So I posted this little story over at alternatehistory.com and got a warning for posting a 'political screed'. I can see where they're coming from but it's not intended as such. Anyone want to read it? Great, okay, let me post it. There are no stories for our generation to tell. Two world wars and a depression shaped the lives of previous generations and gifted the world with the literary expression of their haunted, beautifully aching souls. A meaningless war and a social revolution defined the lives of their children and grandchildren and bequeathed to the future a vision of hope ground to dust under the draftees’ boots. The dawn of the Information Age ushered a cynical new generation into a schizophrenic culture where Anonymous reigned supreme and anyone could be everyone, at any time and any place. The stories they left behind were textured portraits of lives caught up in the great whirlwind of human progress. We cherish them and live vicariously through the past we have inherited, for we have nothing else. It is not ours to follow those who came before us into history, our legacy bearing witness to the future. Our generation attempted to meet the great task set before it, and we have failed. The planet dies before our eyes. The seas are almost devoid of life, the air we breathe slowly increasing in fatal toxicity. The planet is well on its way to becoming inhospitable to human life, the rising temperatures and searing heat simply too much for our fragile bodies to bear. We cluster at the center of our great continents, having abandoned the wind-lashed coasts and submerged cities. The Earth is an alien world now, hostile and forbidding. Huddling in temperature-regulated domes, we wait for the end. But we alone cannot shoulder all the blame. The deck was stacked against us from the start. The price of progress is steep, and not even our illustrious forebears were willing to bear the cost. The monumental industries of our ancestors gravely wounded our fragile planet even as the standard of living rose across the globe. The Cassandras of the recent past, the doomsayers, decried the reckless exploitation of the Earth’s natural resources and the slow poisoning of the oceans and air. Their warnings, for the most part, fell on deaf ears. As the oceans steadily rose, mundane discussions of the weather became panicked conferences about the climate. Nations entered into solemn pacts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and regulate the use of non-renewable energy sources, to no avail. It only took a single election to enable a nation to back out of its promises in the name of prosperity and profit. Even as the scientific evidence overwhelmingly pointed to certain doom, the deniers stuck to their claims that climate change was merely a hoax, or completely unrelated to humanity’s activities. And so Nero fiddled while Rome burned. A consumer culture spread across the world, and the people spoke. The Earth is our home, the Earth is our responsibility, they cried out. But the price is too high. The price is just too high. But the bill has now come due, and there is no one left to pay but we, the dying. And we have paid, dearly. It is not enough. Greenhouse gas emissions continued unabated, and humanity used up the last of the Earth’s fossil fuel resources. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere soared while biodiversity plummeted. Great storms wracked the sunken coasts while inland, endless droughts removed our ability to feed ourselves. We began to fight amongst ourselves. No longer did we fight for ideals or the freedom of others to live as they pleased. We fought for water, for food, for the scarce resources of a dying world. Humanity’s numbers plunged towards the abyss of oblivion. The fighting stopped when there was no one left to kill. Our generation has no stories to tell, for we are the dying. Our legacy is a barren world that will only recover from our ravages long after we are gone. Our descendants will not see this restored Eden, for it is here in this time of death that the race meets its end. Even if our bodies could withstand the murderous heat outside of our sealed domes, we would find succor nowhere, and deliverance withheld by a vengeful Nature. We, the dying, have looked upon our works and despaired. Man gained dominion over the Earth, but leaves it now a pale shadow of its former glory. There are no stories for our generation to tell, for we are the dead.
Yes, it is, but it doesn't tell us that it is. It seems to be saying that it is a plausible extrapolation from global warming.
