CHAPTER 1
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Before heaven and earth had taken form, all was vague and amorphous. Therefore, it was called the Great Beginning. The Great Beginning produced emptiness and emptiness produced the universe…The combined essences of heaven and earth became the Yin and Yang, the concentrated essences of the Yin and Yang became the four seasons, and the scattered essences of the four seasons became the myriad creatures of the world.
Liu An Second century B.C. Huai-nan Tzu, Treatise
January 2027, New York, United States of America
Josephine Wright stared up from her desk after reading the report stamped, “Top Secret—Extremely Confidential.” Her thoughts swirled as she began to realize the gravity of what she had just read. The secret report that came to her, and only to her, the secretary-general of the United Nations, was a shock no one expected for at least another 40 years. Although the press had exhaustively covered the potential phenomena for the last 30 years, the immediacy of the problem had not been accurately predicted. NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies confirmed its seriousness—“Our latest computer model of the world’s climate indicates that the greenhouse effect is moving, more rapidly than expected, into a new catastrophic phase.” This new model differed from earlier models; the scientists at the institute used the latest generation of computer hardware to plot the general circulation of both the atmosphere and the oceans. Their findings were startling. Immediately upon receipt of this secret report, Secretary Wright and
her staff of closest advisors assembled an international crisis management team under the direct authority of the Security Council to look into this matter.
“We have to act quickly and decisively on this matter. My God, the survival of humans on this planet is at stake. No political crisis in recent memory of the organization compares to this in scope and scale,” Secretary Wright said to her small group of staff gathered in her office.
Lattimer, her senior aide, responded to her worries. “Can we believe Goddard? There have been conflicting expert opinions on this subject for the past 30 years.”
Secretary Wright said, “If this report is true, then not since the threat of nuclear winter in the 20th century have the dangers to mother earth been so profound.”
Outside the window the sun shone serenely in a cloudless Manhattan sky. The temperature was hot for this time of the year. Warm winters with 30° Celsius temperatures had become commonplace in recent years.
The first woman to serve as secretary-general of the U.N., Wright’s Canadian background as the skilled negotiator of the Burma-Thailand-China crisis of 2015 had secured her appointment to the post. She began to rattle off the tasks before her and the staff.
“We will begin immediately by contacting experts with the broadest scientific and international backgrounds. They can analyze the report and make judgments about its validity and accuracy, and hopefully, recommendations for Security Council resolutions and actions.”
January 2027, Cameroon, United States of Africa
The scenery was breathtaking. As far as the eye could see, the green-canopied top of the forest undulated to create a giant emerald carpet harboring mysteries below.
After taking in a deep breath of the pure, fresh air, Sam Sundiata said, “Our efforts to preserve these primary forests have paid off. Thirty years ago, who would have thought that the environmental movement could have made this kind of spectacular success?”
Sam’s athletic exterior masked the thoughtful and concerned gentleman underneath. His stunning physique was juxtaposed with a face firmly set in deep thought, a face that inspired confidence.
“This is a good spot for us to make camp. The view is fine and there’s a small clearing over there, by that stream,” Diallo said. An old friend from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Diallo had accompanied Sam on his trip.
“Yes, I wholeheartedly agree. At least, my tired legs and body agree,” Sam said. They had been walking all day with all their gear, following a trail leading through an international wildlife preserve in central Cameroon. The rugged conditioning that this trip provided was great for their health, and the chance to ponder the beauty of nature allowed for quiet introspection. As they pitched their tents in the small clearing, Sam spoke about the events taking place in his life.
“This is the third career change I’ve made. Can I really adapt to the rough and tumble world of politics? It appears that Africa’s best minds have recently avoided politics and gravitated toward the scientific arena.”
“Yes, we made our achievements in science,” Diallo said. “But that only makes weaknesses in the political agenda—and among those formulating that agenda— seem more profound.”
“I could not agree more,” Sam said. “That’s why I feel like I need to try to make a difference. The path we should follow is so clear to me; I can’t help but feel that I have a responsibility to try to lead the people.” He stood up. “But right now, I’m going to lead the charge to dinner. I’m starved after all that hiking. I suppose I should put up the tent first.”
“Make sure the mosquito net is set up properly.”
“Okay, I want a good night sleep too. No Anopheles dance for me!”
As dusk quickly changed to night, the darkness enveloped the two weary campers and a symphony of sounds filled the air. The crickets’ constant chirping and other nocturnal noises provided concert hall music in this theater of nature. When the tent was pitched and the mosquito nets in place, Sam rehydrated the freeze-dried food for a relaxing meal. Over dinner, the two friends discussed the issues facing Africa.
“The continental government has been paralyzed for weeks now, this situation is unacceptable,” Sam said vehemently. “The indecision and drift are the dire consequences of this state of affairs—we’re approaching anarchy. The problem is that the lawyers have perpetually dominated most countries’ politics.”
“Yes, a diversity of opinion of people from other backgrounds are necessary, “Diallo agreed. Lightning struck in the distance, lighting up the night sky as a rumble of thunder followed.
“Rain,” Sam said. “Looks like the rain dances and the villagers’ prayers have been answered.”
“It also didn’t hurt that they used the latest rainmaking technology,” Diallo said.
“Another month of drought and we could have written off this year’s crops in the region. And with further drought, this very forest would become a powder keg waiting to explode.”
The rain spattered down lightly at first but soon the sky opened and like buckets of water, rain poured on the thirsty earth. At first, they sat and soaked in the feel of water from the sky. Later they retreated into their tents to seek refuge from the streaming water. With the incessant rain as a backdrop, the conversation continued into the night.
Sam said thankfully, “No news from the outside world to disturb us.”
Amina, Sam’s wife, was reviewing her youngest son’s homework when the telephone rang. She left Seth in the study room and walked to the foot of the stairway to answer the phone. “May I speak to Dr. Sundiata?” the caller inquired.
“He’s on vacation and is not expected to return for five more days,” Amina responded.
“This is Mr. Snyder calling from the office of her Excellency, the secretary-general of the United Nations. We must urgently make contact with your husband. How can we reach him?”
“I am sorry, but my husband has expressed the desire not to be contacted during this period. He wanted to be away from civilization for a while,” Amina continued.
“Do you have any idea where he might be? This is extremely urgent. If you can tell us the route he was going to travel, we might send an aircraft search team to find him.”
“Why do you have to see him so urgently?” Amina asked, immediately concerned.
“I’m sorry, but the details are confidential. I also have to ask that you do not discuss this call with anyone.”
Amini sighed. “I know he’s going to be upset to have to shorten his vacation, but you’ve convinced me to cooperate. Hold the line, please.” Amina set down the phone and walked to Sam’s study to find the map of his route. She opened one drawer and it was not there. Where is this thing? she wondered. She glanced at the clock; their four children had gone to bed by now. Amina rummaged through her husband’s things, desperately looking for the map. Then suddenly, there it was. She rushed back to the phone, holding her robe tight, as she began explaining the location to the U.N. official.
“They started out from Bali and their course was to head north until they reached Bamenda. They should be in Kum by January 15.”
“Alright,” said the voice on the phone. “Then the problem for any search team is the forest cover.”
“It will be difficult for you to see them unless they happen to be in an open savannah area,” Amina agreed.
“Thank you for your help, Mrs. Sundiata.”
The search party reached Tambo and separated, going up and down the trail in hopes of finding Dr. Sundiata. In camp, Sam and Diallo had finally drifted off to sleep after several hours of intense conversation during the storm. The rains continued to pour intermittently and sharp flashes of lightning were followed by loud claps of thunder. The men, sleeping, had no idea that their situation was becoming dangerous. The forest animals sensed something was wrong and attempted to reach higher ground. The campers awoke as animals splashed through their site, seeking safety. Sam and Diallo immediately noticed that the small stream had become a rushing torrent. They became concerned and began to talk about how long they could stay above water.
The search party, well-equipped with lights and electronic gear, was finding the weather a major obstacle to their progress. Their equipment made it possible to determine campsite locations and the number of people there, but it had not been designed for equatorial storms. The searchers were finding it hard to fly in the fierce wind and the heavy rains interfered with their visibility and tracking devices.
The leader of the northern search team, who flew up the trail seeking the men, shook his head in wonder. He said into his radio, “Who could enjoy camping in this weather?”
“I’m sure if they knew this was going to happen they would not have gone on this trip,” the southern team leader answered.
After several hours of perilous night flying and enduring the stormy conditions, the searchers reluctantly prepared to touch down and rest until daylight. In camp, Sam and Diallo realized they were in serious trouble—the water was now covering the tent floor and it was impossible to sleep. Drenched and shivering from the cold, they realized it was time to leave the tent and find higher ground.
Sam said wryly, “This is my idea of a fun trip. Where could you ever get more cooling and refreshing water, and experience a sense of merging with the forest and rain?”
Diallo chuckled. “I agree that it is unique. But I have to say that this is not the most fun I have ever had.”
They had to wade through waist-deep water to reach higher ground. Clouds obscured the sky and rain lashed at their faces as they made their way to a dim rise in the distance.
Suddenly, Sam heard a mechanical sound overlaying the rain’s incessant drumming. The two spun around, looking in the darkness for the source of the noise, by now obvious as some type of aircraft moving in their direction. The spotlights of the craft appeared and grew brighter and brighter. Soon, the craft was directly overhead. Sam and Diallo raised their arms and started yelling to draw attention. The pilot spotted them and began a wide turn to move closer. She dispatched a crew member to set up the winch and hoist. One of the searchers rode it down through the storm and carried the men up into the sky, one at a time. When Sam and Diallo were retrieved onboard the craft, safe but wetter than they had been in their entire lives, it whirled around and took off for Bamenda, the nearest city. The search team leader explained, as they were en route, that the jungle extraction was unrelated to the weather, or at least the current local weather. Sam listened with interest and growing concern as the man briefly outlined the U.N.’s request.
He made a quick telephone call to inform Amina of his rescue and impending departure for New York. She was familiar with his consulting work as he had worked for an environmental committee five years earlier. First in his MIT class, Sam had graduated with a triple major in climatology, cryptology and computer science, with a minor in communications. He arrived at the military airport in the special services helicopter and bypassed the usual passport control stations. Whisked through to the VIP lounge and then the tarmac, he was escorted to a special U.N. jet used for important missions. Once onboard, he was given a large briefing binder and showed to a special section of the craft set up as a fully equipped office. Sam poured over the documents and became incredulous when he realized the gravity of the report’s information. His reading was rapid and he blazed through the material.
Roger Jones, the American on Secretary-General Wright’s scientific advisory staff, was a Northwestern graduate and former academic researcher at Georgia Tech. He was to fill in the unwritten details for the crisis team members on their way to New York. Midway through the flight, he drifted over to Sam’s seat at the desk.
Sam looked up from the material, his face pale under his normally glowing dark skin. “Why now?” he asked.
“This thing, as you know, professor, has been simmering for years. Everyone assumed that it was a faraway problem, never a current issue. You know the story—there were wars, famines, coups, regional crises, all those things which kept us busy. Now, brother, we have a true global crisis—survival of the human race.”
“Hmm, yes. The report dramatizes that very well.” Sam drummed his fingers on it. “Who else knows about this?”
“Less than a dozen at this time. We have decided that this is too big for people to deal with now. A public debate would precipitate immediate chaos and panic. We have to develop a strategy,” said Roger, looking out the window.
The sun was setting in the western sky as the engines droned on, providing a background sound in the small but exceptionally equipped aircraft.
“That new satellite did it,” Sam concluded. “Without that new sentinel, we would still be blind to the realities of this report. Who else is on this crisis team?”
“I’m not privy to that information, sir, but your presence—and the lengths we went to in order to extract you—should tell you that the U.N. is tapping the best scientists from around the globe. We’re forming a network of institutes, international societies, universities and national academies of sciences just to focus on this issue.”
“We’ll begin our research with the work of two key organizations that have been studying the climate change for over a quarter of a century, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research and the European Climate Forum,” Roger said.
January 2027, New York, United States of America
The five steering members of the U.N. Scientific Committee for Environmental Crisis Management, UNSCECM, entered the conference room, preparing to review the extraordinary circumstances prompting their gathering. Outside the secretariat conference center, a light pedestrian traffic passed by under clear skies. Motor-driven traffic was absent from most Manhattan streets following the extensive restrictions imposed on automobile vehicles in 2019. Committee members could see the waters of the adjacent East River, crystal clear and flowing gently towards the sea. New York had matured during the early years of the twenty-first century, emerging as the seat of planetary government.
Secretary Wright chaired the initial meeting, initiating committee activity. She called them to order at 7:00 a.m. sharp. The session began with the members’ pledge to the unity of the world’s peoples. In this pledge, members of the committee gave their word of honor to uphold the precept of the oneness of human kind as the species Homo Sapiens. Antagonistic conflicts were acknowledged as a historical fossil, permanently rejected in favor of cooperation. Everyone vowed to put forth his or her best efforts in the primary interest of humankind and other biological inhabitants of the planet Earth. Harmonious ecological relationships must be permitted in all the regions of the Earth’s system.
Secretary Wright began by pointing out, “UNSCECM’s work shall assume critical significance during the course of these deliberations. We must review the present circumstances and set forth plans to ensure future survival and well being of the planet and a majority of the species of life presently existing in its environs.”
She paused briefly to take a sip from her papaya juice and glanced around as she did so. The committee members sat around an oval table, permitting maximum eye contact. On the wall were maps of the planet showing its intricate geological details in relief, products of orbital satellite mapping probes. Plants were artistically placed at around the room, underscoring the profound significance of nature and the committee’s present mission.
Secretary Wright continued, “We must not leave any leaf unturned or any possibility unexplored in the course of our work. We must proceed from the standpoint of the maximum benefit for the most people. We have to be fully cognizant of the implications of our work at all times, recognizing that errors can be catastrophic for all people and life of the planet.”
After he had studied the data and been briefed on the plane, Dr. Sam Sundiata as committee chairman was ready to make the general presentation. Sam was quite distinguished in appearance, impeccably dressed in a dark suit. He was of medium build with prominent facial features augmented with a thick mustache. His wire-rimmed glasses emphasized his academic demeanor and his lightly graying hair added a maturity to his appearance. Sam slowly gazed around the room at each of the committee members and took a deep breath. “These data are unmistakable. All of Antarctica’s principal meteorological stations are reporting that the impending rise in the atmospheric temperature will soon reach a critical level. The average global temperature will be two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial world levels. As we all know, temperatures above this level could mean a disaster of unknown proportions.”
The committee members slowly looked around at each other to gauge the general reaction in the room. Dr. Sundaita pressed a button on the console by his table, dimming the lights releasing a projection screen from the ceiling. He flashed his first slide on the screen.
“Colleagues, this is a tropical rain forest. It represents an enormous storehouse of carbon produced by its photosynthetic process. This is also a prodigious absorber of atmospheric carbon dioxide.”
The next slide shown was that of a coal mine. “Here is another great storehouse of carbon.”
The third slide showed offshore oil wells pumping petroleum, the black gold of industrial society. “During the past few million years, photosynthesis has stored significant amounts of carbon dioxide in coal, petroleum and natural gas. When humans began burning these fossil fuels in large quantities at the genesis of the industrial revolution, the millennia worth of stored carbon dioxide began to re-enter the atmosphere, in a truncated period of time.”
At this point, Dr. Sam Sundaita flashed the fourth slide, depicting a medium-sized town with smokestack industries of the early and middle twentieth century.
“This smoke, concentrated with carbon dioxide and other pollutants, has been pouring into the atmosphere unabated for more than 200 years.”
The fifth slide emphasized this point, depicting exhaust trailing a jet during take-off; the sixth showed cars lined up on a Tokyo freeway, sixty years ago in the late 1970s.
The theme was becoming clear to the members of the committee—pollution. “Yes,” Sam continued, “The era of unchecked pollution that made possible our previous unbridled mercantile growth and expansion has set in motion a process which, unfortunately, may be irreversible.”
“In the 1880s, the pre-industrial quantity of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was approximately 290 parts per million. By 1970, it had reached 330 parts per million. Last year, in 2026, it was 410 parts per million. A doubling from the pre-industrial level is considered the tipping point toward catastrophe.”
“We can see from these figures that the rise in carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere has been enormous. How will this affect ecological conditions on Earth? Although this concentration is low in relation to the total volume of the atmosphere, the impact of its presence will be greater than expected. By and large, carbon dioxide is transparent to incoming solar radiation. However, it absorbs some of the infrared radiation which would normally be radiated back into outer space. This causes a warming of the lower atmosphere and areas on the Earth’s surface. Herein lies our problem.”
There was a short pause while the other committee members began to grasp the enormity of the problem at hand. Everyone sat quietly listening to Sam’s slow, deliberate tones.
“A ten percent rise in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere results in a net temperature increase of 0.32 degrees Centigrade. Furthermore, a one hundred percent rise, or doubling, results in a temperature rise of 2.4 degrees Centigrade. These are very large scale increases and they will cause instability to our ecology. The warming of the Earth’s surface also warms the oceans, which in turn releases more dissolved carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. A one percent rise in the temperature of the upper oceans increases the atmospheric carbon dioxide by six percent. If the deep oceans are warmed sufficiently, enough carbon dioxide would be released to obtain true greenhouse conditions.”
There was a gasp in the room because everyone knew what this really meant. At this point, Sam was interrupted by Dr. Natasha Aminov, the Russian member of the committee.
“In a slightly different way, what you have just described occurred almost 12,000 years ago during the late Mesozoic Era. At this time, there was a polar collapse which resulted in great flooding,” she said.
“That is quite correct, and I will go into that geological event in more detail later,” Sam said.
“It looks like we shall have to work diligently to prevent a condition analogous to the late Mesozoic era from occurring now,” noted Dr. Sung, the Chinese committee member.
“If we go further back to the Cretaceous, more than 100 million years ago, we had temperatures six degrees higher than the present,” Dr. Aminov, the geologist on the committee reminded everyone.
“The situation we are presented with now could have been prevented had human society acted earlier, on a collective basis. In spite of the fact that we have had pollution-free industries for the past twenty years, our real action should have taken place in the 1960s through to 2012,” Dr. Subasinge pointed out. “As we all know, those last seven years were when the U.S. refused to sign the Kyoto Accords.”
“Looks like the Earth may join its planetary neighbors in more than just size similarity,” Dr. Aminov said with a slight smile, referring to Venus’ naturally occuring greenhouse conditions.
To explain, she said, “Venus has a thick cloud cover, rich in carbon dioxide. The sun’s heat reaches the surface, but cannot escape into space, much like the Earth’s situation will be if we don’t reverse the pollution.” She looked around the table and paused to emphasize her next words.
“The temperature on Venus is 900 degrees Fahrenheit.”
Sam regained the floor in the silence that followed this disastrous pronouncement. “We must explore in detail the implications of this dramatic rise in Earth’s temperature. We must propose possibilities to prevent this from progressing further, as well as strategies to minimize loss of life and disruption of material sustenance when these changes occur.”
“It is apparent,” he continued, “that the increase in the average temperature of our planet may result in the melting of the polar ice caps. Even seasonal changes may be insufficient to make them re-freeze. The immediate danger, of course, is the rapid rise in the sea levels around the globe. This alone will submerge the world’s coastal regions to an elevation of 40 meters. All the great coastal cities of the world, Mumbai, Sydney, Tokyo, and even this one, all will be lost to the silent undersea world. We shall also lose enormous agricultural areas, presently producing much of the world’s agriculture. We’ll address more on those consequences later.”
“Our immediate task,” Dr. Sung began, “is to determine the period of time we have available for planning and implementing effective measures for this perhaps sudden change of monumental proportions. There is indeed a particle of truth to the saying ‘Don’t wait until the rain comes before having an umbrella.’ Let us heed this message.”
Dr. Aminov broke in. “Maybe the process will come in gradual stages, giving us time to formulate action commensurate with the gravity of the situation. For example, if the level of the sea rises slowly, by only a few centimeters each month, we would have ample time to evacuate the coastal regions. As well, the engineers can salvage material from the threatened zones.”
Dr. del Gado, Brazil’s envoy, spoke up. “Our immediate task is to ascertain the maximum extent of this potential disaster and predict the chained sequence of events. This is where our reliance on the computer may be crucial.”
“Before we fully address approaches we might take to solve or prevent this problem, we need to discuss another potential danger which may result,” Sam pointed out. “If the pattern follows the circumstances of the terminal Mesozoic, a change in the carbon cycle could also trigger worldwide extinctions. More than 75 percent of species living at the end of the Mesozoic era had vanished by the beginning of the next period, the Cenozoic. While I’d like to have time to evacuate our coastal areas, I need to remind everyone that the duration of this extinction period could be as short as 100 years. We won’t be thinking of evacuating some cities, we’ll be concerned with survival of humankind on Earth. At the end of the Mesozoic, reptilian extinctions occurred simultaneously with those of marine forms. Birds and mammals were fortunate because their endothermic status made it possible for them to maintain a constant body temperature during this period of vast environmental changes. Those reptiles which became extinct were exothermic.”
“During this great temperature shift—unlike our current situation, Earth was cooling—a large body size is an advantage to survival. Low heat loss rate results in a functionally endothermic organism. This is why large dinosaurs existed during the cooling phase of the final 20 million years of the Mesozoic. When there was a sudden period of warming, it was disastrous for large reptiles; hence the extinctions at the beginning of the Cenozoic.”
Sam continued with his report. “The critical question is—what level of increased temperature damages the reproductive cells, the germinal epithelial tissue? A relatively low rise in temperature can affect male sperm cells. This is perhaps the reason why even a small increase could be catastrophic. Many animal species take advantage of low temperatures to breed. During the period of increased global temperatures, birds and reptiles lay progressively thinner eggs. These weakened eggs are not strong enough to protect the progeny. The species later became extinct.”
“Fortunately for us, mammals have adapted through external scrotal and testicular measures, safety for the important process of spermatogenesis. By having these processes take place in a sack outside of the body, the temperature is slightly lower than body temperature, which is too high for the sperm. It is unclear how small a global temperature increase would need to be in order to impact human sperm viability.
“If the worldwide extinctions are triggered,” Sam said, “very important food chains will be disrupted and could cause our extinction through lack of food, not failure to successfully reproduce or inability to cope with increased ambient temperatures. Regardless of the final determining factor, it is likely that these sudden geological changes would result in our extinction. Our task as the steering committee of the UNSCECM is to coordinate the worldwide efforts to bring this crisis under control and prevent such a colossal geological event from occurring.”
“If we had the scientific capacity of meteorological engineering, we could effect the change necessary to prevent these events from happening. Regrettably, that technology is not with us yet. Alternative means must be found or we must develop the necessary technology in time,” Secretary-General Wright said.
“Fellow commission members, we have addressed ourselves to the essential components of the problems facing us. We have, with the assistance of the U.N. specialized teams, planned to produce a detailed report of the technical aspects of this immense problem. From this detailed foundation, we will construct a series of scenarios outlining the potential development of events. The data analysis will be ongoing and we will utilize the most advanced computers available to us. At the end of the week, we will present this technical report to everyone.”
“Please consider carefully what we have discussed today and come prepared at the next meeting to discuss in more detail, steps which can be made. Please consider these deliberations secret. If the press gets this it could lead to a general panic. If there are no objections, I will adjourn our initial meeting until Friday,” Sam said in a tense and serious tone.
By the early years of the twenty-first century, the United Nations had profoundly expanded its activities and truly reflected aspirations of all people of the Earth. America, the land where all the diverse people of the old world settled, was chosen to be the seat of the organization which would unite mankind. This land was truly the world in microcosm.
The organization established worldwide electronic polling to document opinions and ideas from its global constituents. This polling system was based on the existence of an optimally-informed population. Universal education was the immediate precursor of universal suffrage. This worldwide literacy, reached the 10th year after the dawn of the twenty first century, was the sunnum bonum of the ages.
The great energy crisis of the late 1970s and early 1980s contributed to the urgently needed reshaping of the world’s economic order. Within the United States, people realized for the first time that a country with only one-sixth of the world’s population could not continue to indefinitely consume 40 percent of the natural resources and 30 percent of available energy stored in fossil fuels. The enormous cost of these fossil fuels imported, nearly crippled the American economy in her process of paying for this energy.
Shortages became commonplace in the early 2000s, necessitating a drastic curb in the wasteful uses of this energy. Despite these shortages and reductions, the overall abuse of fossil fuels continued at an accelerating pace, further endangering the stability of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Standards of living changed and after 2010, the American population began to accustom itself to living with less. Internally, the people demanded more equality in the distribution of the nation’s wealth; the vast storehouse of products, technology and opportunity became more openly available to the people. The notion of America standing alone without thorough intercourse with the rest of the world was outdated. After 2008, the country’s leaders realized that conditions had changed. A new relationship between America’s new economic democracy and the rest of the world became one of cooperation and the equal exchange of mutually-beneficial products.
Cooperation in science and medicine resulted in the successful eradication of many diseases by the early first century. Technology solved the problem of dwindling fossil fuels by harnessing solar and wind energy. It was through the work of many nations in joint projects that the critical problems were solved in this important field. With the full-scale use of this form of energy in the early years of 2015, the accumulated carbon dioxide began to slowly diminish, postponing the time of real possible danger.
The world in microcosm, the United States of America, made a profound contribution to the progressive development of the entire Earth. When its people joined together to take responsibility for their past actions and make strides to ensure their future, they provided a guide for other nations in the world. In the year 2027, the United Nations could truly give the respect through its presence to the group of people with the greatest democracy, representing all the peoples of the world. However, in the early days of the Kyoto Accords, the United States’ refusal to sign greatly injured its standing with other nations, eventually causing it to pull out of the agreement. The world realized then that the U.S. was not acting as a leader, but was instead actively blocking something fundamental to the future of the world’s well being.
At a conference in Argentina in December 2004, the U.S. actively stopped other countries from developing comprehensive measures to combat global warming.
This retrograde move was part of the country’s environmental trend; in early 2000, the U.S. had abandoned the Kyoto Accords, rationalizing that curbing carbon dioxide emissions would hurt its economy. Politicians developed “scientific” reasons to deny the reality of global warming. It was only after the change in administration philosophy in 2008 that the U.S. belatedly signed the Kyoto protocols. The world’s microcosm again assumed a leadership role in global affairs and in environmental science.