On the bus trip to LA, Kandude and Professor B. met a friendly Secular Congregationalist minister, a tall, thin black man, who provided additional comestibles and conversation along the way. He also popped into a nearby pharmacy at one of the stops to buy fresh bandages, topical antibiotics, and multivitamins for the Professor. The minister, who had left his husband Reginald to keep an eye on the kids and dogs in Omaha, was on his way to a conference on peace and dignity in Pasadena where he and fellow ministers hoped to share lessons in community housing and employment initiatives. Pictures of the couple and their kids and dogs revealed a happy family.
As they entered the torrid, drought stricken LA Basin, however, massive fires broke out all around them, ravaging the natural and unnatural vegetation and destroying vast tracts of low-income housing. The driver tried to escape the flames, but soon they plowed into a mass of stranded vehicles, overturning the bus and hurtling the passengers about the wreckage. Kandude, Professor B, and the Congregationalist strove to extract their injured fellow riders from the bus before all were engulfed by flames.
As they were pulling a widow and her three children, who appeared to be members of a minority group, through a window, a muscular young man in a God, Guts & Guns polo shirt kicked them out of the way in order to effectuate his own exit. Nonetheless, they managed to escape with other survivors and hiked and coughed their way through the wreckage to a place of relative safety at the base of a steep, unvegetated hill.
Relieved to be alive, the three men took stock of their situation and began formulating their next move. However, before they could mobilize, a terrifying thunderstorm suddenly swept up the valley, releasing a furious deluge on the entire countryside. Bolts of lightning struck around them. Sheets of rain and the floodwaters extinguished the vast fires, but simultaneously swept children, senior citizens, and people with disabilities away. Then, even above the cacophony of thunder, they heard a horrific rumbling and felt the earth shaking under their feet. They looked up to see a vast mudslide descending upon them from the saturated hillside.
Grasping the hands of remaining children and less agile travelers, they ran. Hanging back to assist a desperate straggler, the Congregationalist was knocked off his feet by the boiling edge of the violent flow. The polo shirt fellow was perfectly situated to reach out a helping hand, but pressed on without so much as a glance, and the Congregationalist was swept away to certain death. Kandude turned to jump after him, but was physically restrained by Professor B, who pointed out that that even the finest people must sometimes be overtaken by irresistible market forces, and this was for all the best.
As the storm receded, Kandude and the Professor found themselves huddled with a knot of survivors on a sodden knoll. Those who were able took out their cellphones to call friends and family and to get the news. Though reports of widespread death and devastation were grim, there were encouraging bright spots. For instance, Pacific Palisades, Bel Air, and Beverly Hills sustained only moderate damage, and their denizens experienced only minor inconveniences, though some were forced to decamp to their other homes in Bozeman, Monaco and Amelia Island due to unpleasant smoke conditions.
Of course, this was as it should be, pointed out Professor B, since the admirable strivers in these refined neighborhoods had proven their worthiness through the accumulation of wealth and power. Polo shirt man observed that the urban devastation created significant opportunities for spontaneous salvage for those with determination and resourcefulness, which he resolved to exhibit as soon as passage to these new Opportunity Zones could be accomplished.
As they hunkered down to wait for the floodwaters to recede and for possible help making their way to safer ground, Kandude asked what might be the cause of such horrific fire and weather events, which, from his brief exposure to the Weather Channel, seemed to him were becoming more frequent and severe. Professor B opined that the need for such inquiry was obviated by the infinite adaptive capacity of the marketplace, whose ineluctable forces would certainly assure the best of all possible responses and outcomes.
“Carbon dioxide,” he repeated. “The more you have of it in the atmosphere, the hotter it gets. For a million years, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was basically stable. Then we had the industrial revolution, which certainly achieved wonders. We began burning coal and oil and gasoline and natural gas in billions of cars, millions of weed whackers, and thousands of power plants. We mixed up big batches of chemicals like concrete. We built up herds of burping cattle numbering nearly 2 billion head around the planet.”
“Thereby,” said James, “dumping bazillions of tons of carbon dioxide into the air. This increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by half in less than 200 years. Voila! It’s getting hotter. And there follows drought, wildfires, extreme storms, and floods. Polar ice caps melt, sea level rises, oceans warm, ocean currents are deranged, ecosystems are devastated, and agriculture is disrupted. It’s a runaway train – the effects accelerate the causes of the effects. And we have yet to slow carbon dumping. It’s almost too late. Indeed, it may, in fact, be too late.”
The already depressed knot of survivors hung their heads lower. “Did they see this coming?” asked Kandude. “And if so, why didn’t somebody do something?”
“Ah,” said James, “Scientists have known about this possibility for decades, especially the superb scientists at Exxon who, enjoying the unlimited funding of petrodollars, built spectacularly good scientific models showing the dangers fifty years ago.”
James shook his head wearily. He looked like a beaten man. Kandude gently placed a hand on his shoulder and said, “I take it that you, sir, have played a role in this alarming chronicle, and that it has been costly to you. Are you perhaps yourself a scientist?”
“Ah young man,” replied James. I do belong to that profession. I always thought it was a great privilege to serve humanity by seeking truth, engaging in principled investigation and debate, gathering evidence, honoring the scientific method, and ultimately sharing useful knowledge with my fellow human beings. But most politicians, a significant number of religious leaders, and a vast part of the citizenry seem no longer interested in serious science and technology. They welcome smart phones and Ozempic, but hate vaccines and the Endangered Species Act. They love high resolution video games featuring sex and violence, but resent exhortations to buy economy cars instead of SUVs the size of Rhode Island for runs to the convenience store. They hate bad news and are annoyed by problems that are bigger than their neighborhood or last longer than a week. They strenuously resist personal responsibility and inconvenience.”
“Many people think that Googling makes them smarter than scientists,” observed James. “They think their pastor is a better epidemiologist then the doctors at the CDC. Proudly asserting the right to their own opinion regarding matters of staggering complexity, they weigh equally their own ignorant convictions against the expertise of rigorous and learned experts. People who wouldn’t dream of telling a heart surgeon how to perform life-saving surgery on their own child are boastfully confident declaring that a world community of erudite climate scientists are a bunch of hysterical doom-mongers.