Anthony's hologramletter ---- 'Is it 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)

NOTE The following is an adaptation from the soon to be released book ‘Letters From 2030’. To register interest on its release, or to order a copy email Bob Williamson via this link.

He had been eagerly waiting for the batteries to recharge. It was now time to hear from Anthony. The suspense had been unbearable. He powered up the monitors and downloaded the message from the hologramletters library files.


Bob:
January 7th 2030:

I record this hologramletter very early in the A.M. hours. Sleep, deep restful sleep, is a forgotten memory. Even now in the extreme safety of this underground labyrinth I can’t find peace. We have been here around 15 months. There is ample living quarters, yet, I maintain the J-squad sleep in a barracks situation. They believe this is for reactionary time in the off chance marauders get inside. The truth Bob, three of the men still suffer from PTSD, waking in the night screaming and ready to kill. I keep them together for the safety of the group at large. They served in Iraq, Afghanistan and conducted covert missions into Pakistan. After the massacre and kidnapping of our wives and children, the tremors – as I call it – broke out in their sleep again.

I had mentioned that this compound had to be built for alternative reasons. The main sight covers about 50 acres, I guess, with buildings and laboratories. However, concealed accesses give way to miles of underground tunnels. It comes complete with living quarters, rec-centres, laboratories and various other facilities. In my mind this was a survivor, doomsday complex. The main power supply is from geothermal energy. It is my understanding that solar arrays are in the nearby Mountain range for back-up power. The transmission system is a Smart Grid, installed at least a decade before America began their belated efforts in the lower forty-eight. (Really pisses me off knowing they had the technology when they claimed it wasn’t fully feasible. Just another one of corporatocracies lies’.)

There exist underground horticultural centres here capable of feeding at least two-thousand. Yet, we are told the compound only has living space for 750! I enjoy working with Viki, the botanist, pollinating the plants. While it is rather tedious, my green thumb still exists. I asked her if they had any Kush seeds. She said that Patricia fails to release them. That is another issue I have to deal with. The multitude of uses we could apply that to, from constructing our own rope and clothes, to medicine, writing paper, and flour out of the seeds, I believe. I would love to use it for the three boys with PTSD. In an attempt to help them sleep through the night. Boys, they are in their late thirties to mid-forties and seen more horrors than any person should, men of honour. They get a chuckle out of me calling them boys, in return they refer to me as The Relic or Old Man.

Rising early yesterday, I prepared breakfast for the early crew, about twenty of us. Yes, I still love to cook. I took Rosa her breakfast, as she wasn’t around per her usual. I found her crying her eyes out and very upset, blathering on really. Some aspects of womanhood will never change, thank Gaia for that.

She showed me satellite images of the area where your transmission comes from. (Curious Bob, you ever had an affair with a cute little redheaded American intern? LOL! This woman holds you in high regard.) ........... Bob could see her tears as Anthony relayed his message.

Yes, the science squad has access to all remaining U.S. civilian and military satellites. She was pointing at the screen and carrying on about the desolation of your predicament and the scarcity of power, food, and water supplies in the area. When I pressed her on how she could ascertain all that information, she dried up the tears, quickly, and changed the subject.

Patricia, the brightest of the scientists, was a child prodigy I am told. She has, they claim, five PhDs. She is the type of person whose idea of idle chitchat is quantum theory. Personally, I suspect she was secret service at the compound. I asked Derrick, the J-squad’s communication expert to set up monitoring posts on some of the off limit tunnels marked radioactive and extreme bio-hazards. We have caught her coming and going through these tunnels.

Bob reached out to pause the transmission and look more closely at the face of Patricia. Something rang a distant bell in his memory. Who was she?
He looked closely at the face and saw a flickering memory pass over her. No surely not! Was it Katey? Was it Katey Walter from all those years ago? He spoke about her research in his book and knew her quite well. He searched through the historic files and came across the reference in 2009 http://www.alaska.edu/uaf/cem/ine/walter/

It was Katey! Why had she changed her name?
Bob’s good friend and author Fred Pearce had brought her work to prominence back in 2009 with his story ‘Arctic meltdown is a threat to humanity’ in the New Scientist magazine http://tinyurl.com/cdeljf

Was it the controversy the story had made? She did drop out of sight after that. She was right of course, but back then people just hadn’t wanted to hear the facts. They didn’t want the truth, they wanted comfort. ‘Business and living as usual’
He must let Anthony know; he thought, he was sure that Katey was still the person she was back then. She must be convinced to work with him; to open up to him, she was one of the brightest of the bright. She had told the truth then but had been ostracised by the broader conservative scientific community for speaking out. Now if only she could be convinced to work with Anthony they could make significant progress. Bob had to gain her trust, he had to make contact with her once more.

He recommenced the hologram:-

Yes, the science squad and the military team don’t trust each other. I guess human nature, in spite of extreme trials is still human nature, another issue I am working on correcting, transparency.

I plan on writing to you about the operation, how through the use of duty roosters and full accountability reporting things have been held together. There is a storm of mistrust brewing here. I have to get through to Rosa, make her understand that no secrets can be kept concerning the compound.

Forgive me old friend, but my circumstances here are a paradise compared to those of anyone surviving on the outside. Let alone survivors down under and throughout the middle latitudes. Once again, however, I ask you for your help. Send a message out to Rosa and to the survivors across the globe. Tell them, her, to trust and help each another. They claim there are around 375,000 people left, somewhat higher than Lovelock’s projection. If their number is right, I suspect that 75-80 percent of them are naziistic marauding beasts. It is hard telling how many will be left after they finish killing each other off.

Remember I classify humanity in two categories, the humane and the animal. I need to understand the full potential of this HARRP Complex, you my friend may be able to persuade Rosa to release the information. For the record, they claim only 15,000 are in the badlands, all the rest have migrated above the Arctic Circle. I have repeatedly tried to discover the how and why of, only these four were here when we came on the scene, only to be shut down, ignored and have the subject changed. They tried to blame it on the plagues, once. Perhaps this is the truth that they survived, joined up, and headed north out of Washington State as they claimed.

So much is still a mystery. Sometimes, here in the early morning hours I forget how fortunate I am. After all, I have my son, how and why we escaped the pandemics, the naziistic bastards and made it here, I will never know. I will leave you with a statement from my father, “old too soon and wise too late.” Write that letter Bob, literally the slim chance our species has may depend upon this outpost of antiquity. Who knows, if man does survive, this may become a fabled story like Atlantis.

Your friend winging it, as always. Anthony.

P.S. Just saw your post of the 5th. Here is my attempt at a poetic response.

Never awakening the masses knew not what their shopping sprees would cost the lot
Laughing and joking they looked upon those with wisdom to see beyond
Tree huggers, hippies, nature freaks
They thought all was fine all was right
We, the enlightened worked day and night
We tried to reason by logic, scare by fright
We did not fail humanity
It was the Naziistic Beast
That failed we of humane divinity.

Anthony’s answer to his question; why did we hate our children and theirs- touched him.

Replaying it once more to look at the other images and memories, he had so much to tell Anthony in the next hologramletter to him.

So much to do; so little time.

Man's folly - The 'HAIL MARY' clouds.

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)

NOTE The following is an adaptation from the soon to be released book ‘Letters From 2030’. To register interest on its release, or to order a copy email Bob Williamson via this link.

January 7th 2030

He had more time to reflect on the hologramletters from Anthony and Suzanne than he had planned.

He was eager to write back and answer their questions and learn of their thoughts to his as to why our global population had stopped caring for those we held most dear; our children and theirs.

His solar recharge had been slow all day, with the blackish yellow rain clouds blocking out the sun for almost the entire day.

Man's folly once again.

The reckless geoengineering of the atmosphere in 2015, the ‘Hail Mary Project’ had not been the silver bullet to avert catastrophic climate change. All it had done was to allow the ‘business as usual polluters’ more time for more distraction. More time to pollute. The 2 billion dollar annual funding from industrial polluters for the five year project was channelled via US federal funding under the control of the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency. The lunatic brainchild, of the Nobel Prize—winning atmospheric scientist Paul Crutzen, that resulted in the release of vast amounts of sulphurous particles into the atmosphere to create a haze that would keep the planet cool, did little of what was promised, but had the effect of increasing air pollution to unimaginable levels, killing millions through the second and third decade of the 21st century. Now the yellowish rain clouds, when they did come to provide the much needed water of life, required his water purification plant to be working without fault. The sulphurous rains had done much to kill off the Amazon in 2017 and devastate the remaining croplands in the Midwest of the US that was now home to a parched desert with life of any form unable to survive.

Time for transmission; time to reach out; had finally arrived:-

Anthony, you may have worried that this message may not arrive. My power supply as you know is limited. The solar mirrors I have angled at the base of this multi-story building that is now my virtual confines are nearly ready for commissioning. The flexible ducting to draw the solar heated air upwards to run the air turbines are in place, so hopefully I will soon have additional energy supply. Yesterday and most of today the Hail Mary clouds have blocked out the sun, but power has gradually built and I can now send this hologramletter to you. I am forwarding also my transmission from Suzanne. Her happiness at her survival is infectious and a source of great hope. She asks questions from her isolation that may be able to be answered by one of the scientists you mentioned. I store all incoming hologramletters in the library files that one day others who survive these times may come across, so if the relay is garbled I can attempt to send you another copy.

Anthony, I see your thoughts, hopes and dreams as if played out in reality on the screens before me. I know this technology isn’t available at the HAARP compound or to Suzanne. Maybe that is all for the better. As you walk through your memories to me and talk of the past; I can see them played out as if I were looking through your eyes. As Suzanne giggles I can feel her hope. Your journey to Alaska was an amazing achievement of great courage. The J team boys are true heroes but I would imagine their suffering and memories as a result of ill fought wars for oil across international borders still plague them. The scene you recalled of the women and children picking berries before they were mercilessly attacked was horrific. I wept for the memory and for your loss.

Do you remember where you were when the Big Thunder struck? Rosa you mentioned read my book, she may recall when I wrote it, I warned that the ‘best available science’ of climate change wasn’t keeping up and our policy makers weren’t getting the message. Although not widely understood by the everyday person, I penned.

...They could see the permafrost line moving up the mountains. They could witness the accelerated melt in Greenland where once it was thought that it would take 10,000 years for surface melting to penetrate down to the bottom of the icesheet, now observed as swirling rivers disappearing in the blink of an eye, in just ten seconds. They could predict an ice-free Arctic where air temperatures had risen several times above the global average by 2–3 degrees over the last thirty years. Some of those self-interested nations, including the United States, Russia, and Canada, were even perversely arguing over who should have the oil rights as the Arctic thawed. Greater reserves of carbon to burn!...And

...Jakobshavn Isbrae glacier on its 700 kilometres journey to the coast whose speed since 1997 has doubled and now at 15 kilometres per year it claims the world land speed record for glaciers discharging melt-water of somewhere in the region of 50 cubic kilometres per year into Baffin Bay.

Do the scientists you have with you still maintain an ultra conservative pursuant for advice, or are they now more directly observant and reality based in their guidance in giving direction to you?

In your hologramletter you retell many of the problems you still face. You are too modest in your claims to be winging it Anthony. We go back too far for me to not know how resilient and resourceful you truly are. If there is anyone I know; you are up to the challenge of leadership in the face of adversity.

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

Suzanne you uplift me. Please don’t stop the laughter in your voice and thoughts when you next write, they ease many deeper troubles that plague our ordinary days.

I remember that ad you spoke of, "The last computer you'll ever need, with infinite power and infinite speed." It made me laugh then and again now. They failed to say for its 10 kilos of weight they had milled, mined, distilled, and consumed some 18 tonnes or so of finite and fossil reserves. Or that the 250 watts an hour of power need to run it, emitted ¾ of a tonne of CO2 in greenhouse gases each year. But then if they had, maybe some would have thought twice about biannually upgrading ‘The last computer you’ll ever need, with infinite power and infinite speed’ and then where would their pursuit of infinite growth and profits have been?

The time you took to view your wonderful find of old alkaline batteries, and solar panels was fabulous. I want you to be very careful with the alkaline batteries though as they may no longer be safe. You see, over time alkaline batteries are prone to leaking potassium hydroxide, a caustic agent that can cause respiratory, eye and skin irritation. In an alkaline battery the anode (negative terminal) is made of zinc powder and the cathode (positive terminal) is composed of manganese dioxide and to work they use the potassium hydroxide. If you can see a feathery crystalline structure leaking from the seams of the battery leave them well alone. Back when they were made they also contained a small amount of mercury amalgam. We now know that these heavy metals and compounds were the cause of some of the toxic contamination to landfills in our throw-away society back in the late 20th and early 21st century. Just one more legacy we were leaving for others to clean up.

On your solar panel find, I’m afraid I can’t be of immediate help. I would like you to go back when it is safe to venture out again and send me some more images through your eyes. I noticed that the cartons are sealed. It is very likely that the installation instructions are in those boxes. If so, I can relay them as you view them through to Anthony in Alaska. I am forwarding his recent letter to me, through to you. Some of his memories are very sad; but don’t let them cause you sadness now, there is also much hope in his voice. As you’ll see, he has some colleagues at the HAARP compound that may be able to help with some of your technical issues.

Your memories of the earlier years when we first met are still strong and brought back much to me. I remember you telling me how you wanted to join the ‘army of change to a safe future’ after you were inspired by reading my book back then. You told me it offered many alternatives if we should choose to follow them and provided for a different future to the one we now face. Had only more made the same choice as you. You were a tireless and unflinching ‘comrade in arms’ Suzanne. Do you still have your copy?

I still have two copies. As it happens I had them framed in a display box when the proof copies first arrived from New York in October 2008. I had found the tail feather of a Red Tailed Black Cockatoo on my property in the Perth hills back then, and framed the quill along with an antiques inkwell with the books in the display box. As I now look out on those hills from this building the trees are now dead and the cockatoos long since extinct. One day when my time comes to join them, some others may come along, and as I do, reflect on the outcome for collective humanity if more had headed ‘the call to arms for the good of earth’ that the book endorsed.

Until I see though your laughing eyes once more ….Stay safe – stay indoors. Much hope to you all.


As the hologramletters left on their journey to Suzanne and Anthony the incoming transmission light flickered. Was it Anthony with more news or Suzanne with answers to his questions. The face of someone he vaguely remembered came to the screen. The voice seemed to stir a distant memory.

Bob, you may not remember me my name is Mathew from……… and then it was gone. The hologram faded as quickly as it had formed. Who might that have been he thought?

The light flickered once more. This time it was Anthony from the HAARP complex. As the power supply gauge was quickly reaching zero he flicked the switch to store the message in the library files, this would have to wait. Maybe tomorrow the Hail Mary clouds would clear and his batteries could be returned to full power.

Many questions to ask – Why did we hate our children and theirs?

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)

NOTE The following is an adaptation from the soon to be released book ‘Letters From 2030’. To register interest on its release, or to order a copy email Bob Williamson via this link.

January 5th 2030.

My friends.

As you know, my power supply is very limited not permitting much time for transmissions. I have been working on increasing collection and capacity and soon will be able to spend more time to answer your questions to me.

Today, I need and ask for your help, and thoughts.

For several years I have been troubled with the question as to why we collectively avoided the human morality we were blessed with. Why did we hate our children and theirs?

As I remember and reflect on my own awakening, more pressing becomes the question, "When did our collective humanity loose our desire for life?" I can't help but continue to ask myself, "When was that date? When was that time in our collective human awareness when we said, 'We do not care for our children; theirs; mine and yours?'”

Maybe there were many dates that could be said that; that was the time. That was the turning point when we stopped caring. That was the date when we failed the future. When we gave up when we said, “let’s all go shopping instead.”

What price then, did we put on the life of a single child? On the life of mine, on the life of yours and on the life of others, and when did it happen? Can you help me answer this question? It has haunted me now for many years.

When was the date we relinquished all care for our children and theirs to others? Others that cared not for your child, mine or others put in harms way, those that focused not on human safety, or the infinite survival of man, but on greed, power and protection, of their vested commercial and political interests. At what date did we complacently evolve into not caring for our children; theirs; mine and yours?

Was it in the first decade of the 21st century? Had something external, cosmic or terrestrial occurred at midnight on December 31st 1999? Was that the date?

Was it with Kyoto in 1997 that we started trading human life for continuing with our addiction to consumption at the cost of our children?

Was it at Copenhagen in December 2009, when we started to trade our children’s lives? Or was it earlier?

Was it in late 2008 and throughout 2009 / 2010 where the economic crisis as they called it, was seen of more concern than the lives of our children, mine; yours; and theirs?

As you can plainly see, I have been vexed with these questions for many years now. My awakening was at my 17 year old daughter Emma’s bedside in February of 1999 when after a massive, unexpected, and sudden asthma attack, could not breathe... by the time we had called the ambulance and it arrived, with sirens blaring and lights flashing she was rushed to the hospital; we had lost her twice. She had died; she was revived and in intensive care for quite some time. As we sat by her bedside in constant vigil over the next two weeks or so, there was not one thought or doubt in my mind that I would have willingly traded places with her in a heartbeat. I would have traded my life. My wife and I wanted our children to have the future we dreamed of for them, from the very moment we brought them into the world. For me, this never changed.

Do you remember yours?

We now know, all did not have an awakening, or we would not be; where we now are.

Would we could, return to that date, we would surely want to change the future we have left for our children to inherit. Wouldn’t we?

Wouldn’t we, now looking back with 20/20 hindsight have risen up as a single human voice; a voice of collective humanity demanding a safe future?

Wouldn’t we now looking back with 20/20 hindsight have taken the power to change to a safe future away from those that didn’t care for our children, mine; yours; and theirs?

Did I fail Emma? Did you fail those you loved? Did they fail theirs? What was the date?

We knew the price of everything, but the cost of nothing.

What was the date, and what was the price we put on our children, mine; yours; and theirs?

You may not be able to answer my questions, at least my problems shared are my memories aired.

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

Letters of horror and of hope.

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)

NOTE The following is an adaptation from the soon to be released book ‘Letters From 2030’. To register interest on its release, or to order a copy email Bob Williamson via this link.

January 4th 2030

The solitude he had chosen today, may, he thought one day come to an end. No longer the young environmental activist of earlier years, he often felt tired. He laboured to maintain the basic infrastructure of the place he now called home.
The sustainable energy supply from his solar system and the water he relied on to give him life. He often thought of abandoning his security here for other northern regions. Maybe one day he would see a reason to do so.

The time of day had now come for him to venture out; even if only within his virtual reality view of the shattered world. Would there be word today to raise his hopes. Would he receive a hologramletter?

He turned on the main monitor. The stored photovoltaic power built slowly. His hopes were high. As full power supply was reached, his spirits soared. The transmission materialised – It was Anthony!

Greetings Bob:
January 4, 2030.

It is amazing to have seen your message. What has it been, just over ten years since we have spoken, a few months before the Big Thunder. I still see the coverage of it in my nightmares, all that ice cascading into the sea. We tried to warn them, remember, way back in 09. I told you my crazy little theory then that someday an earthquake would cause the increasingly brittle ice of Greenland to crack up and run into the sea.

I am in Alaska now; actually, holding up with four scientists in parts of the HAARP compound. This place is amazing. They had to have alternative uses in mind when they constructed it. It is our hope that someday a computer genius will happen along, in order to break some of the security codes. I would love to read all the classified information in the system here. It is a rather long story, how I got here. I will give you the nuts and bolts of it now. Right after the Big Thunder, my son and five of his buddies came to me seeking leadership. They had heard me more than once expanding upon the prospect of this event, when we were all camping and fishing on the islands of the Mississippi. I miss those quiet times late at night, when the only real threat was West Nile from mosquitoes. It seems almost surreal now. My son and his buddies are ex-special forces, which perhaps, is why I am still alive today.

We tried the eco-village lifestyle a couple of times over the years. Marauders came in the first time, stealing and wrecking everything when we were on a fishing expedition. The second time, I and the men were on a recon mission securing medical supplies from an abandoned military installation. We had several places for the women and children to hide in, had great alarm systems to alert them when marauders came around. They were caught out in the woods picking berries beyond the perimeter. I will spare you the details of what we found. It was all I could do to keep the group together after that. They were thirsting for blood revenge.

For years we travelled north, sort of a vigilantly anti-marauder squad. I kept the group together by allowing them to attack only when we caught the marauders plundering and attacking others. The J-team, my boys squad, wanted to wipe out camps along the way. It would’ve been a suicide mission. They are good, but not that good. Long story short, on a recon mission near Juneau we ran across 16 a-holes pinning down and shooting at four women held up in an old barracks. It didn’t take long for the squad to neutralize the situation. We found four women scientists who were conducting a recon search for supplies. Rosa is their leader she was the one who mentioned your message. It seems she was a freshman in college when she read your book. You made an impact Bob. She became a paleoclimatologist. I didn’t tell her we once worked together.

Our little group has expanded from 11 to 67. There is so much to tell you about. However, I hear an argument brewing as the hunting party is returning. About half the group are strict vegans, I am not in that number. My boy, Rosa, and I make up the ruling consul. If these people only knew, I make it up as I go along; it is very lonely at times. For the past seven years I have not run across anyone older than 44. We, my friend, are relics – you at 77 and me at 67.

I have to run, but let me pass this on first. They, the science squad, have come to a conclusion about Big Thunder. It is now their scientific consensus that after the ice cascaded into the ocean Greenland’s land mass shifted upwards. The result was extensive methane releases, hence no ice age, unleashing the onslaught of disasters that brought civilization to its knees.

It is very heart warming to know there is someone out there who can recall the good times. I will write later. Right now I have to play Kissinger.

Anthony

P.S. Before I run, Bob, there are valleys here that look like the Garden of Eden. We have a botanist in the group, Viki. She has found new plants species. I never mentioned to you that I suspected rapid climate change caused evolution to make leaps and jumps. Through all the devastation we have witnessed, it is amazing to see new life springing forth upon the earth. Sadly, we will never live to see what the next dominant species of the planet will be.


The tears streamed down his face as he replayed the message.

Stopping to see each of the images as Anthony described them.
Each of the touch screens were a virtual tour of the memories and current images, that Anthony’s hologramletter narrated. The views gave horror, sadness and many vivid emotions. The closing images of the valleys; of the Garden of Eden that Anthony could see from his compound, gave Bob hope in Anthony’s final message. Some had survived and the planet was evolving slowly. He replayed the message once more. Tomorrow when power supply permitted he would reply.

With some remnants of sadness still hanging over him, he reached forward to turn off the monitor.

He paused; the monitor’s incoming transmission light flickered.

His spirits again soared, it was Suzanne!

Greetings Bob,

I hope that this communication will find you well. Since my finding you, I've been spending time to transcribe my audio recordings from the years so that not only can I look back at all that I have experienced, but also to put it into some semblance of what it has been like to share with you and others. I've kept logs of my thoughts and experiences, photos and notes on this micro, knowing that maybe the day would come that I could share this with someone.

The occasional giggle escapes me because sometimes I have to laugh when I indulge in using this computer -- it was the last item I purchased before tendered currency became obsolete. I can even remember the ad, "The last computer you'll ever need, with infinite power and infinite speed." Catchy little slogan as it was -- I have to say they were right, it hasn't faltered even once since I bought so long ago. Sometimes too, I laugh when I remember finding you on twitter. I'll save the reminiscent thoughts for another time...

I've been able to salvage enough supplies to sustain me now for I think at least a few months, knowing of course that everything must be conserved as long as possible, but now is the time to also find a way to create a permanent living environment, my wandering days have taken their toll. I have a difficult time reminding myself at times that I'm not 30 or 40 years old anymore. Where did the years go? Oh wait I remember, we were trying to survive our own self-destruction... that too I'll save for later, at least for this communiqué, the focus on this message must be on the present.

I want to share with you what I am facing and existing in, before what I've been through, so this brief transmission will give you a bit of a tour of my explorations here since I arrived. As you can see in these images, this complex is quite massive, probably one of the city's older complexes, the skywalks connecting at different levels were clearly not in the original plans of these buildings, and it hasn't had the solar retrofits on any of the buildings, or at least none yet that I've explored.

Two days after my transmission to you I stumbled onto a remarkable discovery ~ I've been digging and searching through basements and lower levels but when I came into this building, I was drawn to the upper floors. Would you look at all this!!! Micro cells, old alkaline batteries, and solar panels still encased in their original boxes. I just couldn't contain my excitement on this find and decided that I had to contact you as soon as possible with it!

I'm not sure how I will be able to put this all together, but I know that I will find a way to use these sources. Any advice in implementing these items into my living conditions would be greatly appreciated. I hadn't done the installation work on what I had lived with before, so my experience in getting it all operational is almost non-existent.

I'm hoping that tomorrow the haze clears enough for me to be able to begin to retrieve much of what I found, but for now I must be patient and content with the fact that I am here, I have survived, and God willing, I will be able to share more of what life has been, is, and will be again soon.

Ever in friendship,
Suzanne

As he finished her letter the supply gauge displayed ZERO amps remaining.

He would need to wait to see through her eyes and revisit her memories, until later.

He had this to look forward to, and much to occupy his thoughts, until then.

A time of quiet reflection.

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)

NOTE The following is an adaptation from the soon to be released book ‘Letters From 2030’. To register interest on its release, or to order a copy email Bob Williamson via this link.

The night had passed with refection on how far we had come from the beginning to where we now were, in the short history of man.

As he sat there in the dim luminescence provided by the plants he had propagated, he read the excerpt from his book.

It was of the sobering description of man’s time on earth from David Brower, an eighty-five-year-old retired executive director of the Sierra Club. David had put us, our history as a species, our agricultural revolution, and our Industrial Revolution into a thoughtful perspective by compressing all geological time, from the initial formation of the earth some 4.5 billion years ago, right up to now into the six days of biblical creation.

Using that compressed time scale (one day = 750 million years), Earth is formed by a solar nebula at midnight, the beginning of the first day Monday. All day Monday is spent getting geologically organized. There is no life until Tuesday morning about 8:00 a.m. Amazingly, life, beginning with that first spontaneous cell somewhere in the primordial oceans, lifts itself by its own bootstraps, and survives. The prokaryote bacteria appear quickly then proliferate, into mind-bending diversity, ever more complex. About Tuesday noon the blue green algae already begin to create oil deposits.

Millions upon millions of species come during the week, and millions go. What begins as a very toxic and hostile environment gradually is detoxified and sweetened as each species, through its metabolic processes, prepares the hostile environment for the next species, and the next, gradually sweetening earth’s evolving biosphere and preparing the way for those that preceded us, and for us.

Thursday morning, just after midnight, photosynthesis—gradually building since Tuesday—gets going in high gear. Oxygen begins to accumulate in the atmosphere and the protective ozone shield begins to develop. Soon after, early Thursday morning in the wee small hours, more complex eukaryote cells, like those that will come to make up our own bodies, appear. Life begins then to really flourish and evolve into more diverse and complex forms.

By Saturday morning—the sixth day, the last day of creation—there’s enough oxygen in the atmosphere and sufficient ozone shield in the stratosphere that the amphibians can come onto land, and there has been enough chlorophyll manufactured for the forests and other land vegetation to begin to form coal deposits.

Around four o’clock Saturday afternoon the giant reptiles appear. They hang around for quite a long time as a class of animals goes, until 9:55 p.m., nearly six hours. (That would be really long for a species. None has lasted that long and our species is not likely to either!). Just a few minutes after they are gone, a bit after 10:00 p.m. Saturday night, the primates appear. (Incidentally the Grand Canyon begins to take shape only about sixteen minutes before midnight.) Australopithecus, the first species on that branch off the main primate branch, the one that eventually leads to us, shows up in Africa at 11:53 p.m., seven minutes ago.
Homo sapiens arrive at 11:59 and 54 seconds—That is us!

ARRIVING ON THE SCENE JUST SIX SECONDS AGO!

The last six seconds at the end of a very long week, that’s how long we’ve been here. “Let the Party begin.” But the party becomes a binge when, just a little over one second ago, 1.2 seconds in geological time, we (our forefathers) throw off the habits of hunting and gathering and settle down to become farmers, and begin to change and sacrifice the environment to suit, and feed, our appetites.

A third of a second to midnight: Buddha. A quarter of a second to midnight: Jesus of Nazareth. One-fortieth of a second ago, the Industrial Revolution ushers in the age of technology; the party picks up steam, so to speak, and kicks off the great carbon blow-out that will characterize the first Industrial Revolution.

An eightieth of a second, we discover oil and the carbon blow-out accelerates. One two-hundredths of a second ago we learn how to split the atom, and the party gets very dangerous, indeed. I would show a timeline for this week, but the last one-fourteenth of a second would not be discernible. If the timeline were one mile long, the Industrial Revolution would occupy the last .003 inch!

One human lifetime, about 0.001 inch.

And now it’s midnight, the beginning of the seventh day.

God is resting while we work.

As he finished reading and he put the book down, the words of an old song back from 2008 came to him ‘How far we’ve come.’ – ‘I believe the world is coming to an end, Oh well I guess we’ll just pretend.’

He walked over humming it to his hydroponic vegetable garden – a rye smile came over his face as he remembered being told that plants responded to music.

The morning would soon come and the day would pass, while he waited to see if any transmission would arrive from somewhere in the world. A hologramletter that would allow him to see through others eyes and memories, the present as it was and the past how it had been.

He picked up the book once more and read the words.

“Will we ask with 20/20 hindsight what could we have done? Or will we with 20/20 foresight, do what needs to be done?”

He now knew the answer to his 21 year old question.

Am I alone with my thoughts today?

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)

NOTE The following is an adaptation from the soon to be released book ‘Letters From 2030’. To register interest on its release, or to order a copy email Bob Williamson via this link.

It was approaching the time of day he looked forward to the most. His daily receipt of hologramletters.

He walked to the bank of video screens and turned on the main monitor. Who if anyone would he hear from today? The screen came to life. There was what seemed like an eternity as he stood and waited. He feared today would be one where he was left alone with only his own thoughts.

Then as he was about to give hope away, a transmission came to life. The image took his breath away as he looked on the face of a friend he had long since thought he would never see or hear from again.

The voice and images sent were from Suzanne.

As he listened to the voice seeing the images of where she had found refuge from the world’s problems his spirits soared.

He switched on the other monitors and now he could walk with the pictures as if he were there.

A diary of her daily life, her personal trials for survival were now unfolding before his eyes.
Although the message was brief he could pause to see on the various screens the scenes she was describing.

He could see as if through her eyes as she recounted her memories and her life as it now was.

The hologramletter read.

Hi Bob! It’s Suzanne here.

Dear Bob,I'm amazed that I have found you, after all these years, you're the first that I knew from the past that I've seen.

It seems forever since I've had the luxury of electricity. Only a few short days ago did I find the last part needed to repair a broken-down generator I found once able to make my way back to what used to be a metropolitan area.

It's been a difficult road this almost 2 decades - the hardest part of survival being able to find clean water and food supplies to sustain me through this journey. I've been in this city for several weeks now, cautiously exploring and yet to find no other living souls. I have a few plants growing up here in this office suite I've settled my residency in. It must have been a high paid executive's office.

Sitting here looking out over the desolation, (it's obvious that this city was deserted long ago, maybe even before the cataclysmic change at the end of 2012) I can't even imagine what the previous resident of this office may have been thinking as things were coming to an end.

So here I find myself, now scouring through what little is left of world wide web, the most expansive communication network at the peak of our "technological" age finding more of a ghost town than the one I find myself living in. How stable this connection will be I can't say, though I will keep in contact as often as I can.

It's funny, I can still remember how mind-boggling and overwhelming the technology that was going to change the world (and of course did as we witnessed our own destruction)... now it seems not much more than a shattered shell of a memory, and all the kings horses and all the kings men that which consumed every possible natural resource, polluted and destroyed civilization, could not fix it and put it back together again.

We saw it coming, and I joined your cause to enlighten the world ~ we tried to get them to listen, take action, and change their ways, but as we sit here now, we know it was too late.

Oddly enough, I still have hope that there will be redemption, that life can survive and once again flourish on this planet ~ we've made it this far, however few of us there are, where no one was supposed to make it at all. Maybe, just maybe, now we have the chance to teach those that are left so that nature can heal and live again, albeit not in our lifetime, maybe in the centuries to come.

If only in our dreams...

Ever in friendship,
Suzanne (ByDezin)

January 2030. A call to hope.

NOTE The following is an adaptation from the soon to be released book ‘Letters From 2030’. To register interest on its release, or to order a copy email Bob Williamson via this link.

He stood looking down on the once busy city streets.

The sky is dull even though long ago the pollution for the coal fired power stations that pumped electricity to the dependant urban population have ceased to emit their deadly carbon dioxide. He remembered the promises of the pro-coal lobby and the politicians back in the first decade of the 21st century. ‘We can continue with business as usual – we are investing in clean coal technology and carbon capture and storage’

He researched this in depth back in those days and tried to alert people to the absurdity of their claims.

The streets below are now deserted, long since flooded by rising sea levels. The assurances of the science community that the risks of sea level rises of several inches by 2100 now in 2030 seemed like a science and political conspiracy. As they waited during those years to present their peer reviewed verifiable reports to policy makers based on observed outcomes of climate change; climate change didn’t wait with the same patience.

He has only distant memories of streets bustling with people all mindlessly going about their commercial activities. Working day in and day out to earn more money to buy more and more consumer goods they couldn’t afford and didn’t need.

Many resources had become extinct during the second decade of the 21st century. Resources just like the fragile natural environment that most had just taken for granted. Use once and then throw away, had been the normal practice of modern day life with no one hearing the message of conservation. The bubble of consumerism without consideration of overshoot had to bust. The population by 2010 had grown to needing 2 – 3 planets to support it.

He remembered when in 2006 he read the example of the carrying capacity and the outcome for St Mathew Island in the Bering Sea when stocked with twenty-nine reindeer in 1944. Specialists had calculated that the island could support 13 to 18 reindeer per square mile, or a total population between 1,600 and 2,300 animals. By 1957, the population was 1,350; but by 1963 with no natural controls or predators, the population had exploded to 6,000. The original calculations had been correct; this number vastly exceeded carrying capacity and was soon decimated by disease and starvation by 1966 there were only 42 reindeer alive of these last 42, save one very sick male, were all female.

Like other past civilizations the overshoot of their business as usual and living as usual habits had now caught up with the global population of man. By 2050 in a mere 20 years time projections suggested a mere 200,000 would remain in isolated pockets of human inhabitation around the planet.

He looked around him at the room in which he spent most of his time. The bank of power cells he had collected took constant care in order that the solar power he collected from the roof on the high rise he now called home would not let him down when he needed supply. No power was wasted as had been in the days long since passed into history.

He walked to the hydroponic garden room and plucked a leaf from one of the lettuces he grew. He had been careful to collect the seeds each time they had gone to flower, painstakingly pollinating them by hand. Mother natures bees had long since gone. The day for their end of birth long since passed.

In the second decade of the 21st century there had been much genetic engineering of crops by multinational corporations like Monsanto. They like the coal lobby had green washed the public and the politicians of the day with their assurances that seed modification genetically modified not to produce viable seed for future crops, was in the interests of feeding a swelling global population. Their tampering with nature had only one outcome.

So now at least in this isolated desolate city the only green remaining was in that room.

It was approaching the time of day he looked forward to the most. His daily receipt of hologramletters.

The previous day it had been New Years day January 1st 2030. He had sent out a call to all he was still connected to. His hologramletter had read:-


Well it’s now January 1st 2030.
Thanks to all of you for your daily hologramletters, I look forward to them every day.

There seems more time in the day these last few years to put my thoughts down and to keep in touch with the few of you that are left. Sadly many of my friends and yours have fallen by the wayside. Their homes swallowed up by advancing deserts or inundated with rising sea levels. Some have sarcome to starvation and lack of clean drinking water and many to disease. I know a few must have survived by moving to the remaining isolated areas that can still support life, but many have lost contact and I fear we will never hear from them again.

As I sit down this New Years day to write this letter to you my friends, I look back on the last few years since the publishing of my book ZERO Greenhouse Emissions -The Day the Lights Went Out – Our Future World and ponder what more I could have done to change the future, with a sense of sadness. Then I was only 56 now I am a 77. I have reached what they once called three score years and ten and passed it by seven long years. But what a time it has been.

Years have passed since the hope for our planet hinged on this or that politician being elected to make a change but none did.
I remember in 2009 when the first African American President was elected to the United States. President Obama just like my hopes and dreams has now passed into history. They say the mistake he made was to focus efforts on trying to save an economic system that was inevitably destined for demise. A system that relied not only in preserving the way of life of the American population that could not be saved under the way that they had lived, but missed the point that these issues were transitory, but the climate crisis was not.

I look back now with sadness that all were listening to today’s problems but ignoring those that would strike tomorrow. We had the chance back then but failed. I thought if enough woke up – bought my book and realised the truth then, we would become the army of concern for a safe future that would change our future to one that was not finite. As I sit here now I’m saddened that we missed that opportunity.

We will more than likely be described by those that survive this time in the short history of man, as those that could have made a change, but could not be bothered. Those that could have made a difference, but just didn’t care about others.
Those that could have saved humanity, but just kept on consuming.
Those that could have secured a safe future, but just kept bickering about who should be first.
Those that could have saved humanity, but preferred to go shopping.

I don’t know what more I could have done. Even now; looking back on the last 21 years, I don’t know what more; I could have done.

In 2008 when I wrote the book, I thought I could make a difference. I pushed for every mother of every child, every father of every child, to read it to understand how we were putting their children – not just theirs, but mine and yours in peril. They were deaf to the pleas. I, as with many others worked tirelessly to wake them up. Wake them up from the illogical sleepwalk they were on. They slept on. Many of these other crusaders for change have now gone. I still lament the passing of James Lovelock, Al Gore amongst others. I miss their wisdom and their passion.

So here we are in 2030 with the outcome of our global sleepwalk and that of our political masters back in those days. Here we are in world of irreversible of climate change. Here we are in a world of atmospheric concentration of CO2-e of 1,000ppm at the level of 55 million years ago. At the level as we are seeing now where all ecosystems have failed and only a few of us still survive. They say there may be as few as 200,000 of the 7 billion of the worlds population in 2010 left by 2050. I know I won’t be one of them.

It is amazing looking back that we fell for the claims from Industry and from world politicians that we could go on as we had and there would be no outcome to our lives or the planet. I know many at the time believed these messages and went on as they always had. Sad isn’t it that so many have died because of this ignorance and complacency?

I remember in the first decade of the 21st century when they saw the Polar Regions heating up at three times the global average and they just said that further evidence was needed before verifiable scientific reports could be presented. Then the West Antarctic ice shelves collapsed and they said well we thought they might. Millions then perished.

I remember at the same time they were telling us that the permafrost in the Arctic was melting and would release billions of tonnes of methane into the already overburdened carbon pool in the atmosphere, but no one listened. I remember at that time when we were at 390ppm that the world had been a very different place to when levels had been that high before. We knew that at 390ppm in 2008 the concentrations of CO2 were almost identical to those in the Pliocene atmosphere 3 million years ago and that global temperatures then were 3 degrees higher than the average in that first decade of the 21st century, but we just went shopping.

So we let emissions keep rising. We allowed the polluters of our fragile planet to keep polluting, we allowed ourselves to keep going on as we had. And then it hit. We didn’t think it would; but then as they say Shit Happens.

I’ll write tomorrow. Stay safe – stay indoors. Much hope to you all.