Alternative Apocalypse

by Debora Godfrey

  Assuming they don’t come from Mars.

  5--Global Warming

  When you get around to asking why the Doomsday Clock stands once again at two minutes to midnight, the short answer is global warming.

  Even if you’re a denier, it’s still the answer. The relation between CO2 and atmospheric temperature was established over fifty years ago, itself the result of work done, and largely forgotten until given a male face, by Eunice Foote, in 1856.

  Of all the apocalyptic scenarios, this one has already begun. Twenty of the warmest years on record have been in the last twenty-two years, CO2 is 50% above pre-industrial levels, and global temperatures are up one degree Celsius. Uncertainty and complexity in climate modelling are not whether it will get hotter if we pump more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere (duh!), but whether there are tipping points along the way that will make the situation even worse, such as methane unlocked from beneath a defrosting tundra, or the refusal of the oceans to soak up any more excess heat and CO2. These increased but uncertain risks are hardly excuses oil and gas industries can fall back on because the “science is unclear”.

  While the polar bears may be doomed (sorry, polar bears), surely we wouldn’t be so stupid as to cause a seventh great extinction event? Surely we can limit warming to one and a half degrees? Surely, by now, we’ve managed to cap our carbon emissions?

  No? Oh.

  Nobody said it was going to be easy. And, with every uptick in parts per million, the problem we eventually have to solve gets more difficult.

  Capitalism and global warming are so closely entwined that a world in which we are encouraged not to consume is going to require pretty radical change. But it doesn’t feel like an apocalypse yet.

  Perhaps that’s why so little has been done. Because the lovely people who brought you this apocalypse, and the aging politicians dragging their feet, and ok, yes, me, will all be dead before the worst of it hits. And old people do suffer so from the cold.

  Global Warming?

  That’s not my apocalypse. That’s my kids’ apocalypse (sorry, kids).

  4--Bad Science

  Physicists have nightmares just as terrible as astronomers. One of their more peculiar nocturnal fears is that the laws of the universe aren’t fixed. If our solar system were to wander into a section of the cosmos where the strong, weak, or electromagnetic forces varied by even the tiniest amount, it would upset the delicate balance that holds atoms together, that keep neutrons neutrons, that allow electrons to orbit where they need to for the many wonderful chemical reactions that sustain life.

  Physicists propose this scenario to explain away the unexplainable, like dark matter. If the maths doesn’t work, (they suggest), maybe it’s because it doesn’t apply everywhere.

  If true, the laws would also change over time. Physicists have a tool capable of measuring such infinitesimal differences: an interferometer. This detects shifts of “half a wiggle”. LIGO, for instance, detects half a wiggle of laser light over five kilometres, making it sensitive to gravity ripples from the death-duet of twin black holes, millions of light years away.

  Similar tests put limits on just how unstable the laws of physics are. And, as far as we can tell, they’re incredibly stable.

  Phew!

  Bad Science?

  That’s not my apocalypse. Its theories are too theoretical.

  3--Supervolcanoes

  If you were travelling in the time of the dinosaurs, you’d need a set of maps for the supercontinent, Pangaea. And geologists predict the continental plates will come back together again in 250 million years to form Pangaea Ultima.

  The thin crust we live on sometimes develops an angry boil. Supervolcano eruptions are capable of ejecting a thousand cubic kilometres of magma.

  While the localised effects would be terrible, it’s the consequences for the atmosphere that makes these potential end-gamers. Releasing a potent brew of greenhouse gases and sunlight-blocking aerosols, they would plunge the earth into a decade-long winter. 1816’s Year Without a Summer was a sniffle by comparison.

  Some supervolcanoes—including Yellowstone—have their own doomsday clocks: magma chambers that fill and then empty with a degree of regularity. Yellowstone erupted 2.1 million, 1.3 million, and 640,000 years ago. I guess it’s about due.

  There are also ominous signs in the Campi Flegrei (“burning fields”) in Italy, a supervolcano that plunged temperatures in Europe by as much as 4C, 39,000 years ago, and may have contributed to the demise of the Neanderthals. Another, Toba in Indonesia, is sometimes cited as the cause of mankind’s “genetic bottleneck” 75,000 years ago, though recent archaeological evidence suggests otherwise.

  But hey, none of these supervolcanoes are grumbling quite enough to worry about.

  Supervolcano?

  That’s not my apocalypse. Its magma chamber is too empty.

  2--Population Pressure

  There’s an irony in suggesting our ultimate downfall might be because we, as a species, are too successful.

  The population of the earth has more than doubled in my lifetime. The growth rate is falling, particularly where wealth is concentrated, but the global population continues to rise.

  There is no planet B, climate protesters protest, and even if there were, we’d fill it within a generation. More significant than head count is the growth in demand for resources. We are the privileged few, and we can’t, and shouldn’t, stop others attaining the same quality of life we enjoy. But if that level is at today’s (US) level, we’re going to need another five earths—planets B, C, D, E AND F. And never mind dire predictions of the future; we’re already using one and a half earths based on carbon emissions.

  Malthus wasn’t wrong, per se, even if the dates for societal collapse drift by like deadlines for the Rapture. Because if our population and consumption keep growing then at some point Malthus will be able to turn in his overcrowded grave and say: See? I TOLD you so.

  Anyone for Soylent Green?

  Population Pressure?

  That’s not my apocalypse. Its predictions are too Malthusian.

  1--Global Pandemic

  A glut of humans is an opportunity just begging to be exploited. Not for zombies or aliens, but for the most successful family of life on earth: bacteria.

  We forget how deadly disease has been through most of human history. We forget that wounds fester, that childhood was once such a minefield of contagion you were lucky to reach adulthood, and that the reason cancer is such a major killer is because other things aren’t.

  Smallpox paved the way for the conquering of the Americas, setting down a marker for the start of the Anthropocene: the lowering of CO2 levels as farmed land returned to the wild.

  Black Death rolled across Europe in waves between the 14th and 17th century, killing between 30% and 60% of the population, having taken a breather after polishing off the Roman Empire a millennium earlier. And plague isn’t just a horror from medieval times; it put in a brief appearance in San Francisco as recent as the turn of the twentieth century.

  We have tamed many ills, but it would be presumptuous to believe them gone forever. Deadly bacteria are always lurking in the wings, waiting for another opportunity. If not cholera, typhus or tuberculosis, then something we haven’t seen before, something the World Health Organization call: “Disease X”.

  Perhaps it will be less exotic than that. The 1918 outbreak of H1N1 influenza infected one third of the world’s population, killing fifty million—more than all the bullets and the bombs of WW1. Bird flu, H5N1, has a mortality rate of 60%. And H1N1 hasn’t gone away, returning most recently as swine flu.

  That influenza subtypes are named after animals highlights one of the problems. Viruses and microbes evolve and don’t need humans overdosing on antibiotics to do so. Cats, dogs, pigs, birds, bats...even whales get the flu. Though catching flu from a whale is probably tricky.

  There are over a hundred subtypes of influenza, only a handful of which are highly contagious
and this doesn’t include H5N1. Not yet.

  Humans aren’t exactly a mono-crop like the Cavendish banana, but we do have relatively low nucleotide diversity. When a new killer disease hits, we’re all susceptible. And with air travel, we’re all going to be exposed, pretty damned quick.

  Fortunately, the deadliest diseases tend to burn themselves out. Dead hosts (zombies excepting) don’t usually spread disease (Ebola excepting).

  But maybe it doesn’t have to be that deadly. What percentage mortality is an apocalypse, anyway?

  Modern infrastructure is fragile and becoming more so as Just-In-Time AI’s attempt to minimise waste—to save money, not the planet. If disease decimated the healthcare system, closed the schools, prevented travel, stopped deliveries, brought industry to a standstill… how long would our societies survive? How many hot meals away are we from anarchy?

  We live blessed lives, regardless of what alternative truths rose-tinted nostalgia tell us. We live in a time of plenty, of relative peace, of astonishing technological advances that our children take for granted. Which is as it should be. Progress is lovely.

  And really, I don’t want it all to end. But Cormac McCarthy’s The Road teaches me it’s best to go out in the first wave of any truly awful disaster.

  So don’t be surprised, as death rides in on a pale horse, to find me over at the nearest quarantine centre, unmasked, breathing deeply.

  Global pandemic?

  That’s my apocalypse! Its R0 is so infectious!

  The END (of the world...?)

  Sitting Here in Limbo

  Mikal Trimm

  End Of The World for you?

  Yeah, me too. Didn’t figure you for one of those End Of The Line wanks. Too easy, right? Go out alone? No style.

  What’d you go for? Nuclear Winter, no shit? Heard that one takes a long time, man. Well, you know, subjectively, anyway. I went for The Cataclysm myself. Nothing like a giant asteroid hitting the Earth to give you that sense of the inevitable.

  Had a friend who went for Judgment Day. You know, with the saints taken up, and the thousand-year reign and crap. I hear that’s the longest program they have, really depressing, beat-yourself-to-death-with-guilt scenario. Who needs that garbage, right? ‘Course, Rick had issues, know what I mean? Maybe he got off on it, I dunno.

  My old man went the easy route back when they started this whole gig. He took one of the first End Of The Line scenarios they came out with—killed in a shoot-out with the cops, I think. Mom told me she didn’t even know about it until the bill came. He was supposed to get her signature or something, but he faked it somehow. This was back before they got their act together and put in all the safeguards, I guess.

  Hey, if you’re doing the Nuclear Winter gig, I guess you had to get all the memory implants, right? So that you get the whole package at the end? Damn, I hear there’s a pretty good wait for all that stuff. You must really be serious about this. I just want to lie down, let the asteroid blow me to smithereens, and be done with it, y’know?

  Why? I dunno, son of a suicide, all that jazz. Yeah, that’s kind of a cop-out, I guess. Hah! Cop-out! My old man would’ve liked that one. I can see him now: “Come an’ get me, ya lousy pigs!” Hail of bullets… Not bad, Pop, not bad at all. You were a pretty tough old bastard, now that I think about it.

  Guess I’m just tired of all the crap out there, to be honest. World’s full of it, people are full of it, hell, I’m full of it. I just want out.

  Of course, I don’t mind the idea of taking everyone else with me either, right? I consider this “suicide on a grand scale”. Don’t know where I heard that, but I always liked the line.

  Well, that’s my name they’re calling. Time to visit Dreamland, buddy. Should be one helluva dream.

  Hey, pal. See ya on the other side...

  A Pebble in the Data Stream

  Michelle F Goddard

  The Tunnel is closed. I am as far from home as I have ever been, separated by stone and barbed wire and grounded surveillance drones that nap on the cold earth. I shiver and pace the narrow width between the service tube walls. Cold rolls up fear in my belly like tar.

  I push back my sleeve and check my watch. I follow the second hand as it slips its way around. The whir of wound gears jitters on my skin; springs and coils, springs and coils. I rub my thumb against my writer’s callus, that fleshy pad on the middle finger earned word by word and page by page as I wait for the window of opportunity to open and for me to find the courage to move.

  “No. Don’t let her near it,” someone said.

  Called to the front of the classroom, I stood beside the computer terminal, but not touching it, as glares poked me harder than knobby fingers. Sweat sprung up on the nape of my neck. I heard their taunt riding the back of their teeth. With a hissing squeal that dipped down to a guttural drone, the screen went blank and doomed my fate.

  “Jinx,” someone said, as fingers snapped and hoots erupted. “Alasie jinxed it out.”

  “Calm down,” Teacher said. “It’s just a technical glitch.” A real teacher. No virtual prof, but flesh. Usually someone’s parent or older sibling back from trying their fortune in the city. Still, Teacher, capital “T”. She bent down to jiggle the power cable. “You can go back to your seat, Alasie.”

  I slunk to my desk at the back of the classroom. Grey light from outside drifted through the classroom windows, filtered by sparse scrub and spare trees that stood scattered throughout the commons. In the centre stood the town, our vertical village, a single condo tower grey and stern as the sky. From this hub, tunnels connected the outlying buildings including the community centre and our school, but everything else—homes, businesses, even stores—were all housed inside the condo.

  I opened my workbook, rubbing my callus as I worked through the questions printed out especially for me. Jack sat beside me, his fingers flying across a tablet hidden under the desk, his gaze flitting from the room then back to the screen. His hungry intensity drew me. My curiosity reached out to touch him too sharply.

  “Mind your business,” Jack said with a scowl.

  “Mind your own,” I said, voice like a slap. The ceiling lights went out. Cries of shock and glee pierced the dark.

  “I suppose that is all for today,” the teacher said, as shoes squeaked against the linoleum as they moved toward the door.

  Tablet screens flickered through the corridor toward the tower entrance, emergency lights dyeing sneakers yellow. The sound of clapping doors punctuated the wave of shuffling feet, as students poured into the condo tower of The Enclave; a nicer name for our neighbourhood than it deserves.

  After the Reconstruction, they gathered us into Enclaves, repurposed military outposts, to live and work, side by side, one on top of the other. Those a little better off lived a little higher up, but not much. No one has much. Anyone with much would live in the city: those mushroom clusters of silver towers strung together by cobweb silk highways and veiled in shimmering clouds. Streams of light seemed to flow so easily out there, but choked up once they got to the Enclave. But I suspected that how far away we lived didn’t account for all the power fluctuations.

  The hallway lights flared back to life by the time I had pushed through the main doors, but the other students had made their escape and there was no re-jailing them. I descended to the ground floor and my uncle’s workshop attached to the machinery stables. “Uncle Niimi,” I said. “Uncle. There was a blackout.”

  Maggie ducked her head out of her workshop. She saw me, smiled and crept out until she stood pressed against the doorway as if it needed her help to stay upright.

  “Where’s Uncle Niimi, Maggie?”

  Maggie Magpie, my uncle’s helper, another bird like me, fallen from a nest and saved by my uncle, shrugged and held out something that looked like a glove. “Working. See?”

  “Yes. But where’s Uncle.”

  “Working. Working,” Maggie said, and turned around, her straight black braids whipping out to slap the door
frame before she disappeared back into her workroom. She was already seated, slouched over her project lying on the workbench when I passed by. I smelt solder and tasted bitter metal in my mouth and moved on toward the backroom. I found Uncle Niimi slouched in his chair, pale and sweating.

  “Maggie!” At my call, I heard her galloping shuffle skid to a stop. “Get water.”

  Uncle’s head lolled on his shoulders but he blinked and sipped as I held the glass to his lips. Maggie hovered so close I could hardly breathe. “Now, you’re worried?” I said. “You’re useless.”

  “Alasie, nothing is useless,” Uncle Niimi said, as Maggie, all hanging head and wringing hands, backed away. “Everything has its purpose.”

  Darkness bears down on me. I crouch; arms wrapped around one knee while the other presses against concrete. I glance behind. I see the suggestion of night at the entrance but turn away. My flashlight leaks a washed-out beam onto the damp ground. The walls, grey and pitted, are painted with drips of dark moisture. Cold iron bars stand before me. The panel is just on the other side, blinking lights all green and cheerful. But green is not for go. Not yet. I glance at my watch, pull my coat tighter around me and pat the gloves tucked into my pocket.

  The healer came. Her eyes uttered warnings into the hush as her hands moved to Uncle Niimi’s forehead and neck. She bent low to whisper. Uncle Niimi nodded before she brought the quilt up to his chin. Afterward, I stood in the doorway, and glared up at her as the lights of our apartment flickered.

  “I’ve done what I can. Your uncle needs city medicine. Remind him to contact the med-boards.”

  The green lights of the panel flicker and dim. The time is now. I inhale sharply and affix the phalanx, a segmented rod with a harness that fits around my wrist onto the end of my index finger. Praying the end will reach, I extend the pointer. I hold it up to the light as I run my hand along its length. This is more than a test of this new tool. This is a test of faith. Am I brave enough? Is he as smart as he thinks he is?