David Brin - Earth

Then wait…

□ For consideration by the 112 million members of the Worldwide Long Range Solutions Special Interest Discussion Group [ D SIG AeR.WLRS 253787890.546], we the steering committee commend this little gem one of our members [□ Jane P. Gloumer QrT JN 233-54-2203 aa] found in a late TwenCen novel. She calls it the “Offut-Lyon Plan.” Here’s Ms. Gloumer to describe the notion:

“Our problem isn’t too many people, per se. It’s that we have too many right now . We’re using up resources at a furious rate, just when the last of Earth’s surplus might be used to create true, permanent wellsprings of prosperity. Projects such as reforestation, or orbital solar power, or [□ list of other suggestions hyper-appendixed, with appropriate references] aren’t making any progress because our slender margin must be spent just feeding and housing so many people.

“Oh, surely, the rate of population growth has slackened. In a century, total numbers may actually taper off. But too late to save us, I’m afraid.

“Now some insensitive members of this very SIG have suggested this could be solved by letting half the people die. A grim Malthusian solution, and damn stupid in my opinion. Those five billions wouldn’t just go quietly for the common good! They’d go down kicking, taking everybody else with them!

“Anyway, do billions really need to die, in order to save the world? What if those billions could be persuaded to leave temporarily ?

“Recent work at the University of Beijing shows we’re only a decade away from perfecting cryosuspension… the safe freezing of human beings, like those with terminal diseases, for reliable resuscitation at a later time. Now at first that sounds like just another techno-calamity — plugging another of the drain holes and letting the tub fill still higher with people. But that’s just small thinking. There’s a way this breakthrough could actually prove to be our salvation.

“Here’s the deal. Let anyone who wants to sign up be suspended until the twenty-fourth century. The U.N. guarantees their savings will accumulate at 1 % above inflation or the best government bond rate, whichever is higher. Volunteers are assured wealth when they come out the other end.

“In return, they agree to get out of the way, giving the rest of us the elbow room we need. With only half the population to feed, we problem solvers could roll up our sleeves and use the remaining surplus to fix things up.

“Of course, there are a few bugs to work out, such as the logistics of safely freezing five billion people, but that’s what SIG discussion groups like this one are for — coming up with ideas and solving problems!”

Indeed. Jane’s provocative suggestion left us breathless. We expect more than a million responses to this one, so please, try to be original, or wait until the second wave to see if your point has already been stated by someone else. For conciseness, the first round will be limited to simple eight-gig voice-text, with just one subreference layer. No animation or holography, please. Now let’s start with our senior members in China…

It was truly “mad dogs and Englishmen” weather. Claire wore her goggles, of course, and was slathered with skin cream. Nevertheless, Logan Eng wondered if he really oughtn’t get his daughter out of this blistering sun-shine.

Not that, to all appearances, anything could possibly harm that creature up ahead, with the form of a girl but moving along the striated rock face like a mountain goat. It never occurred to Logan that Claire might fall, for instance, here on a mere class-four slope. His red-headed offspring strode ahead as if she were crossing a lawn, rather than a forty-degree grade, and disappeared around the next bend in the canyon wall with a final flash of bronzed legs.

Logan puffed, reluctantly admitting to himself why he’d been about to call her back. I can’t keep up with her anymore. It was inevitable, I guess .

Realizing this, he smiled. Envy is an unworthy emotion to feel toward your own child.

Anyway, right now he was occupied with greater spans of time than a mere generation. Logan teetered on the edge of the period called “Carboniferous.” Like some ambitious phylum, aspiring to evolve, he sought a path to rise just a few more meters, into the Permian.

That landmark, which had seemed so stark from far away — a distinct border between two horizontal stripes of pale stone — became deceptive and indistinct up this close. Reality was like that. Never textbook crisp, but gritty, rough-edged. It took physical contact, breathing chalky sediments or tracing with your fingertips the outline of some paleozoic brachiopod, to truly feel the eons imbedded in a place like this.

Logan knew by touch the nature of this rock. He could estimate its strength and permeability to seeping water — a skill learned over years perfecting his craft. Also, as an amateur, he had studied its origins in prehistoric days.

The Carboniferous period actually came rather late in the planet’s history. Part of the “age of amphibians,” it spanned a hundred million years before the giants known as dinosaurs arrived. Wonderful beasts used to thrive near where he now trod. But it was mostly upon ocean bottoms that life’s epic was written, by countless microorganisms raining down as gentle sediment year after year, eon after eon, a process already three billion years old when these clay chapters were lain.

Of course Logan knew volcanic mountains, too. Only last week he’d been scrambling over vast igneous flows in eastern Washington state, charting some of the new underground streams awakened by the shifting rains. Still, mere pumice and tuff were never as fascinating as where the land had once quite literally been alive. In his work he’d walked across ages — from the Precambrian, when Earth’s highest denizens were mats of algae, to the nearly recent Pliocene, where Logan always watched out for traces of more immediate forebears, who might by then already have been walking on two legs and starting to wonder what the hell was going on. He regularly returned from such expeditions with boxes of fossils rescued from the bulldozers, to give away to local schools. Though of course Claire always got first choice for her collection.

“Daddy!”

He was negotiating a particularly tricky bend when his daughter’s call tore him from his drifting thoughts. A misstep cost him his footing, and Logan felt a sudden, teetering vertigo. He gasped, throwing himself against the sloping wall, spreading his weight over the largest possible area. The sudden pounding of his heart matched the sound of pebbles raining into the ravine below.

It was an instinctive reaction. An overreaction, as there were plenty of footholds and ledges. But he’d let his mind wander, and that was stupid. Now he’d pay with bruises, and dust from head to toe.

“What—” He spat grit and raised his voice. “What is it, Claire?”

From above and somewhere ahead he heard her voice. “I think I found it!”

Logan reset his footing and pushed away. Standing upright required that his ankles bend sharply as his climbing shoes pressed for traction. But beginning scramblers learned to do that on their first outing. Now that he was paying attention again, Logan felt steady and controlled.

Just so long as you do pay attention , he reminded himself.

“Found what?” he called in her general direction.

“Daddy!” came exasperated tones, echoing faintly down narrow sidechannels. “I think I found the boundary!”

Logan smiled. As a child, Claire never used to call him “Daddy.” It had been an affront to her dignity. But now that the state of Oregon had issued her a self-reliance card, she seemed to like using the word — as if a small degree of residual, calculated childishness was her privilege as an emerging adult.