CHAPTER
5
CHAPTER
5
Sleeping was out of the question so Christoph made coffee and sat back at his desk. The documents wouldn’t arrive for another sixteen hours. The coffee was strong and he thanked the board’s recent decision to install two state-of-the-art coffee machines; one in the executive suite, and the other in the staff common room.
He hated the executive suite, because it sent an elitist message to the people who worked at the coal-face. They were the ones who did the real work. They were the people who gave up their family time to slog over computers, punching in climate change scenarios and doing ‘what-if’ calculations. They were the real heroes. They knew more about AtmosFear modelling than any of the suits who pressed the flesh at flashy promo functions or dazzled viewers with their high priced orthodontic makeovers. The smiles they manufactured for CNN were as phoney as their pearly white caps.
How did we end up in this circus? Christoph asked himself. He wasn’t sure if he said it aloud, or if it was just a thought inside his head.
He looked at the gallery of framed photographs. He recognised most of the smug faces, but he didn’t connect with any of them. He never could stand suits. He never wore them, and he hated them all. For him they were pretentious and boring.
There was of course, one exception, he loved the Armani, New Generation suit, that he’d bought to take to Australia next time he visited. It was still in its travel bag, hanging in his robe. Ursula made a fuss when she saw it; complaining about the cost, and the fact he refused to wear it to a recent gala event; one of their rare public appearances together, orchestrated especially to portray them as the corporate couple of the year.
What a joke he said to himself, it was a pittance compared to her annual wardrobe spend. He rubbed his temples, and murmured, to hell with cost, and to hell with Ursula, I want out of this zoo. And I want it soon.
He dozed in his chair. Images flooded his mind, jarring it with memories he wanted to block out. After thirty minutes he stopped fighting them, and he reached down and removed a large folder from his desk’s bottom drawer. He took out the emails he’d received from Claudia and began reading them.
TO: Christoph Zelig
FROM: Claudia McBride
DATE: 11 October 2008
SUBJECT: The final calculations and concerns about stalling relocation plans.
Hi Christoph,
We’ve finished the scenarios and it’s every bit as bad as we predicted.
The world is in real trouble. Even if we ignore the threat of another tsunami similar to the Asian one in 2004, which is difficult to ignore, because already there is strong evidence to suggest that we can expect another magnitude nine earthquake, that will equal the 1700AD Cascadian quake. As you know Japanese scientists have proven that quake caused the Pacific tsunami that devastated huge parts of Vancouver Island and the coast of Japan. The same scientists have demonstrated that quakes of the same magnitude have occurred about every one hundred years. The 1995 Kobe, 6.9 magnitude quake caused more than $200 billion worth of damage. A massive amount, but small compared to the damage that will result if our sea level predictions are correct.
When you take into account, the melt-rate and volume of the polar ice caps, the sea levels will rise by a minimum of 10 metres over the next four to six years.
Of course this will have catastrophic results for New York and Sydney. I’ve attached the graphs so you can see the impact on your coastal cities and ours as well. We can expect the whole of Australia’s seaboard to be totally submerged in less than two hundred and eight months.
On the eastern seaboard alone, cities from Cairns, to Melbourne, will be wiped out and eighteen million people will be displaced.
Although our federal government has not made a formal statement, to say there is a strong likelihood that the sea will rise and flood the coastal region, it has been offering free land and relocation grants, to business operators and private individuals. However without an official warning people are slow to accept the threat as real. This misguided thinking is stalling the solution plan. People refuse to accept the fact that the whole of the Australian seaboard will vanish, and their properties will be submerged.
Our local news media companies are running some programs to help change people’s perception, but again without an official statement from the government these messages are viewed as far off possibilities, not immediate threats. With the result that people find it all interesting speculation, but not something they need to worry about in their lifetime. They see what they want to see, and they hear what they want to hear.
Of course we, and others like us, are trying to get the message out there. We’re running a number of cable and free-to-air TV programs. The information is clear and precise, but on the whole people are ignoring it and just going about their business as though no problem exists.
We recently conducted a survey to assess people’s reaction to the programs and we were shocked to find more than 60% of views said they found the program interesting, but they didn’t think the sea level predictions would happen in their lifetime. When asked if they would consider relocating they said they would not.
I sometimes wonder if Hollywood has desensitized people to extreme danger. They’re exposed to so many celluloid images portraying mayhem and destruction, that they can’t separate real and present danger from the fantasy of the wide screen.
I often despair for mankind. If people don’t make immediate relocation plans, millions will perish. I remember the 2004 Asian tsunami, and I’m still amazed by footage of thousands of people watching the great wave as though it was playing on a giant plasma.
Millions of people are going to lose their homes and businesses. Relocation won’t be an option, once the sea levels have risen. They’ll be trapped, and they will watch each other die.
As you know, we are looking at a fantastic purpose built building, which is located in the New South Wales mid-western tablelands. It’s perfect for EcoLogic, because it is large enough accommodate all our departments.
There’s a health resort complex about two kilometres away. The resort hasn’t turned a profit for over seven years, and the owners listed it for sale a month ago. We’ve made an offer and think it will be accepted.
We’ll use the resort complex to house all our staff. Well the ones who want to relocate that is. Not all do. We’ve got a few people who just can’t bring themselves to leave their Mc Mansions behind. They’re living in hope that the modelling is wrong and the seas won’t rise.
Bloody hell! What chance is there if even people who have spent their lives doing the calculations, still can’t break away from their comfortable suburban lifestyles, and save themselves from certain death?
TO: Claudia McBride
FROM: Christoph Zelig
DATE: 11 October 2008
SUBJECT: The final calculations and your concerns about stalling relocation plans.
My dearest Claudia,
I share you deep concerns for some of your co-workers. I face the same dilemma. Some of my people are also fighting us on our relocation attempts.
We had a meeting last week to identify which families require resettlement to the small mountain town we’re erecting cottages in. Only fifty percent of our people will move to their new homes when construction is complete.
I’m finding it difficult to come to terms with the fact that half of the people, who have worked beside me for so long, may die a horrible death, in just a few short years.
We must both remain strong, my darling. We must focus on our relocation plans and support the families who will be making great sacrifices and leaving many loved ones behind; along with the lives they know and understand.
These are dark days. I know you will be feeling the same acute pain, and moments of self doubt, I experience daily.
I do understand why so many of your people, and mine, are in denial. I find myself going to bed at night and praying for some miraculous event that will allow us to revert to a time when our fragile planet was a finely balanced garden and global warming was a concept that only existed in badly written horror novels.
I will send you the population demographics you requested as soon as Gerard has finished his updates.
Until next time, stay strong and remember … I love you.
Christoph read through pages of emails he and Claudia had exchanged during the past year. They documented the company’s journey and spread a message so few were taking seriously. Each email was a chronicle of the end of civilization as we know it. But they were much more; they documented the journey of two people who became friends and then lovers.
He smiled when he re-read Claudia’s high-priority response to an email he sent her. He’d been working from home for three days, and he kept going to the fridge, but each time he found it empty. They were halfway through the task of restructuring Weather Scope and at the same time developing the expansion plan for EcoLogic. During the past three months they had both averaged eighteen hour days, seven days a week.
TO: Christoph Zelig
FROM: Claudia McBride
DATE: 8 January 2006
SUBJECT: Fridge Stocking Standard Operating Procedure (SOP 9.2)
Dear Christoph
I acknowledge your recent fridge inventory audit and advise that as @ 11.30pm (Oz time), I have entered a nil stock level for your domestic storage device.
I suggest the following action to rectify the current negative situation, and formally state that restocking of home fridges is not a complex procedure. However it does require a time and energy investment as well as a financial one.
Please undertake the following process:
Go to a local supermarket, enter premises, take a plastic basket from the stack you will usually find conveniently located at the entry point.
Walk quickly down each aisle, scan shelves, choose products and remove them from the position they hold on said shelving, chuck the selected items into the basket and when it is full, go to the checkout lane – toss the purchases on the counter for the operator to scan.
You will be supplied with a combined cost tally printout. Flick some paper money in the general direction of the operator, grab your stuff, stick it in a plastic bag, run back to your motor vehicle, return home, shove the stuff into the fridge or cupboard – which ever is appropriate – shut the door – with your foot is fine. And you’re done!
Efficiency Improvement Suggestion: Reduce time spent in supermarket by limiting purchases to large quantities of coffee, milk, bread, eggs, fruit and vegetables. Essential to add two king-size blocks of chocolate to grocery items each time you shop. These products are extremely useful when you’re too busy to leave the computer to prepare food.
ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATION: Engaging the services of a well trained, and extremely efficient housekeeper; one who can prepare meals and leave them in the refrigerator for you, is highly recommended.
Review the Duty Statement for the Housekeeper position, and include the additional duties of shopping and maintaining the domestic cooling device’s inventory levels at maximum capacity, will prevent future stock-outages. The hiring of the new staff members is highly recommended as an OH&S measure, because it will prevent death by starvation.