But I still wanted to base it on real science. So I started reading about global warming. What will actually change, apart from it being warmer? Well, I found out that scientists say warmer temperatures will change things in all sorts of complicated ways. There will be more droughts in some places, more rain and storms in others, more forest fires. Some rivers will dry up, while others will flood more often. Deserts will expand. The oceans will heat up, killing coral reefs. As it gets hotter, tropical diseases will spread. Glaciers in Greenland and West Antarctica will melt into the ocean, raising sea levels.
How will this affect our lives? No one can be sure, but we can make some educated guesses. For instance, if sea levels rise, many coastal towns and cities will have to be abandoned. If there are more droughts, crops will fail and there will be food shortages and famine. As deserts expand, wars will be fought over the remaining areas of good farmland. Indeed, many of these things are already happening in various places around the world.
Famine, war and rising seas will force millions of people to flee their homes. Where will they go? With most countries already struggling to feed their own population, this tidal wave of refugees will create chaos around the world.
With all these pressures, law and order will start to break down. And when law and order fails, local hard men like Blaster emerge, offering protection—at a cost.
So this is Noah and Sara’s world. It could be our world if we do nothing about global warming.
Then I tried to imagine a more optimistic “sustainable” future. Again, I wanted to get beyond boring statistics and abstract ideas and imagine what such a world might really be like.
So I did some more research. I learnt that, because burning fossil fuels causes global warming, we will need to replace coal, oil and gas with renewable energy such as dams and solar and wind and wave power (and, maybe, nuclear power).
I also learnt that many experts think renewable energy will not produce as much power as fossil fuels, so we will also need to use less energy. Then I found out that much of our energy is used for buildings, transport, and making stuff. So in Beth’s world people live in smaller houses, buy less new stuff and recycle more, and their lives are much more “local” to reduce travel.
They also grow some of their own food, which is hard work but uses less machinery and trucks and tractors, and therefore less energy.
Forests are being replanted, because forests absorb carbon dioxide. And large chunks of both land and sea have been set aside for nature to recover and flourish without humans.
So this is how I came up with Beth’s world. I’m sure there will be other changes too (eating insects and jellyfish was one of the ideas I came across) but many things will stay the same: Beth’s Baytown is more peaceful (and safer) with fewer cars, but it still has the internet, computer games, school, football, music, swimming at the beach, boy-meets-girl and so on.
I don’t suppose everything will turn out exactly like this, but I hope it gives you some idea of the sort of world we need to create to stop global warming. The good thing is, we don’t need to invent anything new; just make a few changes to the way we live.
Finally (or firstly), Billy’s world came about because I love going for walks in the forest near my home. But whereas I visit the forest for a couple of hours then go home, for thousands of years the forest itself was home. I found that fascinating, and began researching—and imagining—what it must have been like to live in the forest without houses or electricity or clothes or fridges or any of the many other things we now think we can’t do without.
If you’d like to know more about global warming and sustainable living, and some of the thinkers, books and websites that have inspired my “imaginaries”, visit https://www.thestonegate.net.
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