Arthur Clarke - Sunstorm

The reality of climate change and its effects were undeniable, and a day-to-day political reality for Miriam. Remarkably the argument about the cause of it all still continued. But that decades-old debate was moot now, as attention had gradually switched to the need to fix things. There was a will to act, Miriam thought, a gladdening and growing realization that things had gone too far, that something must be done.

But it was surprisingly hard to focus that energy. Long-term demographic changes had led to an aging of the population in the West: more than half of all Western Europeans and Americans were now over sixty-five, mostly unproductive, and conservative with it. Meanwhile the interconnectedness of the world had culminated with the great UNESCO program to equip every twelve-year-old on the globe with a phone of her own. The result was a detachment from traditional political structures among the young and middle-aged, who, educated and interconnected, often showed more loyalty to others like them around the world than to the nations of which they were nominally citizens.

If you looked at the world as a whole, this was probably the most truly democratic, educated, and enlightened age in history. The growth of a literate, interconnected elite certainly made major wars a lot less likely in the future. But it did make it hard to get anything done—especially when tough choices had to be made.

And it seemed that tough choices faced Miriam now.

At fifty-three, Miriam Grec was in her second year as Prime Minister of the Eurasian Union. She was the senior political figure across a swath of the Old World that stretched from the Atlantic coast of Ireland to the Pacific coast of Russia, and from Scandinavia in the north to Israel in the south. It was an empire no Caesar or Khan could have contemplated—but Miriam was no emperor. Enmeshed in the complicated federal politics of the young Union, buffeted by tensions between the great power blocs that dominated the world of the mid-twenty-first century, and having to cope with more primitive forces of religion, ethnicity, and residual nationalism, she sometimes felt as if she were trapped in a spiderweb.

Of course, she would never have swapped places with her only nominal superior in Eurasia, the President, who had the power to do nothing but launch spaceplanes and visit the sick. However, the present incumbent was well suited by heredity and upbringing to such a role—though there had been universal astonishment at his election. Perhaps it said something about the yearning of the people for tradition and stability that the third democratically elected President of Eurasia was the King of Great Britain …

Miriam tried to assess Siobhan McGorran. The Astronomer Royal, a rather earnest woman with a dark Celtic intensity, had clearly taken her mission to provide Miriam with a briefing on the events of June 9 very seriously, including that trip to the Moon, which Miriam rather envied. But Miriam’s problem was that Siobhan was not the first person to have stood before her and pronounced on global doom and gloom.

This was a dangerous century, the experts kept saying. Climate change, eco-collapse, demographic changes—a bottleneck for humankind, some called it. Miriam accepted that basic view. But already it was clear that some of the very worst projections from the beginning of this century of change hadn’t come to pass. Miriam had learned that she had to apply a filter, a very unscientific and inexpert screen of judgment, to sort the wheat from the chaff, a judgment based as much on her impression of the character of the bringer of each bit of bad news as on the content of what she had to say.

That was why she was coming to think that she would have to take Siobhan McGorran very seriously indeed.

Nicolaus said, “Of course we’ll have to check everything out.”

“But you do believe me.” Siobhan seemed neither gratified nor humble; she just wanted to get on with the job, Miriam thought.

But what a dreadful job that was. Miriam banged her small fist on the tabletop. “Damn, damn.”

Siobhan turned to her. “Miriam?”

“You know, in my job things generally look grim, day to day. Here we are right in the throat of this bottleneck of history. We make mistakes, we squabble, we never agree, we take one step back for every two forward. And yet we’re finding our way through.” It was true. America, for instance, which had taken more of a beating on June 9 than any other region, had already recovered substantially, and was now even sending aid convoys out around the world. “I believe that we’re coming together as a species as a result of our coping with all these crises. Growing up, if you like. We work together, we help each other. We take care of the place we live.”

Siobhan nodded. “My daughter has signed up for the Animal Ethics movement.” This was a grouping determined to extend the concept of human rights to other intelligent mammals, birds, and reptiles. Its case had been reinforced by the taxonomists reclassifying the two chimp species as part of the genus Homo, along with humans—immediately making them Legal Persons (Nonhuman) with equivalent rights to humans, and indeed equivalent to Aristotle, the planet’s other fully sentient inhabitant. “It might be too little too late but—”

Miriam said, “I had hopes that if we could just get through this mess of a century, we could be on the verge of greatness. And now, when the future shows such promise, this. ”

Siobhan was looking absent. “I had similar conversations on the Moon. Bud Tooke said it was “ironic” this should happen just now. You know, scientists are suspicious of coincidences. A conspiracy theorist certainly might wonder if the fact that our capabilities are growing, and the arrival of this incoming disaster, at the same time, really is just bad luck.”

Nicolaus frowned. “What do you mean by that?”

“I’m not sure,” Siobhan said. “A loose thread of thought …”

Miriam said firmly, “Let’s stay focused. Siobhan, tell us what we need to do.”

“Do?”

“What options do we have?”

Siobhan shook her head. “I’ve been asked that before. It’s not as if this is an asteroid we might push away. This is the sun, Miriam.”

Nicolaus asked, “What about Mars? Isn’t Mars farther from the sun?”

“Yes—but not so far it will make a difference to anything alive on its surface.”

Miriam said, “You mentioned something about the deep life on Earth surviving.”

“The deep hot biosphere, yes. It’s thought that that’s the wellspring from which life started on Earth in the first place. I suppose that could happen again. Like a reboot. But it would take millions of years just for single-celled life-forms to recolonize the land.” She smiled wistfully. “I doubt if any future intelligence would even know we had ever existed.”

Nicolaus said, “Could we survive down there? Could we eat those bugs?”

Siobhan looked dubious. “Maybe a deep enough bunker … How could it be self-sufficient? And the surface would be ruined; there would be no possibility of reemergence. Ever.”

Miriam stood up, anger fueling her energy. “And is that what we’re to tell people? That they should dig a hole in the ground and wait to die? I need something better than that, Siobhan.”

The Astronomer Royal stood. “Yes, ma’am.”

“We’ll speak again.” Restless, Miriam began pacing. She said to Nicolaus, “We’ll have to clear my schedule for the rest of the day.”

“Already done.”

“And set up some calls.”

“America first?”

“Of course …”

She led the way from the room, energetic, bristling, planning. This wasn’t over yet. In fact this was just the beginning.