WHEN WE AGAIN RESPECT THE EARTH -- AND EACH OTHER -- GLOBAL WARMING WILL FINALLY END
In EMPTY EARTH, a novel about the devastating effects of climate change caused by global warming, the main characters, Adam and Eva, reach a place of safety on a mountaintop where they and others live in a cave for ten years. Finally they are able to come out of their dark dwelling place, look up, and see the sky again.
Adam put his arm around her and hugged her to him. “You know they said the overload of CO2 in the air would make the weather run wild for hundreds if not thousands of years.”
"If that’s true, then the entire human species is doomed,” she said sadly, looking over at their son. “But that can’t be true,” she said, brightening as she looked back at her husband. “Things are already getting better. The storms are a little less intense and breaks in the bad weather come more often now.”
“You think so?” Adam asked, frowning. “Were the scientists wrong when they talked about hundreds and thousands of years?” he added, as he turned to look up at her grandfather.
“I believe they were wrong,” Grandfather replied confidently. “It seems like the CO2 in the air is dispersing much faster than scientists calculated that it could.”
“So they were mistaken?” Adam asked, giving him a puzzled look.
“Who knows for sure,” grandfather said. “But I agree with Eva that things are a bit better than they were ten years ago when we got here. To me this means that scientists had no way of predicting the cleansing effect the constant tornadoes would have on the air while those tornadoes were knocking down everything in their path on the ground.”
Adam stared at him. “Scientists never considered such as outcome?”
“How could they?” grandfather replied firmly. “Their predictions were made before things spun so terribly out of control. And then when all the destruction banged up against the doors of their laboratories, they could no longer do any work.”
“When things got really bad, the burning of fossil fuels also ended,” Eva said, “so no more CO2 was being pumped into the atmosphere.”
“That’s right,” grandfather said. “Both of those factors changed what was beginning to look like the end for mankind.”
“So despite the constant storms both of you think things are getting a little better,” Adam said, looking from one to the other.
“We’re sitting outside right now,” Eva observed. “For many years we were stuck in the cave.”
Grandfather smiled at Adam. “The world is slowly getting back to a normal cycle of oxygen and CO2, the way it used to be for thousands of years of human existence before the Industrial Revolution drove things so horribly out of kilter.”
“I believe there is real hope for us,” Eva exclaimed, smiling broadly.
“Yes, indeed,” grandfather said. “Humans are no longer polluting the atmosphere. And what is just as important, they are again respecting the earth.”
“How would you know that?” Adam asked.
Grandfather smiled at him. “I know it’s true here in our little community. And it must be true everywhere else as well.”
“Even if it were so, what good does respecting the earth do now?”
“Look, Adam,” grandfather said, “Powerful forces are at work. The cleansing effect of the constant high winds might be one of them. The halt in releasing CO2 into the air might be another. In any case, Eva and I both think the earth is responding in a positive way much faster than anyone could ever have dared dream possible. And we believe others are seeing it too.”
Jeff stopped playing in the stream and ran over to them. “Great grandfather, do you want to look for squirrels with me?” he asked eagerly.
“Sure, I do, Jeff,” Grandfather responded just as eagerly. “But first we’re going to have a meal with your parents and grandparents. Then we’ll play for a bit before it gets too dark.”
Eva's parents emerged from the cave with carved wooden bowls filled with steaming vegetables, and then the entire family sat down on stone chairs around a stone table under the drooping branches of an enormous weeping willow that looked like it had benefited from an abundance of rain.
As they ate, Eva smiled around the table at everyone. “A man in Canada told us the earth was demanding that we reach a higher state of consciousness,” she said, and everyone looked up at her. “I think we are.”
“Maybe this mountaintop experience is helping us reach it,” Adam said, smiling and putting his hand on her shoulder.
“And other people around the world must be having their own mountaintop experiences like grandfather says they are,” Eva said.
Grandfather looked at each one in turn. “The world is responding to the way we and others are now treating it. We are seeing slight signs of things getting better. There is hope for us and for all the other survivors in the world.”
Eva's mother stared straight ahead and frowned. “But will we be able to survive until the world returns to normal and we can leave this mountain? When can we go back to our former lives,” she whimpered, her eyes glistening with tears. “How long will we have to stay up here? “What if we run out of food?”
“Don’t be afraid,” Grandfather said tenderly. “We are being sustained in many ways.”
“What ways, grandfather?” Eva asked, reaching across the table to hold her mother’s hand.
“Nature is taking care of nature now that man is no longer destroying nature by burning fossil fuels,” he said. “And as we wait for the weather to return to normal there are things that we can and must do.”
“What things, Grandfather,” Eva murmured.
“You mentioned reaching a higher state of consciousness. When we do that, Eva, we will have evolved as human beings, and we will not harm the world again once things get back to normal. Remember the greed that drove corporations and banks to think of their own interests to the exclusion of the interests of everyone else? That world is gone of course, and Wall Street is now part of the Atlantic Ocean. But we’re still here. And everyone scattered around the globe is having to change their mindset from greed to generosity, from hatred to love for one another and the earth.”
“How do we show the earth that we love it?” Eva asked softly.
“There are many ways. First, there is our appreciation of beauty.”
“What do you mean, Grandfather?” Adam asked, as Eva poked him in the ribs.
The earth will continue to respond to how we think about it.”
“How can it do that?” Eva asked, wrinkling her brow.
“Because how we think about the earth now will govern how we act in the future when we once again imagine that we are the masters of the land beneath our feet and the sky above our heads.”
“So how must we think about it, grandfather?” Eva asked.
Grandfather’s face was still, and he spoke as if in a trance. “We will learn to appreciate and be grateful for all that we have, and we will never want to let it go again. As we truly open our eyes to what nature has given us, we will see in a new way the golden dawn, the fading yellow and pink of sunset, fleeting white clouds in deep blue skies, the miracle of dewdrops on green leaves, the glow of red embers in our fire pits, the wetness of rain, the softness of snow, the brightness of day, the sacredness of night, the fragrance of flowers, the fruit of the trees and of the ground, all creatures big and small, the smiles on faces of people all around us. This new way of looking at the earth and each other will help us evolve as a species, and the earth will once again offer us its bounty.”
As he spoke, Eva felt she would almost burst with joy, as she saw in a new, exquisite way every image his words conjured up for her. That was the way the world used to be, she thought. That is the way it would be again.
“Mother, dad, Adam, grandfather, Jeff,” she exclaimed. “The world that we once knew will return. I just know it!”
The sun was setting, and the sky began to glow in glorious splashes of gold. Streaks of light broke through soft pink clouds and seemed to beckon Eva to reach up, grasp, and hold onto them with all her might. It was as though the sky was talking to her in the universal language of wonder and beauty, telling her that the earth once more was accepting of its human occupants and would sustain them for all time to come – if they did their part.
The world will continue to accept us if we do our part today.
Rick McManus, who lives in North Hollywood, California, wants to see the world remain a beautiful place for everyone now residing on this planet and for untold generations to come. His novel EMPTY EARTH is available on Amazon.com. His latest novel ATHENA: A TEENAGER FIGHTS THE CLIMATE CRISIS is also available on Amazon.com