Author's Note: This is my entry for the Bloggeratti contest: 'Summer Heat'. Read it, and if you like it, VOTE!! Click on the title to visit the Bloggeratti Orkut Community.
Daniel got off from his Suzuki S2000 solar-powered 4-seater and stepped on the hot-as-coals Nasik road, upon which excess solar energy was being heaped upon in abundance. He looked at the wristwatch-like gadget on his left wrist and pressed a button — the only thing on the 'watch'. Immediately, a screen projected on thin air in front of him from the ProjectWatch. The date and time was flashed at the top of the screen:
Daniel got off from his Suzuki S2000 solar-powered 4-seater and stepped on the hot-as-coals Nasik road, upon which excess solar energy was being heaped upon in abundance. He looked at the wristwatch-like gadget on his left wrist and pressed a button — the only thing on the 'watch'. Immediately, a screen projected on thin air in front of him from the ProjectWatch. The date and time was flashed at the top of the screen:
11:35 on 1 Feb, 2050
A lot of other information populated the screen, including weather forecasts, News, and even links to Social Networking websites, but none of them interested Daniel, who switched off the screen.
As he walked to the enormous building in front of him, a disheveled man came out of nowhere and began, "Sir, please, give me something, sir, I don't have anything to eat —" Daniel avoided the beggar who had just spoken in perfect English and continued towards the building. The beggar did not have much time anyway — Skin Cancer, a result of exposure to harmful UV radiation, had probably claimed him already. Daniel was protected by reflective clothing of a revolutionary new material which he could afford.
The increasing literacy of beggars, brought about no doubt by the 2046 Hyper-Inflation crisis, was not the only thing to change in the last few years. The dreaded Global Warming was finally reaching its potential. The temperature was a blistering 43º C — this in early February. Many erstwhile coastal areas had gone underwater in the last 15 - 20 years. In the last few years, technological advances had managed to delay total carnage. But now, only desperate last-gasp measures could save the planet. That was what Daniel was here for — a conference between the four economic powers of the world: USA, UK, Brazil and India, to discuss on 'The Final Attempt', as the media had hyped the measure.
The efficiency of Video Conferencing and Holographic Communication notwithstanding, the representatives of the four nations (2 per nation: one for Science, the other for Politics) had decided by overwhelming mutual consent to physically arrive at Nasik, the venue for the conference. Daniel, the widely acclaimed Global Warming researcher, was the Indian Science representative.
As Daniel entered the room where the conference was to be held, he couldn't help feeling there was a great leveler between him and the beggar he had just brushed off — the Summer Heat. A landmark research in 2038 had established that a large family of previously unresearched gases actually contributed a lot to Global Warming, which was the reason why it had continued to escalate beyond control over 30 years after CFCs were banned globally. As a result, Artificial cooling was now entirely banned. Rich or poor; Inflation-victim or Inflation-immune; everybody felt the heat of the summer which now continued for 12 months a year. There were some who still cooled their homes or refrigerated their food products illegally, but that number had drastically reduced as the world saw Mumbai go underwater in the terrible 2040 tsunami and never come back up.
At 1 PM, the most important meeting in World History began. The Final Attempt was about to be made.
"We all know that Global Warming is an imminent threat; I wouldn't waste your time speaking about it. I'm here to present the solution, and that's what I'll do." Attention was rapt and the listeners seemed to be hanging on each and every word Daniel spoke. "The only way, now, to prevent Global Warming from taking Earth as its victim would be to drastically reduce the temperature. This can be done by releasing particulate matter in the atmosphere which actually reflects the sunrays. However,"— Daniel wiped the sweat off his forehead —"we have only two methods to do so — a Volcanic eruption or a Nuclear explosion."
The clamor was immediate. It was natural; who would accept such calamities, even create them himself! But then, Daniel projected, holographically, a graph showing how the temperature of Japan had fallen quite drastically in the couple of years following the Hiroshima-Nagasaki explosions. "Of course," Daniel added, "We don't need to actually take a single life; we could explode the bomb in one of the many deserted areas in the world and it will have the same desirable effect." He saw the Brazilian scientist wirelessly transferring the graph to his ProjectWatch and was pleased.
"Sahara Desert," the US President quipped. Of course it was deserted; Nobody could withstand temperatures regularly at about 56º C. The plan was thus finalized. The Nuclear device would explode in Chad, the locations given down to their exact co-ordinates (12º 10' N, 18º 35' E) by the US President. And three days later, the final attempt was made.
However, it did not quite come off as expected.
The bomb, that had set out to destroy only within a radius of 100 km, instead flattened everything within a 1,000-mile radius. By the time the reason was known — that the bomb had fallen bang on an undercover Russian Nuclear Research outpost — it was too late. Columbia, Sao Paulo, London and New Delhi were all vaporized by the 5th of February, 2050.
This was the beginning of the end.
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As he walked to the enormous building in front of him, a disheveled man came out of nowhere and began, "Sir, please, give me something, sir, I don't have anything to eat —" Daniel avoided the beggar who had just spoken in perfect English and continued towards the building. The beggar did not have much time anyway — Skin Cancer, a result of exposure to harmful UV radiation, had probably claimed him already. Daniel was protected by reflective clothing of a revolutionary new material which he could afford.
The increasing literacy of beggars, brought about no doubt by the 2046 Hyper-Inflation crisis, was not the only thing to change in the last few years. The dreaded Global Warming was finally reaching its potential. The temperature was a blistering 43º C — this in early February. Many erstwhile coastal areas had gone underwater in the last 15 - 20 years. In the last few years, technological advances had managed to delay total carnage. But now, only desperate last-gasp measures could save the planet. That was what Daniel was here for — a conference between the four economic powers of the world: USA, UK, Brazil and India, to discuss on 'The Final Attempt', as the media had hyped the measure.
The efficiency of Video Conferencing and Holographic Communication notwithstanding, the representatives of the four nations (2 per nation: one for Science, the other for Politics) had decided by overwhelming mutual consent to physically arrive at Nasik, the venue for the conference. Daniel, the widely acclaimed Global Warming researcher, was the Indian Science representative.
As Daniel entered the room where the conference was to be held, he couldn't help feeling there was a great leveler between him and the beggar he had just brushed off — the Summer Heat. A landmark research in 2038 had established that a large family of previously unresearched gases actually contributed a lot to Global Warming, which was the reason why it had continued to escalate beyond control over 30 years after CFCs were banned globally. As a result, Artificial cooling was now entirely banned. Rich or poor; Inflation-victim or Inflation-immune; everybody felt the heat of the summer which now continued for 12 months a year. There were some who still cooled their homes or refrigerated their food products illegally, but that number had drastically reduced as the world saw Mumbai go underwater in the terrible 2040 tsunami and never come back up.
At 1 PM, the most important meeting in World History began. The Final Attempt was about to be made.
"We all know that Global Warming is an imminent threat; I wouldn't waste your time speaking about it. I'm here to present the solution, and that's what I'll do." Attention was rapt and the listeners seemed to be hanging on each and every word Daniel spoke. "The only way, now, to prevent Global Warming from taking Earth as its victim would be to drastically reduce the temperature. This can be done by releasing particulate matter in the atmosphere which actually reflects the sunrays. However,"— Daniel wiped the sweat off his forehead —"we have only two methods to do so — a Volcanic eruption or a Nuclear explosion."
The clamor was immediate. It was natural; who would accept such calamities, even create them himself! But then, Daniel projected, holographically, a graph showing how the temperature of Japan had fallen quite drastically in the couple of years following the Hiroshima-Nagasaki explosions. "Of course," Daniel added, "We don't need to actually take a single life; we could explode the bomb in one of the many deserted areas in the world and it will have the same desirable effect." He saw the Brazilian scientist wirelessly transferring the graph to his ProjectWatch and was pleased.
"Sahara Desert," the US President quipped. Of course it was deserted; Nobody could withstand temperatures regularly at about 56º C. The plan was thus finalized. The Nuclear device would explode in Chad, the locations given down to their exact co-ordinates (12º 10' N, 18º 35' E) by the US President. And three days later, the final attempt was made.
However, it did not quite come off as expected.
The bomb, that had set out to destroy only within a radius of 100 km, instead flattened everything within a 1,000-mile radius. By the time the reason was known — that the bomb had fallen bang on an undercover Russian Nuclear Research outpost — it was too late. Columbia, Sao Paulo, London and New Delhi were all vaporized by the 5th of February, 2050.
This was the beginning of the end.
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