however should you cooperate with us, make the time you have left much more productive and you will learn how with our help, to get far more out of this new world. You will profit from this alliance. Give some thought to our offer and we will look forward to your positive reply.”

A smile came over the predators face as he signed off. As he looked at the emotions monitor there was nothing. Not a single emotion of warmth; nothing.

This was enough communication with the outside world that he needed for one day. He switched off the system.

His heart was now free to pound in his chest without showing fear to the man with black eyes. He sat silently his breathing and pulse racing. He would not accept any alliance with these people as they had never shown compassion to another single human in their history and they would not start now. He needed to be very careful with his communication when he replied to their offer. This would take much thought.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

THE SEASONS OF DUST


New visitors to the chronicles from the future may first wish to visit the past, by reading the earlier hologramletters. (see the older listings on the right, go to the bottom and click the link to the earlier hologramletters)


He walked to the monitors and switched the dial to transmit. He spoke his reply to his long lost ‘comrade-in-arms’ for the good of Earth, Katey.

February 4th 2030

Katey it warms my heart to hear from you and to know that you and Anthony are working closely for the few that are now safe within the HAARP compound. I see much of your daily life as it unfolds, on the memory screens I have here. You have endured a great deal over the years.

You spoke of your trials and of your loss of Doc. I can see on the memory screens the pain that still hangs over you. All may still not be lost and one day she may return when she feels her work is done in the badlands. So keep her in your thoughts.

The season of dust has now arrived here and I worry about my ability to keep the solar panels clear during the next four or five months. Although it’s only February 4th 2030 the storms have been getting worse and lasting longer with each passing year. I have had to take the much more labour intensive action to brush the dust from the panels every 2 hours during the season, as washing them is no longer practical with the lack of rainfall for harvesting that now plagues me. My small water storage capacity collected on the roof is far too precious to use for any purpose other than vegetable production and my meagre ration to drink of1 litre a day. I have had to take to bathing from a small bowl only weekly and often my skin feels deprived of its ability to breathe due to constantly blocked pores.

You must tell me in your next hologramletter of how you are surviving there at the HAARP compound with your water scarcity and sterilization issues. I have developed a system of carbon filters in order to clear most of the heavy metals that now invade the rain that falls, but the season of dust brings with it the added burden of lead, asbestos and uranium contamination, picked up from the mining activities carried out to keep pace with our economic greed for industrial expansion in the first and second decades. I often think back to those days when the dust storms first started here in Australia, quickly followed by those in the United States Southwest, China, Russia and throughout the Middle East. The open pit and mountaintop removal of resources had its opponents, but they were no match for the economic, industrial and politically powerful lobbies, working for growth at all costs. Even with the dramatic increases in asthma, leukaemia, cancer, respiratory failure and eye disease brought on by the arrival of the toxic plumbs of dust invading our cities, no one rebelled loudly enough for the open sores on our landscape to be healed with reafforestation programs until it was all too late. The land turned to desert as the variable seasons brought less and less rainfall, or torrential flooding that washed away the remaining topsoil. The water ways, rivers and lakes became toxic highways leading to wetlands that no longer could survive the effluent of mans folly. The coastal habitats once abundant with fish, became polluted and acidic, and finally by 2020 after the collapse of the West Antarctic’s Ross Ice Shelf in 2014 and the Greenland Ice Cap with the Big Thunder in March 2020, the industrial strips along the coasts of many countries gave up their remaining additional stocks of toxic pollution, as the seas rose to invade them.

I remember all too well, as I’m sure you do; as the food riots, killings and chaos spread to every city across the world during 2017, after crop after crop, could no longer be grown as nature had intended; out in the open, brought on in part by the dust storm contamination and the sulphurous rains that fell following the Hail Mary Project to geo-engineer our precious atmosphere with billions of tonnes of sulphurous particles. I wonder what ever happened to the scientist Paul Crutzen? He like you disappeared from sight when the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency who administered the disaster, distanced themselves from him in 2016. How many billions of dollars were wasted during those years to try to find new ways of tampering with nature, rather than fixing the problems of carbon emissions spewing from the world’s obsession to maintain the fossil fuel economy?

Had we recognised our interdependence on a healthy planet and spoken out, would those mothers and fathers looting and killing, scavenging for food for their children have become the hoards they were? Would we now be in a world where the people’s voice had saved us, and our political system had returned from the clutch of industry to be a rule of the people?

We will see each other again soon my friend, for now I must return to the rooftop and clear to thickening red dust blocking out the remaining sun from reaching my solar collectors. The storm has increased and visibility is less than a meter, so time is short.

Until tomorrow… Stay safe – stay indoors. Much hope to you.

Friday, July 31, 2009

A HOLOGRAM LETTER FROM KATEY

New visitors to the chronicles from the future may first wish to visit the past, by reading the earlier hologramletters. (see the older listings on the right, go to the bottom and click the link to the earlier hologramletters)

Today would there be a message in a bottle he wondered? Had his transmission power the day before been strong enough to contact others and would they fear making contact with him? He turned on the horizontal hologram screen and waited. Nothing……………there did seem to be a strange flicker of light intermittently; or was it just his imagination, brought on by hope that there may be word of others? It faded as fast as it had appeared, like the colours of a rainbow he remembered from years ago. That was something he hadn’t thought would change with global warming. They rarely formed now thanks to mans’ tampering and geoengineering of the atmosphere in 2015. The sulphurous rains now when they came left no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow; only bare and poisoned earth.

Again the screen flickered, but this time the image materialised clearly; he smiled recognising the face of Katey.


February 3rd 2030


Hi Bob:

It has been several years old friend. Still, sometimes, late at night I think back to those days: trying to figure out how and why voices like yours and mine, along with millions of others failed to win the day. At times, I’ve the tendency to blame those with lesser minds. Although this is just anger and frustration, something that has become a part of my life ever since Greenland’s ice broke up and came crashing into the ocean. Yes, it is beneath me; the pent up rage although - as I give it no outlet - bubbles to the service. It would be so easy to blame people like, well, the ‘Others’ as Anthony calls them. We know better, although, you and I. We know the blame lies in the complacency of the opulent and the greed of the powerful status quo. Somehow they failed to understand that there was a better and easier way. Your friend, Anthony, has put forth some amazing arguments to me on how Industrial Hemp could’ve created an economic boom and actually reduced the amount of carbon we had emitted, preventing Rapid Climate Change, or at least given us a chance to. I plan on letting him know that the Kush seeds for medical use are going to be released. He and Vicky can start them in a mini horticulture lab down by my bee hive experiment. I will demand that close and strict guidelines be applied to the usage of the crop. The ‘Others’ are lazy enough without having them zoned out of their collective little minds all day long.

Bob you really upset me! I was the only person here who managed to change my persona when the rescue of Doc fell through. I really miss her. She would’ve probably been conducting a physiological profile on your friend. I went into an automatic mode where everything had to be by the book, when she died. Funny really, as with Doc’s passing and the emergence of the Jay Squad into the compound, the book went out the window. Thanks are in order although, Anthony and I are getting to know each other and the compound needs this odd collection of souls.

I am curious Bob. Did you ever meet Anthony in person? He is very unique, shall we say somewhat eccentric Old Man. Robin and I have been doing a thorough search on him. What we have found is at odds with his gruff demeanour. Twenty years before I was born, he was writing letters to a Midwestern newspaper, The Hawkeye Tribune. We came across one quite by accident, while searching a national data base of libraries and this opened the door to finding hundreds. A self described liberal hawk, talk about a contradiction in terms. He showed militant competence and was quick to respond with a call for force when America’s interests were threatened. At the same time, he exhibited a shrewd insight into the failed policies of U.S. foreign policy, policies that inevitably almost always led to U.S. intervention in foreign lands. Over the years his writings changed, from the devout humanitarian arose an eco-warrior who seemed to despise humanity. Constantly at odds with himself, he seems beset by dichotomies of his own creation. He once wrote in a column of his called Earth Line:

“Retreating from mankind to live a life along the river ecosystem and commune with nature. I have not abandoned humanity, just the people who compose it.”

Robin thinks he was using humanity as a reference to the humane attributes of our species that we have not reached. His writings are full of lines that are vague in meaning, leaving the reader to contemplate matters for themselves. There is a segment of his letters, which goes on for years, where almost everything he writes ends in a question, a time period where the closing sentence completely reverses the concept of the entire letter and reaches for a higher level of consciousness. Almost as if he was writing to two audiences at the same time. Doc would’ve either admired the man or found him to be certifiable, maybe both, I’m not sure.

After your book came out, I took some heat from my colleagues. You know of course the pattern of acceptance within the scientific community. In private conversations although, the same people who would scrutinize me in public acknowledged me in private and sought out additional information. Shortly after the concept for the doomsday bunkers came into play, I was approached by the President’s Science Advisor, and put on the committee to help create it.

So sad that people would not listen to our message when they still had a chance. Most choose to laugh off the warnings. Given the fact, that the amount of information continued to stockpile. As did the amount of methane, carbon and other gasses that were collecting in the atmosphere. I picked up your book last night and read the following words.

“In northern Siberia lakes are releasing methane at a rate five times higher than previously estimated. Studies by Katey Walter, and International Polar Year postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Arctic Biology at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, reported in Nature in 2006 that her team’s calculations increase the present estimates of methane emissions from northern wetlands by between 10 and 63 percent. She explains: “This newly recognized source of methane is so far not included in climate models. Estimates suggest the area has 500 gigatons (1,100 trillion pounds) of carbon, largely in the form of ancient dead plant material. Walter suggest: ‘Permafrost models predict significant thaw of permafrost during this century, which means that yedoma permafrost is like a time bomb waiting to go off – as it continues to thaw, tens of thousands of teragrams of methane can be released to the atmosphere enhancing climate change.’”

That seems like another lifetime ago Bob. I wish you well and have hopes that something good can come, yet, from the disaster mankind had thrust upon the planet.

Your friend,
Katey AKA Patricia, for now, and forever forward.

_____

She had indeed done much to wake up those that could have snatched victory from the hands of defeat that was now a broken world, he thought. She was still striving to make a better place, even if only for a few at the Alaskan HAARP compound. Her work went on, but now at least, the few she could talk to were actually listening to her wisdom.

There were many images in her memories he could view for the first time; as he drifted through them on the memory screens watching her thoughts, he could see an equal balance of good and bad. Katey was much the lonelier for the absence of Doc.

Friday, July 17, 2009

MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE

New visitors to the chronicles from the future may first wish to visit the past, by reading the earlier hologramletters. (see the older listings on the right, go to the bottom and click the link to the earlier hologramletters)


February 2030.

He stood there knowing there were others with hopes and dreams; with stories to tell of their lives over the troubled years of the second and third decades of the 21st Century.

He turned to the monitors to send out a broadcast to any that would receive his hologramletter.

Today would be a day to reach out to those who were not in directed contact, or needed to tell their story of challenge, inspiration and survival in an isolated world of change. He turned the gauge to its maximum transmission power to reach across the world as it now was, and said:


Who is out there? Is there anyone out there?

Send me your ‘message in a bottle’, so that I might hear ‘your story’ of now and make contact.




This is a very special letter in the series where you can leave your comment (your message in a bottle) as to your thoughts of now and how they may be in 2030. What may become the reality of all our futures in 2030?
Please leave here YOUR ‘Message in a bottle’

Monday, July 13, 2009

MANS' ILLOGICAL SLEEPWALK

New visitors to the chronicles from the future may first wish to visit the past, by reading the earlier hologramletters. (see the older listings on the right, go to the bottom and click the link to the earlier hologramletters)



February 3rd 2030.


He walked to the outgoing hologramletter screen and switched on the console. He wanted to share his earlier reflections of the day on what the alternative future by 2050 would have looked like had man continued with its illogical industrial sleepwalk, and its business as usual pace, even without the climate crisis impacts of pollution of the atmosphere. There had been many environmental activists like him on the climate impacts of daily life in the industrial world. But there had been scant activism pointing to the inevitable outcome of eating the planet to death of resources to feed the industrial model in place.

The climate naysayer could continue to spread doubt or question the outcome to man of the pollution of the atmosphere and thereby delay action by those that could have stopped it. But no one could have doubted the ultimate outcome of mans’ actions to rid the planet of the resources on which the system of life and living had been constructed. Only a few had spoken out on the need to de-industrialise the world to a new model. If more voices had been added to this cause, a third revolution may have replaced the industrial past; as it had replaced the agricultural age of man. Had more lobbied for this ‘New age of Nature Revolution’ and de-invented to reinvent the future, it may have moved the world away from the edge of darkness it was now in.

Hello my friends,

To answer the questions of why we had continued on the illogical sleepwalk of the industrial age, isn’t now ultimately needed, as the freefall of resource extinction we had committed ourselves to in the first two decades of the 21st century, has now been overtaken by the catastrophic climate chaos that devastated mankind in the third decade. But I still reflect on it as I had called it in the book, a system ‘Designed for Demise’.

We had lived with a system of finite resource depletion that was leading to the inevitable outcome. The very building blocks of the industrial age had been consumed by a mere generation or two. Resources laid down over billions of years had been profligately consumed without any consideration for the future. All eyes had been closed to the future as if it was to go on indefinitely, with what was taken for granted to feed the system of industrial life, being available to go on; as we had lived in the system, all our conscious lives. Who had designed it, and what was its flaw? Man.

Had climate change not overtaken the elimination of all finite resources, on which the system of the modern world relied, by 2050 the global infrastructure would have collapsed any way. Even in 2000, most if not all base elements needed for the system had peaked and were going into extinction. As the developing nations aspired to the standards of consumption the developed countries enjoyed, competition for a greater piece of the resource pie accelerated the freefall to resource extinction. So the whole system on which industry and its political backers portrayed as infinite, was no more than smoke and mirrors. Even though it was illogical to consider resources to feed the system would be there forever, it would in the first two decades be for the politicians, “Not in my term of Office” for industry “Not of relevance to this years financial return to share holders”. And for the general population “Not something that affects me and mine today”. I had written:

We were on a freefall to the unknown and the ground was rushing up to meet us, with some already seeing it. Like all freefalls, we were accelerating as we descended.

In the chapter ‘Designed for Demise’ I had opened with:

Our mortality is the thing we understand from the time we become aware. We willall die. This is our underlying strength and overriding weakness. The only lasting legacy will be from the children we have who will carry our memory after our time has run out.

Man’s design flaw was built in. You and I cannot be sustained forever. Is this why we have designed all other things to follow the same principle? Designed for demise. Take care of today, tomorrow will look after itself.

If we accept this, maybe the concept of sustainability, of an infinite future, could not have been built into our endeavours, as we planned that future with our demise as the inevitable outcome. As we know we will certainly die, have we designed all other systems to follow us in the developed civilized world? Have we in effect designed end of life into all our activities?


And had continued with:

The model of developed and developing economic industry has a single and simple flaw. It was designed by man and designed for demise.

From the time in history when we changed from hunters and gatherers, we have designed out sustainability. We have discarded any guidance that was provided by nature, which is the model of sustainability, in favour of a redesigned manmade finite future.

We tell our children to share but we show them how not to. Finite resources means going, going, gone. But every industrialized process, every commercial practice, every economic activity, every consumption pattern, revolves around the depletion of finite resources until they are going, going, gone.

My observation had been:

From the time of the first unnatural activity design, we have continued to build on what is a basically flawed process. Even though we can look back and see the outcome for past civilizations whose over consumption of resources caused their ultimate extinction, we choose the same outcome. Our activities are not designed according to the laws and guidance of nature. Each of the cups, whatever the
resource, if finite, will run out—built in inevitability.

Had we started the process of man’s endeavour without knowledge of our own mortality, we may have emulated the natural system. Any future that has a sustainable future, not a finite one, needs to start with a complete redesign. We are good at looking back, not forward. We react to issues, not to seeing them coming.
It’s not our fault, just our training. Live for today, tomorrow never comes. Don’t worry about it, it may never happen.

But we do have the advantage of 20/20 hindsight on this. We can historically see where civilizations went wrong. We can now see a future, which unless we actually want one that is finite, we must change.

Everything I have has come from our collective finite resources. It’s nearly all extracted, milled, mined, distilled and depleted from fossil and finite resources, unsustainable and designed for demise.


I had listed some of the “designed for demise” flaws with 20/20 foresight available to all that were not committed to the continuing illogical sleepwalk of the 21st century as:

The business, economic model of ever increased return on investment,
indefinitely. Designed for infinite sustainability?

The developed and developing country’s drive for sustainable increases in GDP, exports, prosperity, and job growth. Designed for infinite sustainability, or designed for demise?

The short-term election of our political leaders and decision makers—Designed for sustainability of sound policy?

Manufacturing until we run out of resources—Designed for infinite sustainability?

Mining and extractive resource depletion?

Extraction and burning of fossil reserves?

Agriculture for an ever increasing global population—Designed for infinite sustainability?

Plant geneticists working for multinational corporations to genetically modify seeds for crops that will not produce viable seed for future crop plantings. Not only
unconscionable but deliberately designed for demise?

Political and social stability, for the developed industrial model, for a few, not
all?

Water resource depletion of fossil aquifers for current and increasing consumption—Designed for infinite sustainability?

Clearing of rainforests—Designed for infinite sustainability, or demise?

Polluting our waterways and oceans with industrial activities?

Polluting the air we breathe?

Raising the levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases—Designed for infinite sustainability, or designed for demise?

And had concluded the observation with:

It has not been our fault; we have just followed on from the lead we were given. But the future will be our fault, because we now have the indisputable luxury of 20/20 foresight.

We know the future outcome of continuing with “business as usual” and “living as usual” models. Demise!


So as I look out on the devastation that has overtaken mans' short history although the question is now academic with Mother Nature stepping in to halt mans’ folly of the industrial age. I recognise that the demise of the way of life of all human endeavours would have arrived at the door of all inevitably, as sustainability had been designed out. 2050 would have marked the inevitable rise and fall of man and the industrial model of life in the 21st century. Governments knew it, Industry knew it and logic knew it. The industrial age would have gone from cradle to grave in a mere 200 years of finite resources extinction.

So now my friends even though you now have much to trouble and torment you here in the first year of 2030, the few that are now remaining may have an old building block or two left, on which to construct sustainability with a focus on living within the bounds of the natural system. We can now redesign a system based on the principles of living with what can be provided infinitely, taking care of our needs, and no longer with greed focusing on our wants.


Until tomorrow… Stay safe – stay indoors. Much hope to you.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

ONE VOICE

New visitors to the chronicles from the future may first wish to visit the past, by reading the earlier hologramletters. (see the older listings on the right, go to the bottom and click the link to the earlier hologramletters)


What had we done to infest our world with our complacent occupation he thought?

What was it that made us believe that the outcomes of our continued disregard for nature would allow us to go on unaccountable for our actions?

As he looked at the landfill outcomes of our daily lives of the past, he knew that the answer had been in changing personal collective actions, to those of emulating the natural system; taking no more than could be sustained by nature, accepting that this was the only way to live in balance with how it had all started and how it must now in 2030 be achieved.

What were the lessons left from the past? What were the lessons left for the future, if there were to be one for those who would follow this brief experiment of over indulgence; what would those lessons be?

He looked back and while in deep reflection the incoming hologramletter answered at least one of his questions……… It was the voice of one!


February 2nd 2030


Hi Bob

Mathew here.............

I attempted to make contact with you some time ago and the transmission of my hologramletters didn’t make it through. I hope this one reaches you. As I said at the beginning of that transmission I am not sure you’ll remember me.

We first met at a rally in Perth in December 2008. You were there to protest the Australian Governments stance on emissions reductions, and you were outspoken as I found you to be in the many lectures and public events I heard you speak at after that time.

We only met briefly that day, but you made an impression on me and my girlfriend; now my lost love Emma. Do you remember Emma? She asked you how she could make a difference as the voice of one; and you told her.

You wrote of her in an international on-line publication as to how she as the voice of one could; and thanks to you, did; reach out and inspire others to be the power of one and then the voice of many. She was so proud to have made a difference, and did so to many over the years, until she was taken in 2022. I miss her everyday, but she is still here with me as my soul mate and always will be.

We left Perth to travel to Arrowtown on the south island of New Zealand in 2012. I am alone now without Emma who, as I said has left this troubled world we have created. She was a strong heart and grew each day to help others, but in an error of judgement she tried to help some who would do her harm. Sad, isn’t it, that those we try to help even now would see their own selfish interest above those who have a kind heart?

As I said, I attended many of the talks you gave on the need to change to a safe future during those years in the early days of the struggle. What was it you wrote that changed our lives in that article and the series you ran to inspire others? It was this:

‘At the end of the rally a young lady in her 20's came up to me. Introducing herself as Emma, I was impressed with her passion to become involved. It was obvious to me that she was intelligent and motivated, but her question touched me; "I want to do something, but I don't know how and I'm not sure I could make a difference as a single person (voice). 'How did you do it?'"

I told her some of our journey, which is what I call, 'our overnight success that took us a decade.' On reflection, there are many journeys such as ours, many activists like me and my family who are making a difference with the voice of one. They too could guide Emma and others like her to become instrumental in the changes we need to urgently achieve. They too could motivate others with their stories and they too could inspire the many Emma's out there with their words, actions and visions.

So here is my challenge:


Seek out these people; write their inspirational stories in 'An Interview With An Activist' series of blogs. Help the many Emma's to become the power of one voice. As I say in the book introduction: -Feel no guilt for being part of the problem, but feel responsible and inspired to be part of a solution. A few great men and women may start out being the power of one, but no single great man, no single great woman, from the start of history or into the future, will make a change without collective will. We need collective will, collective effort, and collective vision, for our collective future. You and Yours. Me and Mine. Them and Theirs. Are you such an inspirational activist with a story to tell and an Emma to guide?’

The day when your story was published Emma became the voice of many! Thanks to you she was no longer the voice of one; she believed from that day that she had become the voice of many; as you called it, “the parade of concern that could change policy from just good policy; to good policy driven by good politics.”

From that day on December 16th 2008 when you, I and Emma stood side by side to protest the stupidity of the Australian Government's stance on emissions reductions we became the voice of many. That day when they provided the polluters with 1.4 billion in additional subsidies, we set course and were determined to protest at every opportunity.

We moved to New Zealand to be close to her family in 2013. They like many of the traditional owners; the traditional indigenous owners of our planet; have always lived in harmony as best they can with nature. In balance and taking only what nature in her wisdom could provide. This is still a mostly sustainable society in Arrowtown. It’s a sort of fortress in that the community, although depleted by the global pandemic of 2016, still manages to pull together and help others. I remember that section of your book that you spoke of such of communities. I have it here let me read it to you:

‘In our community you can drive down the road and see signs offering “Free Horse Manure,” “Free Lemons—Help Yourself” and “Free Range Eggs.” Ours is the type of close knit friendly community where when disasters hit, neighbours all pitch in. We’ll turn up with chainsaws at the ready to help clear roads and driveways blocked by fallen trees after storms. We’ll rally to fight bush fires, working together. Our community and others like it, we would learn, would react to the new future with far more calm than many others around the world. These communities, as we had seen in past disasters, would suffer turmoil, social unrest, looting, and fighting over food supplies and water. These urbanized, heavily populated areas, totally reliant on the system to support them, would find it far harder than we would to adjust. But in the long run, it would still be their choice.’

How true it was. When disasters struck after the disintegration of the Ross Ice Shelf in 2014 we saw how (humanity) people reacted. What did we owe to our children I heard you once say in a community forum? “We owe to our children the future we had promised them, when we brought them into this world, a future that has a future. A future we have inherited from our ancestors, but have only borrowed from those who will come after us.”

Emma worked so hard to make this future one safe for all. I believe as a voice of one she achieved that vision. I will strive to continue her work. I am still the voice of one. No the voice of many …………..the voice of Emma…………the voice of you ………………and we are the voice of one any longer.

I hope I will hear from you but if not, my echo will still resound as yours.

Mathew
Arrowtown
New Zealand