Chapter 36
Vince gripped his jPad in the back of the jostling scout truck bumping along up the wadi. Brad kept his eyes glued on the developing GPS pattern of morning balloons first returned to ground. “Looking pretty good,” Brad said, grinning. “I’d estimate we get an easy ninety percent recovery. See that one.” He pointed at the visiscreen map. “Aahil says the guys coming in on motorbikes can get in further than the trucks. They stuff the balloon in a carry bag, hook the bag on the front of the bike, and drag the helium tank back out with a towrope.”
As they approached the first balloons, Vince followed Brad’s glance out the window for a visual ground check. A splash of green lettering marked one empty balloon, and another deflated piece of feather-web fabric lay draped across a rocky outcrop. One more stretched over the sand to hang partially from a scrubby bush.
“Wind picks up later in the day, right?” Vince asked.
“Today we keep launching, no matter what,” Brad said. They’d been given the go ahead on keeping balloons going up all day. Each emblazoned with Green Sahara, for the president’s campaign and his vision for Niger. “Today’s Friday, the peoples’ day off and their president wants them to celebrate the second coming of their Green Sahara. We seek Redemption, my man.”
“You are peculiar Brad. You got this upbeat stance on everything, all while you prepare for the Apocalypse.”
“Look around your world, dude. What clearer sign would anyone need of a global climate crisis? And you of all people know about people! Think of the potential shit to come, Vince.” Brad had been trying to convince Vince to purchase a piece of land on the British Columbia side of his mountain valley. Think of it as insurance, for your daughter if nothing else he’d been saying.
Vince had resigned to the topic and the conversation, even interested. “So you look at the basics of food and shelter first? Security in a local community.”
“Yeah man.”
Picture our children in a generation, Brad would say, when they’re our age. Easy proposition. His bright grin seemed conducive to what he wanted for his boys, a better, more people friendly scene. A more nature friendly community, and by extension a whole world with the same outlook. The climate of the future, meteorologically and culturally, was not on its way—the change had arrived. With no end in sight to extreme weather events, unless these sulphur injections into the stratosphere worked, people would react. People will do something. And Brad stressed thinking on how what people did might not be too pretty—they did have a track record. When it came to climate change, the chance at a global wise move had come and gone, too late, and how much too late was the real question to ask. So at a personal level, best to focus on how to survive the climate change transition. Brad got into the details of the Mad Maks movie world, one he really hoped against. But possible. A real world scenario came from the transition by prehistoric people from the last Ice Age to the Holocene. He watched the transition dramatized by animated extinct characters with his sons. You could laugh at the antics of critters like a sloth and a mammoth, but if you looked carefully, you saw reality issues abounding in the setting and the background. A climate transition involved a significant lifestyle adjustment.
“Food’s number one,” Vince said. “Sounds like that valley of yours has an excellent growing climate. And a low risk climate change projection.”
“Correct. Soft fruit trees grow there,” Brad said. “An indicator of high productivity in the colder north.”
“Couldn’t you store food from a current agricultural source,” Vince asked. “In my grandfather’s time, a guy carried a fifty pound sack of flour to the homestead and fed a family for months.”
“Yeah, starting to think about that,” Brad said. “A couple hundred pounds of stored rice. Aahil does that in their house.”
Food storage would be essential. Brad, with no green thumb, imagined specializing in refrigeration or water systems design. Irrigation required water flows to the right places at the right time. Being a non-gardener, he thought about long term self-sustaining food sources, like a yard full of nut trees. To get a family food storage facility in place would be top priority. History taught the basics of root cellar function, but solar power allowed a heat transfer system. He dug one pit on their valley property, lined with Styrofoam insulation. A summer long test revealed the pit’s ability to keep vegetables cool and ice frozen throughout the summer valley heat. Your grandfather did something like that, he told Vince. Big question, though, would a guy be standing guard over his vegetable patch with a shotgun? Something to keep in mind, and ideally not.
“Soon as I get home, I’m gonna dig another pit. You gotta come out there Vince, and see the place. Check out the land for sale. Not too far from Calgary,” Brad said. “I’ve been sketch designing another rain capture system, so I’m gonna do an install on that next summer too.”
Brad even had international dreams for the valley, as valley geography overlapped the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia. Spectacular views made the valley appear as paradise but on a pragmatic tone kept the place isolated. On either side, high mountains kept unwanted factors out.
“Civilization contained within,” Vince said, looking at Brad. “The unconverted world stays out.”
“The valley’s inland off the main California to Alaska route,” Brad said. “Movers best travel along the coast, if they veered inland to Spokane they hit a lot tougher route. So a guy keeps out of their way.”
“You see that happening Brad?” Vince asked. “Climate refugees coming north in our own countries.”
“A lot of scenarios run through my mind.” Brad squinted. “Distinctly plausible.”
You needed a Wild West covered wagon plan, Brad summarized. Always the basics: daily nutrition essential, and a shelter to stave off winter cold. Good strategy suggested two shelters, like an urban house and an emergency survival cell. If he moved stock and barrel to the valley, he’d still set up another survival cell up a mountainside or on that valley lake. Quality modern clothing lasted a long time, so a good stock kept you warm and dry.
Next was community. In fact, that would and should be the ultimate focus.
“So a valley community,” Vince said. “Like a town, and all the rural people up and down the valley.”
“Community making can be a blast.” Brad’s smile flashed wide. “Dancing jigs around that covered wagon camp. Or really, how about building a better community model of the future? Out of the way of any coming climate change crazies.”
All sorts of neighbour problems came up for Brad’s cousins in the northern Idaho towns. But still, they kept a pretty solid community spirit. Neighbour helping neighbour, that’s what you needed. Internet had to be there as a solid connection for not just neighbours, but with the external world. Wireless telecommunication, all devices were essential technology—no going back to the covered wagon on that.
“What’s your biggest concern?” Vince asked. “As a potential threat?”
Wild fire danger, Brad was clear. Increased regular forest fires came with hotter drier summer weather. Learning from those cousins he’d designed his land and building accordingly. They said build a fireguard; you chop down all trees close to any structure. But Brad wanted to keep the place hidden, and forest worked for that, so he removed select trees.
But, second threat ran with a massive climate refugee influx. “What do you say to a million people moving up from California? Escaping their parched valley, they come knocking on your humid valley door?” Brad asked. Some bloggers speculated on no place to run to except Planet B. Those more down to earth wrote on regional population shuffles. Like what Tamanna said on Bangladesh—refugees struggling to enter India and the closest big city of Calcutta. That scenario ran him a spinal shiver, Brad said. Far from the Pacific Northwest, Asia, but what people did there told you what people do anywhere. Sadly, what could a guy do for Bangladesh from the mountain valley but stay in touch through the web?
“All an advent
ure to you, right Brad?” Vince knew of the glimmers in his friend’s eyes.
That adventure would be impacted by whose side had the edge in the struggle to control the climate, Vince thought. Brad would leave the climate struggle to national governments, thinking what could you really do there anyway? Build his community of the future out in the valley. If something like this geoengineering helped give offset time and the world got its shit together, excellent. If they effectively transitioned to a low carbon economy, and re-stabilized the climate, bonus. But that would still take decades, Vince knew, so you couldn’t blame the guy for taking it as opportunity, and building a little valley community model for future reference. He thought of his daughter’s future more often now.