THE SEASONS OF DUST

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.

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.

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)

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.

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.

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)

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.

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’

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)

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.

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.

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)

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.

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

LEGACY OF LANDFILL

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.

Anthony’s reflections on the past as the seasons were in green and vibrant balance had filled his dreams during the night. He had woken smiling as if still there but soon was shaken to reality by the coldness of life as it was in 2030.

There was still an hour before it was time to switch on the monitors and check for any hologramletters from those he was still in contact with, or from others who may find a way of communicating from their isolation. He paced from room to room wishing the time away. Now at 77, time for him was running out, as it had for man with complacent indecision by the world’s policy makers to collectively demand global emission reductions in the first and second decade and return the planet to a safe and habitable world.

The horizon was dark and threatening as he looked out. Extreme storms and cyclones that once only punished the tropical north now regularly battered the southern city of Perth. He feared today another would strike.

He could wait no longer to switch on the monitors. If the hail came as he knew it would it may disrupt his power supply or damage the roof top solar panels. He flicked the switch and was greeted by his old friend Randell.


February 1st 2030

Bob,

Things are getting real bad here for our everyday essential water supplies as chemicals from the old landfills are now leaching through the groundwater into the wells we get the water from to serve our town. On top of that we can’t use the water in the system to fight fires either, because it’s now become flammable due to high level of chemicals contaminating it. I think maybe all that plastic made from oil we dumped into landfill has started to react with the other chemicals we chucked in there over the last fifty or sixty years or so.

Now I have been thinking about this lately Bob, and talking to the others too, coz you said that one day even though they told us plastic doesn’t break down in landfill, you reckoned that mixed with the right chemicals or other stuff we had dumped in there, it might just break down back into some type of fossil fuel like we made it out of, and then leach into the groundwater. I’m thinking that’s what’s happened here.

You and I urged people to stop throwing all the junk in the landfills for decades. They never took what you and I told them to heart and kept digging bigger and bigger landfills to dump in everything they could, including the cocktail of chemicals that now are coming back to haunt us.

...

As he watched Randells thoughts unfold, he remembered telling him and other folks on the radio show back in 2009, about how much oil had been used just to make the PET plastic bottles we used for sodas and water in the US in just one year. His research back in '09 found out that 1lb of PET to make plastic bottles took 0.13 of a gallon of oil.

...

I wrote it down at the time when you told us Bob, that in 2007 we dumped 4,287 billion lbs of plastic bottles into landfill across the US in just that one year. That was the equivalent embodied oil loss to landfill was 557.3 billion gallons or 12.67 billion barrels. I remember you told us that you’d looked at the period from 1996 to 2007 and worked out the oil lost to landfill for 36,350 billion lbs of PET plastic bottles dumped, was the equivalent to a loss of oil used to make them of 4,725.5 billion gallons or 107.4 billion barrels of oil.

Anyway yesterday was the first time we tried to fight a fire with the heavily contaminated water. Truck 81 was right behind me as we arrived at a house fire; they engaged their pump and the water just erupted in flames like it was pure gasoline in the hose. Thinking it was just that hydrant I ordered unit 82 to pump from across the street and the same thing happened.
We lost the house by the time we drained the useless water from our tanks and filled up from the river.

In my now 43 years of fighting fires I have never seen water so tainted that it couldn’t be used to fight a fire. We are now going to have to use water from the river for fire fighting and I just hope the chemicals don’t get into that water source through the storm drains or we’ll then be up shit creek.

Bob I don’t know what it will take, or even if we can, distil the water from the wells to make it safe to drink. I just know that we are going to have to find a way and do it, to survive. Until then, folks that haven’t got their own rain water tanks and filters are gonna have tote their water up from the river while it’s still running in the winter time.

Big oil and chemical companies have screwed us out of a planet. More later, I’ve gotta go fight another fire.

Randell Byrd
Independence Virginia

...

As the now unnamed tropical cyclone rolled in from the north he switched off all monitors and moved to the relative safety of the central room.

He picked up the book and opened it to his warnings back in 2008:

Waste management authorities tell us that there are numerous problems with landfills. They are designed to support the throwaway economy of the industrial system of consumption, which in itself is designed for demise, leaving us an array of legacies. They now with 20/20 hindsight can tell us of methane emissions from commingled waste and its contribution to greenhouse gases, that food, paper, garden organics, and wood will continue to decompose, providing a legacy of emissions added to by every tonne dumped in ever increasing volumes. They tell us of water table contamination. Toxic waste had been historically dumped, with no plans or strategies in place to cope with the inevitable positive feedbacks. They tell us of heavy metals and e-waste contamination, and of organic breakdown and overall loss of resources. They can however admit they shouldn’t have located residential developments on closed landfill sites, or located these sites on flood plains or in coastal areas, soon to become prone to sea level rises.

He looked down as he returned the book to its familiar place on the table near the window. He could see the swirling blue green algal blooms now reaching out across what was once back in 2000, a pristine river system alive and vibrant. If there were others that could see this poisoned landscape now dead and stagnant, they would echo his cry of ‘We didn’t know what we would loose until it had gone.

Seasons of Remembrance

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.

Today would be a hologramletter bringing back many memories of a world in balance. A time that had, like the many species of fauna and flora been extinguished by catastrophic climate change events in the third decade of the 21st century.

He walked to the monitors to see the past as it had been through Anthony’s memories and how it now was at the HAARP compound.


January 31st 2030

Hi Bob

Do you remember Terry Jacks’ song, ‘Seasons in the Sun.’ This morning, I awoke with this now ancient melody playing in my head. Just like the chorus - our seasons - although they are not gone or altered and who knows when they will be sustainable again.

Normally it is right off to the kitchen/galley to start the meal for the early birds. In this I find much peace and tranquillity. A small sense of home and normality is found in preparing meals. With that ditty running through my brain however, I took some time for quiet reflection.

Closing my eyes, I was rapidly transplanted into the farmhouse where I grew up. The upstairs had five bedrooms, a full bath and a six-foot hallway down its center. That old farmhouse made the place I had on the Iowa River look like a starter kit. In my mind I ran through all the rooms and headed down the bannister staircase, pausing briefly, to glance out the stain glass window upon the landing. There before my eyes was my old dog Lumus, part wolf and part German Shepherd and there stood the old lilac tree in full bloom. A reminder of the blissful days of spring playing baseball, as it was the second base. Across the driveway and a narrow patch of the yard, which lead down to the nearest barn, was a field of winter wheat, glistening, golden in the morning sun.

Down the remainder of the five steps I flew. Walking now I saw the old gas stove: recalling the blower beneath it that spread its generous warmth while lying before it covered in a blanket, upon many a sub-zero winter afternoon, the air filling the blanket like a tent and escaping into the room about my head. Off to the side of the stove were two old oak sliding doors, which led to a formal dinning room we seldom used. I slipped into the kitchen bathed in the early morning rays of yellow sunlight. Looking out the screen door I inhaled the freshness of the air. Peeping into the adjacent room, converted from whatever its original purpose was, to become a plant symposium. I noticed my mother out the bay windows. Out the kitchen screen door I ran, leaping from the colonnade porch to land beside her. She was there tending to young seedlings in the hothouse.

Behind her were the old cellar doors. Another memory of a stormy night gripped me, when my sister and I, struggling against a tyrant wind, clinging to each other as we battled to raise one of the doors and descend into the safety of that underground haven; a haven that was shelter from tornadoes as well as a repository for years of canned produce. The memory of that stormy night in 1969 is a staunch reminder that Mother Nature and I are old friends for I was not picked up upon the wind and whisked unto the Land of Oz. . . . Flashing back to standing there beside my mother and the hothouse, I notice violets growing along the cellar doors. It must have been late April or early May.

I recall so clearly spring back then. You could count upon a gentle transition of temperatures from winter to summer. There was a steady and timely growth of the flora with a greening of the grass, budding flowers, blooming trees, and more budding flowers etc. It was a time when the patterns of nature, the biota and atmosphere were in sync, when the calendar and the weather were on the same page. Fall was filled with gradually cooling temperatures and leaves changing color and floating from the trees, when every evening and weekend was spent outside to reap the joy from whatever warm days were left, before leading into a winter of harsh skies and long frozen nights. Memories of ice-skating under a full moon fill my mind, not to mention anxiously awaiting snow days, an escape from school. There is a thought Bob, what will the childhood of the young remember kindly from this world our generation has bestowed unto them be? It was right then, the seasons, while under change in the early 1970's they still held the semblance of being sustainable and sweet. Of course I was 6-10 years old and my memories may be weak now, or altered in recall to create a more – Norman Rockwellian existence.

Before I floated back to the reality about me, I allowed myself a few more moments in the yard. I stood there batting collected Jonathan apples out into the orchard for the cows to eat. A heinous chore as a child, now a happy memory; see what I mean about recall. I then took a walk around the garden and marvelled at its glory. There were twenty rows of potatoes, twelve each of peas, green beans, horticulture beans (a soup bean). Of course there were the tomatoes, peppers, onions, corn, carrots, beats, cucumbers, lima beans (yuck), squash, pumpkins and radishes, with the rows themselves being nearly seventy-five feet long. The garden is still a very vivid memory. One does not spend twelve to fourteen hours a day as a child, upon a colonnade porch in the shade of an old oak tree shelling and snapping beans and soon, if ever, forget. It is like the memory of that closest barn, with its flaking white paint. A two-sided corn crib with a pathway built through the center for tractors to pass. I can still see the old ladder that leads up into the top, upon the bottom rung hung wires. These were used by me, the youngest in the family, who couldn’t hold a chicken up and pick it at the same time. We would raise and butcher anywhere from 300-600 chickens a year for the freezers. I never became a vegan, although I severely limited my intake of meat. For years I avoided chicken, now however, a chicken dinner sounds like a treat. I truly wonder if there is any left upon the planet? After the millions of migratory birds died and people still ignored the reality before them and wondered what was happening and why. How many bird species have been lost during this rapid climate change?

Then I was back in the barracks. Jay was stirring around looking up at me he asked, ‘you all right, you got a dazed and stupid look on your face?’ Realizing my son knew nothing of my childhood and early home life. I simply smiled back and said, ‘never better.’ As I was heading out the door, he gave me a questioning look, as per my sanity. A look I have seen before and suspect I will see again.

Today Bob! Today I cornered the Rev. Ted Haggard. I suppose I am still feeling somewhat giddy over reliving my past this morning. So forgive me, the writer/artist wants to play. So let me relate to you what happened in a novel fashion . . .

“Ted,” Anthony called out. Ted, seeing him started to turn around and head down the hallway. Anthony had been a fan of Science Fiction in his teen years. He had devoured everything written by Frank Herbert after reading the Dune series. Over the years he had practiced the use of Voice, finding that it actually worked. So, slipping into what he called his drill sergeant voice, he barked out. “Ted! Stop. We need to talk.” A slight vibration was seen cruising through Ted as he froze in his tracks and turned around.

Remarking sarcastically Ted said, “What can I do for you-fearless-leader.”

Oh crap, Bob. Patricia/Katey just came in. We had a momentary lost of power down in the remote horticultural centers. Patricia had shifted their power source to the back up solar arrays. I am heading down with her to the security center to see what is up. I will fill you in later.

...Bob, one of the relay stations out in the mountains was blown up. Jay and Max came into the command center just when Patricia pulled up the image. We had to talk them down from wanting to mount an immediate exploratory mission. It is a given from what I saw that this was the work of the marauders. I suspect they are growing suspicious from rumors floating about that there is an underground outpost nearby, well, that and the fresh produce baskets and plots we have put out. I calmed down Jay and Max, they will go out tomorrow night, the two of them, and set up a surveillance post in the region. I told them under no circumstances are they to be seen. They are not to eliminate anybody, unless they are seen. We want to give off the impression that the relay stations’ power system, while live, does not go anywhere populated. It is a damn good thing that those stations and lines stop at the bottom of the mountain, then are buried deep underground. I doubt the marauders will go to the effort of digging them up and tracing them back here. The plan is to scout the area out, find out what is going on for sure and only conduct repairs if we are 100 percent certain this was not marauder related. I have been reassured that our power supplies are not in jeopardy and there is still ample backup solar power should we need it to replace the geothermal.

Max - now he is new to the unit. I have my suspicions to tell you the truth. I am still not convinced that he is not a mole. Jay and the squad have really taken to this dude. The Sci squad and The Others avoid him like a plague. He is in his early fifties, was a navy seal and in a special force’s unit for the LAPD, or so he claims. He did prove valuable in researching Ted although. He lifted his prints so we could conduct a search on him. The good reverend Ted is a convict. Not to mention his name is not Ted. I will relay this all to you in the next transmission.

For now Bob, even here at the HAARP compound, I am once again reminded that power is a luxury. It is amazing, having been here for less than two years, and once again I take this for granted. It wasn’t that long ago that we traveled north by night, using solar powered yard lights, to guide our way. Of course we outfitted them with black snap covers for easy dousing of the light. We relied upon magnesium fire starter kits I had collected over the years to start fires for cooking and heat. It is almost like we went from being civilized to hunter-gatherers and back again. If you can call what we did and how we lived as civilized? I don’t. With regret I forget that any survivors in the badlands are stuck in a hellish futuristic survivor reality. A reality that even writers like Frank Herbert failed to convey to us.

Until the Saga of the Good Reverend Ted then.

He has come around by the way.

It is time to create a new religion from the chaos of man, with reverend charlatan leading the way. It is time to create a religion based upon sustainability and being a part of Gaia’s cycles.

As always, winging it without a prayer. Foflol.

Your friend Anthony.


He replayed the scenes of the seasons in balance and reflected on the prophetic words of John F Kennedy in the 1960’s “The Supreme Reality of Our Time is Vulnerability of our Planet"