Tomorrow’s World (11 page)

She looked from Frankie around the rest of the class and said, “A good way to understand what was happening is to look at the polar regions. As the climate warmed and the icecaps began to melt, so less heat was reflected—vegetation and bare rock absorb a lot more of the sun's energy than snow and ice—and the pace of melting increased. The melting of the ice created its own terrible momentum. Self-accelerating processes like that were going on all over the planet.

“Take the tundra: methane which had been trapped in frozen organic matter was released as the permafrost thawed. It's a much more harmful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, so the more of it that was released, the warmer things got—melting more permafrost and releasing yet more methane.

“Likewise with the forests: as they were cut down and burned, more carbon dioxide was released—and of course there were fewer trees to help with its absorption.

“Then there were the oceans: vast and powerful, yet deceptively sensitive to changes in temperature.”

“In what way?” a Name asked.

“The warming of the surface shut off the circulation that brought nutrients up from the depths. Without those nutrients, the algae that absorb carbon dioxide from the air died off. It was a double disaster: the dying algae released methane and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and at the same time reduced the ability of the ocean to soak it up.”

“What date was the tipping point reached?” Frankie asked, to more sniggers.

Annie allowed herself a not unkind smile at the naiveté of the question. “It's not something we can put an exact date on, because we're dealing with continuous processes, and a great deal of them,” she explained patiently. “But it's generally agreed the point of no return was passed in the mid-2020s. Before then the consequences of man's abuse of the environment were just beginning to impact on everyday life, but they were felt as irritations and minor inconveniences. There was only the occasional catastrophic event, like Hurricane Katrina.”

“The one that flattened New York?” Frankie said.

“Wrong!” one of the Paretos crowed.

Annie ignored the Pareto, and said, “It was Hurricane Zena that devastated New York. Katrina hit New Orleans. They were both warning signs—and perhaps if they'd been heeded, it wouldn't have been too late.

“But people chose to treat the symptoms rather consider the root causes, and by the early 2030s the symptoms were too severe to treat—and so was the cause.”

“What sort of things do you mean when you talk about irritations and symptoms?” a student somewhere behind me asked. I guessed it was a Name: we love the details that give color; Numbers are just interested in facts and figures.

Annie said, “I'm talking about things like how breathing unfiltered air began to result in respiratory problems; how exposure to even modest amounts of sunlight, washing in untreated water, or getting caught in showers of rain started causing skin problems. Not to mention the long-term health concerns associated with drinking untreated water and eating unprocessed, unpurified food. The lifespan and fertility of people, plants and animals markedly declined, while the incidence of mutations increased.”

“Things like your arm,” one of the Paretos said with undisguised mockery. I could quite happily have choked him for his callousness. Worryingly, I could quite happily have choked the other Pareto, too.

Annie evinced no such malice. “Yes,” she said quietly. “Like my arm.”

“Why don't you get a graft?” a Number sitting a couple of desks along from me asked.

Annie looked him straight in the eye and said, “If you don't know, nothing I can say will make you understand.”

I sensed the Number's quiet seething. Even at that age they hate to feel there's anything they don't know or are incapable of learning.

“Anyway,” Annie carried on, “as I suggested, the initial response to the mounting problems was superficial and cosmetic—” The screen was filled with a shot of a busy high street where every shopper wore a crude face mask.

“The prophylactics were marketed as fashion accessories—”

The next shot showed three pretty women, each in a differently colored ensemble with a matching shade of mask.

“The protective measures people had to take to go outside became increasingly extreme—higher-factor UV creams, face masks with primitive filters in them. Even then, they weren't enough to stop people feeling unwell if they were outside for any length of time.

“By the end of the 2020s, anyone who worked outside had to wear a full eco-hazard suit.” The screen displayed footage of a construction site, with a squad of bricklayers wearing bright orange coveralls, and hard hats that incorporated UV visors and heavy-duty filter-masks.

“You won't believe this next shot,” Annie said. “I had to go back to 2010 to find it. It shows how the world had changed in those two decades; how attitudes changed. It shows how building sites used to be—”

There were gasps all around when the image appeared: it showed a construction site where the workers wore only shorts, revealing bodies not only heavily muscled but deeply tanned.

“And if you think that's wild, how about this shot—” the teacher said.

This time there were exclamations of disbelief—even, I suspect, from the Numbers: the wallscreen displayed a beach full of people wearing trunks and bikinis, lying out in the sun.

“The Outside used to be viewed as healthy,” Annie said by way of explanation. “There were phrases like ‘The Great Outdoors,' and people went walking for the sake of it, to enjoy ‘fresh air, the sun on their back, the wind in their hair'.”

That was greeted with more expressions of derision and disbelief.

“But by the early decades of the 21st century the world was such a different, damaged place that the Outside was coming to be viewed as we regard it now: poisoned and poisonous.

“If things were bad in the west, imagine how awful it was in the developing world—”

“Surely pollution wasn't quite as bad there, because by definition development wasn't so intense,” a young Number at the back of the hall said.

“The trouble is that the damage done to the environment had passed the point where its consequences were localized,” Annie told him. “The very cycles of nature had been altered and contaminated—and they operate on a global scale.

“In addition, while development was less intense in the third world, it also happened to be even less-environ-mentally friendly. In the rush to secure the same living standards as the west there was no time or money to abide by even the inadequate token environmental safeguards adopted in more affluent countries. The pressure for development was overwhelming, fuelled by aspirations raised by multinationals and fed by offers of investment from those same companies; offers which the governments of poor countries could not afford to turn down. As markets became saturated and regulations were slowly tightened in the developed world—albeit too little and too late—the third world became increasingly attractive to multinationals. Take automobiles: the third world became a dumping ground for vehicles that failed to meet the steadily tightening emission standards in the west.

“To make matters worse, people in those poorer countries couldn't afford the prophylactics that became commonplace in the west—the expensive UV creams and filters, the treated water and processed foods.

“As a result of all this, the trends I referred to regarding life expectancy, fertility and mutations which were becoming apparent in the west were of a different order of magnitude in the poorer countries of the world.”

There were gasps of shock and revulsion all around me as the screen was filled with the image of an ill-equipped hospital ward full of pathetic children with hideously deformed or missing limbs.

“Previously rare conditions such as anencephaly—when babies are born with parts of their brain missing—became increasingly commonplace.

“There was horror in the west at pictures like these: not just out of empathy at the suffering, but due to fear that a similar fate awaited the rest of the world.

“Unsurprisingly there was a backlash against the multinationals—”

A quick succession of images showed mass protests in London, Paris and New York.

“The increasing support for mainstream Green movements, which made their point by peaceful means such as mass marches and boycotting companies and products, was accompanied by a growth in what came to be known as Green Brigades—eco-terrorists who violently targeted cars and other signs of conspicuous consumption. Things previously regarded as status symbols came to be viewed as badges of shame; objects of desire became the focus of disgust—”

The picture now was of Park Avenue in Manhattan, showing blazing cars and boutiques with windows either broken or covered in graffiti.

“Unable to control the disorder, governments dug in and hoped it would die out.

“However, the Green movement went from strength to strength, until it was effectively setting the agenda. Mainstream political party manifestoes suddenly espoused measures which would have been electoral suicide a generation earlier: things like hefty eco taxes on cars and gasoline to tackle the consequences of pollution and provide investment in eco-friendly public transport.

“But as the environmental situation deteriorated—as it became apparent that even the most radical mainstream party manifestoes were inadequate for tackling such profound difficulties, that national boundaries and vested interests must inevitably lead to a fragmentary approach that couldn't hope to tackle problems of a global nature—so the feeling grew that existing political and economic systems were part of the problem and incapable of providing a solution.

“It was in this climate of fear and despair that the Ecosystem emerged—”

A loud bell interrupted Annie MacDougall, signaling the end of the period.

I was barely aware of the kids filing out around me. The history teacher had taken me back in time as vividly as a timesphere trip.

Once the last of the pupils had left, Doug's daughter brought me back to the present by saying, “Can I help you?”

“I
T'S ABOUT YOUR FATHER
,” I
SAID, STARTING TO GET UP.

With her good hand, Annie indicated that Paula and I should stay seated. She came over to join us, and I studied her closely as she approached. The first thing I noticed was that her eyes were red and puffy, as if she'd recently sobbed her heart out. Far from having anything to do with her father's death, I was willing to bet she would have laid down her life for him.

As if defiantly trying to show us—well, Paula—that she was comfortable with who she was, Annie MacDougall stooped and used her mis-formed hand to turn a chair in the front row around so she could sit facing us. Things went horribly wrong; her fingers were too small to get a proper grip, and the chair slipped from her grasp.

Embarrassed, I looked away. To be more precise, I looked at Paula. I expected to see a sneer, or at least a smirk. But her expression was neutral, and I sensed she was fighting back pity rather than contempt.

Annie turned the chair around at the second attempt. As she sat down she stole a glance at Perfect Paula. My partner must have been doing the same thing at exactly the same moment, because Annie said to her, “It's okay to look. It's not okay to laugh, but it's okay to look. I'm used to people like you looking, but I never get used to the laughter.”

“I'm sorry, I didn't mean to stare,” Paula said quietly.

I nearly fell out my chair. It was the first time I'd heard Paula say she was sorry to anyone.

Come to think of it, it was the first time I'd heard any Number apologize for anything.

Annie MacDougall looked as taken aback as me. Now
she
apologized, saying, “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable.”

Feeling left out, I found something to apologize for, too. “I'm sorry about your father,” I said.

Annie turned her bloodshot brown eyes from Paula to me and nodded her thanks.

“I used to look into his shop now and again and we had some good talks,” I told her. “I can't say I knew him well, but I liked what I did know. He always made me welcome. He always made everyone welcome, from what I could see.”

I watched Annie closely, looking for a sign that there was someone Doug MacDougall wouldn't have welcomed in The Plant Place. But she nodded in agreement, and all I saw in her expression was the infinite sadness of loss. “He was my best friend as well as my father,” she said. “I can't believe he's gone.”

I wasn't looking forward to putting my next question, but it had to be asked: “Can you think of any reason why he'd take his own life?”

Again I watched her closely, alert for any sign that she was lying or not telling the whole truth.

But the history teacher shook her head unequivocally.

I wanted to leave it at that, but it wouldn't take me any further forward. I had to probe a bit deeper. “Your father struck me as a cheerful guy with a positive attitude and a love of life. But, as I said, I didn't know him all that well. I'm wondering if there's anything I don't know about that was troubling him.”

“If there was, then I don't know about it, either—and we were as close as a father and daughter can be. Or, at least, I thought we were,” she said. “What's happened makes me wonder about that, and I can't tell you how awful a thing that is. I never doubted Dad in any way, which was one of the things that made him seem so amazing to me. Some of that's been taken away from me by what happened and the way it happened.”

My heart went out to her, as it had when I first saw her deformity. I was guessing the anguish she was going through now was every bit as profound as that caused by her mis-shapen arm. Her next words did nothing to dispel the notion. “The father I knew and loved would never do something that would cause me so much pain. I still love him, but I feel like I didn't know him the way I thought I did. It's bad enough feeling that way about someone when they're alive and you have a chance to find out what it is you don't know about them. But when they're dead and you no longer have that chance… When your memory of them is all you have and it's made to seem imperfect and incomplete and it's something you can't think of without feeling doubt and hurt…”