Wake-up Call: 2035

by Robert J. Traydon

  Mumbling resonated through the auditorium but the Chinese President ignored it and continued.

  “A crucial point for us to remember is that our compliance with this Ultimatum is entirely under our control, whereas external intervention by the Supreme Beings will be out of our control. In the event of non-compliance, we will be exposed to the unpreventable, irreversible and potentially limitless remediation by the Supreme Beings. Thus, we must work with everything that is in our control, to avoid everything that is not.

  He saw the frustrated expressions on the dignitaries’ faces and commented, “Trust me when I say that all of this information will slowly drift into place and make logical sense. The 12 of us here have had the opportunity to assimilate it for a few days longer than you have, and hence our belief that this Ultimatum is both reasonable and surmountable.

  “This whole Ultimatum concept may seem absurd to you in the context of today’s thinking, but take time to consider just how absurd the concept of the world not actually being the centre of the Universe must have seemed to religious leaders of the 15th century. The notion was preposterous and scientific visionaries were put to death for the concept’s ungodly connotations. We look back on that with feelings of disdain and disbelief at the ignorance of those religious leaders. Maybe future human generations will look back on our generation with similar feelings … that is of course, if there are any generations that survive beyond our own.”

  He went on, “Yes, it is radical; yes, it is challenging; and yes, it contradicts many aspects of our existing constitutions, laws and lifestyles that we have grown accustomed to. But we really don’t have any alternative, and at the end of the day, it’s all about survival. If this is what we human beings are required to do in order to survive, then we need to rise up to this challenge as a unified team. We need to push ourselves beyond this suffocating cycle of denial, breach the envelopes of current acceptances and thinking, and be prepared to take corrective action once and for all – with one objective in mind: to achieve environmental equilibrium via the Ultimatum.

  “This is our duty since we are solely responsible for this dire environmental situation, and we must not for a moment forget this. Let us stand together and do it, not only to avoid external intervention, but also because it is our moral obligation to ensure the longevity of our planet and all of its living species.

  “Let me assure you that we share similar feelings of anger, disbelief and fear that many of you are likely feeling now. But we all have to remain steadfast, confident and optimistic in the eyes of every human being on this planet. They don’t know it, but their lives depend on us now, more than ever before.”

  He stopped speaking and let the austere silence prevail for half a minute. The Principals felt the dignitaries’ deep sense of self-reflection and contemplation, and took it as a positive sign.

  He then brought his presentation to a close, “Note that the full Ultimatum document has just been uploaded onto your tablets. Included are the targets specific to each nation, which will be of critical importance to all heads of state. I urge you to think of innovative ways for this Ultimatum to be implemented across your respective spheres of influence, as this will constitute the theme of tomorrow morning’s open discussion forum.

  “This afternoon’s question session will revolve around everything that has been revealed to you since the start of the summit. It will be your opportunity to raise any outstanding questions or points of concern that you would like addressed or clarified. Thank you all for your time.”

  The morning session was officially closed for lunch. There was only scattered applause for the Chinese President’s presentation. The dignitaries may not have enjoyed it, but they respected him for having persevered through it. One thing for sure, was that no one would have voluntarily traded places with him.

  It was just after midday. All the dignitaries were engaged in intense discussion as they filed out towards the restaurant. Many expressed their resentment towards the Ultimatum, which was unfortunate at this stage of the summit, but not unexpected. There were some dignitaries who supported everything presented so far, but they were mostly from environmental backgrounds and represented a distinct minority of the summit’s attendees.

  The 12 Principals went straight to their private meeting room for lunch. They all commended the Chinese President on his competent delivery of what had been expected to be the toughest session of the summit.

  The Principals were all feeling disappointed by the dignitaries’ response but remained optimistic that their negative opinion of the Ultimatum would change. They only needed to think back four days, to the time that they had been bombarded with the Ultimatum. They had also been in a complete state of shock and denial, but had slowly come around. Things took time to sink in – that was human nature.

  1:00 p.m. Earth: Summit – Day 2 (Question Session)

  It was 1:00 p.m. when the Indian Prime Minister opened the question session. In the interest of time keeping, dignitaries were encouraged to batch their questions together into four sections which included: the encounter, the environmental information, the Ultimatum’s conditions and targets; and lastly, the Ultimatum’s non-compliance related remediation.

  This was achieved through a new state-of-the-art summit management system. It was a virtual arena where the summit dignitaries could read through and assign relevance ratings to one another’s questions, while also adding their own questions. The highest trending questions were then raised for the Principals’ attention.

  The session went very smoothly, much to the surprise and relief of the Principals. Between them, they fielded a wide array of questions relevant to each of the four sections. Their responses seemed to satisfy the majority of the questioners, although there were regular heated exchanges. The Principals’ pledge of absolute transparency had proved invaluable, as there was no risk of discrepancy. Their independent responses all concurred to the very last detail, which in turn showed that the Principals truly had nothing to hide.

  Towards the end of the session, one particularly outspoken dignitary stood up and insinuated that the entire summit, and the Principals’ consistent statements, had been meticulously schemed. The Principals did not appreciate the attack on their integrity and the Indian Prime Minister countered the accusation by stating that they had no reason to fabricate the encounter or misrepresent the truth. He raised the fact that the Principals had far more to lose than gain by informing the world of the encounter. He then asked the audience whether the alternative would have been more prudent … for the Principals to have withheld the encounter event from the world for fear that it might jeopardise their own personal careers. His point had merit and the dignitaries quietened down.

  At 5:00 p.m. Prime Minister Naidoo stated that the session would be extended for as long as necessary for the remaining questions to be dealt with. The Principals were determined to make sure that nothing was left unaddressed. It was almost 7:00 p.m. when the dignitaries conceded that there were no further questions. Naidoo thanked everyone for their cooperative participation and then closed the proceedings.

  The Principals met in their meeting room to debrief. It had been an exhausting afternoon and they were all feeling somewhat demoralised about the general pessimism being shown by the dignitaries. They reassured one another nonetheless, that dignitary opinion was beginning to sway in their direction, and would only sway further as the summit wore on.

  They were all too aware of the fact that the Ultimatum clock was already ticking and every day spent at the summit was slowly eroding their three-year compliance deadline. The targets were aggressive and there would be no tolerance for delays. The message for the following day would be simple … rather implement the conditions now in a raw form and deal with the fallouts as they occur, than face the incalculable consequence of non-compliance.

  7:00 a.m. Earth: Summit – Day 3 (Implementation Recommendations)

  By 7:00 a.m. on Day Three, the auditorium doors were closed for
proceedings to start. The Principals were encouraged by the fact that all 500 dignitaries were still in attendance. There was real concern that some would demonstrate their lack of interest or dissatisfaction through non-attendance, but thus far, this had not been the case. This suggested that, at this crucial stage of the summit, the dignitaries were beginning to feel like stakeholders in the situation.

  The day’s agenda would deal with the implementation recommendations in the morning and then the compliance monitoring structures in the afternoon. These discussion forums would be led by the Brazilian President, Veronica Carrera and the Arab League Secretary-General, Shafik Nazam, respectively. They were anticipating a wide array of opinion and input that would need to be carefully facilitated. All the agreed outcomes would be incorporated into the treaty as compliance guidelines for each and every nation.

  For the morning session, President Carrera insisted that the recommendations relate directly to the stipulated conditions within the Ultimatum. The session’s content would again be managed via the ‘summit management system’ to streamline the proceedings. Numerous innovative ideas and proposals were raised by the dignitaries, all of which were aimed at softening the moderation impact on global societies, and making compliance with each condition that much more tolerable. Each point was assessed in terms of its degree of environmental benefit and viability, versus its impact on the world’s political, social and economic stability.

  The conversation was robust with some of the more practical recommendations being unanimously welcomed across the audience. The more contentious Ultimatum conditions, however, saw little attention. The Principals took this as a cue for them to recommend implementation options of their own relating to these conditions. Once the ice was broken, interaction and debate proceeded in a tense yet constructive manner.

  One dignitary suggested relocating all of the world’s most power-intensive industries to high-capacity, renewable power generation areas. He specifically mentioned the newly completed Grand Inga Hydro-Electric Power Plant on the Congo River, which was now generating over 50 Gigawatts of continuous pollution-free power: more than enough to supply all the world’s aluminium and steel smelters that were currently being powered by coal-produced electricity. Yes, it would cost money and take time to relocate the smelters, but at least they could remain in service as coal-fired power plants were progressively decommissioned.

  Another dignitary proposed the introduction of tax incentives for people to use public transport and bicycles. Some talked about shaking up the notoriously ineffective United Nations Environment Program, while others suggested the reestablishment of the Carbon Tax System that had been abandoned 15 years before.

  The Director-General of Greenpeace recommended a halt to all human settlement, whaling, mining and oil extraction activity on the Antarctic continent, which had escalated uncontrollably over the last decade. The human population on the continent now numbered almost five million people and their lives were all heavily dependent on fossil fuels. This further exasperated the continent’s already serious pollution problem, which was said to be contributing to the rapidly increasing fragmentation of ice shelves.

  This recommendation was strongly supported by other environmental organisation leaders who highlighted the dwindling whale, seal and penguin populations on the continent – all caused by habitat change and poaching for food, oil and skins. The Greenpeace organisation itself, had suffered the loss of seven protest ships over the last five years as whaling vessels were gradually being equipped with deadly anti-harassment weapons.

  The Chairman of the World Wide Fund then recommended that further funding be directed towards their ‘Mobile Water Desalinisation Plant’ Initiative. Due to the extensive damage that coastal desalinisation plants were having on coral reefs and shallow-marine life, the WWF had taken it upon their organisation to convert three Panamax bulk carrier ships into ocean-going desalinisation plants. These desalinised water in deep ocean far away from sensitive coastal areas. The initiative had been extremely successful, especially in providing water to drought stricken areas like Western Australia and California that were heavily dependent on their respective fleet of coastal desalination plants. But further funding was required to expand the initiative.

  One dignitary head of state raised a pertinent point regarding the complication of politics. She suggested that in her country a more lenient political party, not willing to implement the Ultimatum conditions, could easily win the next general election. This was a valid concern, but the Brazilian President responded by saying that the Ultimatum should apply irrespective of which party was in power. It should be regarded as a non-negotiable point of contention between competing political parties … easy to say, but a minefield to implement.

  The only Ultimatum condition that no-one had dared mention during the session, was population management. Its lack of attention had been anticipated by the Principals and as such President Carrera eventually invited President Zhuge to take the stage.

  The Chinese President looked up at the audience and spoke, “There is no doubt in any of our minds that the most controversial section of this Ultimatum is the one dealing with population management. The undeniable fact is, that we have allowed the human population to proliferate far beyond an environmentally sustainable level and we cannot allow the situation to get any worse. It is now up to us to deal with this problem.

  “When the Supreme Beings were asked how humankind should deal with overpopulation, they responded by saying that China’s current ‘one-child population management policy’ offers the most suitable solution. They went on to recommend that other countries should adopt it into their own constitutions.”

  The dignitaries scoffed at the idea that the globally reviled Chinese population management policy could have received any form of endorsement whatsoever. It was widely considered to be nothing short of an evil, oppressive policy that existed only because China was not yet a truly democratic nation. The Chinese President battled to regain control of the audience, some of whom had resorted to shouting obscenities out loud at him.

  The 12 Principals all stood in unison to threaten their intention of leaving the auditorium. The dignitaries took note of the impending action and the raucous behaviour subsided. President Jameson joined President Zhuge behind the lectern and he invited her to speak.

  She addressed the audience firmly, taking charge and calling the dignitaries to order. It had the desired affect and silence eventually returned.

  “Your reaction to President Zhuge’s statement, mirrored my own reaction when I was aboard the Galactic Federation’s spacecraft. But I stand before you now to concur that the Supreme Beings did indeed endorse and praise the existing Chinese population management policy. We should all be prepared to accept it as humanity’s most viable, best practice strategy if we are to have any chance of achieving the Ultimatum’s population management targets.”

  There was an outburst from a dignitary representing human rights who asked why the world should listen to these Supreme Beings if they supported a tyrannical population management policy like the one enforced in China.

  Jameson thundered in response, “Because we don’t have any other choice in this matter. If we don’t listen to these Supreme Beings, then the human population will face remedial threat removal … and if we have to choose between population management and threat removal, we should certainly choose the former.”

  There was further shouting and even some booing from the dignitaries.

  She called everyone to order for a second time and went on to describe how the Chinese population management policy had in fact saved the planet from earlier collapse. “We should all show our gratitude towards the Chinese nation and its people for the unilateral sacrifice they have made, which has actually benefited us all.”

  This caught the audience’s attention and she jumped on the opportunity to elaborate on the policy. “Subsequent to the encounter, I have taken considerable time to study China’s populat
ion management policy in detail. I can now see for myself that it is indeed a very well rounded solution for all nations across this world to embrace and adopt. It is an exemplary platform from which to derive nation-specific population management policies that would suit each nation’s particular set of circumstances.

  “I now urge you to listen to what President Zhuge has to say. His nation is in possession of what we should all consider to be the holy grail of population management philosophy. His nation has willingly offered this knowledge to every nation of the world at no cost. Just be aware that this policy has been in place for over half a century and has incorporated decades of lessons learned to streamline it into the refined, fair and humane system that it is today. Our nations will be the beneficiaries of a document that the Chinese people have experienced so much trial and tribulation in creating. We should all take time to consider President Zhuge’s generous offer, rather than immediately dismiss it.”

  The dignitaries had been beaten into another stunned silence by what the American President had just said. She had always been outspoken about her personal dislike of the Chinese population management policy, but she had done a complete about-turn in her opinion. She was held in high regard by most world leaders and thus her comment was duly respected.

  11:00 a.m. Earth: Summit – Day 3 (Implementation Recommendations)

  The Chinese President thanked President Jameson for her interjection and resumed his place behind the lectern as she took her seat.

  He spoke, “Please don’t take my offer to provide our population management policy as a condescending gesture, because that is not my intention. I genuinely believe that your nations can benefit from our long history of experience. There is no doubt that China’s environment and the global environment, are incomparably better off as a result of us having had this policy in place for the last 55 years …”