I first read a book back in 1997 after I got out of high school called The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter, now I didn't think anything of it except for the fact that it dealt in time travel, and for me I happen to love time travel a lot. So I'm reading this book, and it not only takes the reader back to the future that we had all read about since it's supposed to be the stunning sequel to H.G. Wells immortal classic Time Machine, but at the same time it took us to a different level, and one that I had only just started hearing about with the show Sliders, namely that there are multiple different versions of the Earth out there. However unlike Sliders where they traveled between world on the current time, Time Ships traveled to different time lines through time travel. When I read that book, it took me on an adventure that I never knew would be so amazing, however little did I know that part of that book would eventually be coming to pass.
Now I know that you might be thinking that something that's written in a book can't exactly come true can it, well you'd be surprised at how close we've actually come to having a book come to pass when it comes to story right now. Take Orson Wells 1985, the year might've been wrong, but more than ever before Big Brother is watching over us, and I'm not talking about some CBS reality television show either, after all we have more cameras out there looking out over us than ever before and it doesn't look like it's going to be getting better but actually worse than ever before. After all I saw the bumper sticker above and it made a load of sense "One Nation under surveillance". I know that it's a constant fight right now just to make sure that we keep all of our rights and that's the one thing that they want to take away from us.
However there was one book that I was talking about before that told about a possible future that is coming to pass that I would rather not want to have come to pass in the least. The book was written up back in 1997 by Stephen Baxter, it's supposed to be the sequel to H.G. Wells Time Machine, only it goes on the possibility of multiple time lines and that instead of traveling back and forth on one line. However the one part in the book that I'm dealing with here is something that the Koch Bros. and their ilk are trying to do right now for the almighty dollar and they don't give one rats damn about what they have to do in order to be able to get it either. It's called White Earth, and it's where all of the Earth and its resources have been used up and there's nothing left, the planet is barren and destroyed.
Here's a couple of excerpts from the book that deal with what we're going through in real life, and mind you I'm trying not to take them out of context, but for those of you reading this that might be a bit harder than one thinks, but I'm going to give it my best.
"He told me that the atmosphere of the earth was a dynamic thing. The atmosphere had just two naturally stable states, Nebogipfel said, and neither of these could sustain life; and the air would fall into one of these states, away from the narrow band of conditions tolerable by life, if it were too far disturbed.
'But I don't understand. If the atmosphere is as unstable a mixture as you suggest, how is it that the air has managed to sustain us, as it has, for so many millions of years?'
He told me that the evolution of the atmosphere had been heavily modified by the action of life itself. 'There is a balance-of atmospheric gases, temperature and pressure-which is ideal for life. And so life works-in great, unconscious cycles, each involving billions of blindly toiling organisms-to maintain that balance.
'But this balance is inherently unstable. Do you see? It is like a pencil, balanced on its point: such a thing is ever likely to fall away, with the slightest disturbance.' He twisted his head. 'We learned that you meddle with the cycles of life at your peril, we Morlocks; we learned that if you choose to disrupt the various mechanisms by which atmospheric stability is maintained, then they must be repaired or replaced. What a pity it is,' he said, heavily, 'that these New Humans-these star faring heroes of yours-had not absorbed similar simple lessons!'
'Tell me about your two stabilities, Morlock; for it seems to me we are going to be visiting one or the other!'
In the first of the lethal stable states, Nebogipfel said, the surface of earth would burn up: the atmosphere could become as opaque as the clouds over Venus, and trap the heat of the sun. Such clouds, miles thick, would obstruct most of the sunlight, leaving only a dull, reddish glow; from the surface the sun could never be seen, nor the planets or stars. Lightening would flash continually in the murky atmosphere, and the ground would be red-hot: scorched bare of life.
'That's as may be,' I said trying to suppress my shivers, 'but compared to this damned cold, it sounds like a pleasant holiday resort...And the second of your stable states?'
"White Earth.'
He closed his eyes, and would speak to me no more."
Now considering that they in the book were seeing this in fast forward (since they were traveling through time), one might think that this happens so slowly that we don't need to worry about it and can just keep going, yeah..no..that's wrong we can't. You see we've already been screwing over our world for too long to count, and now while the world has adapted to us, the problem is, we're using up the resources like crazy, and we're not replenishing them at all, and that's where things are falling apart. Yes we've got the recycling programs and the lot that can help, but right now with the oil and coal industry having a full on field day, we're not going to be able to survive for long. Hell we're wiping out our own atmosphere, what allows this world to be the way it is, and keeps harmful sun and space radiation off this world.
Now I read yesterday (or it might've been either the day before or before that, I honestly forgot, sorry) that the coal industry is saying that the internet is using up a ton of power and energy and that we need the clean coal to keep it working. OK did I just read and write that right, clean coal, come the hell on here, since when it is clean. I mean sure when you wash it off yeah it's clean then, but still coal isn't clean, and we're strip mining our own planet to get this crap out of the Earth in the first place. This seriously has to be one of the worst things we could be doing to our planet right now. Yeah I know that if we shut down the mines that those that work there would be put out of a job, but I'm honestly sure that once the Republicans are kicked out, and the corporation lose their power, then the jobs will end up coming open, it's a long shot but still worth it.
Here's the hitch (yeah there's always one of those hanging around, you just have to wait for it), it's not just the coal industry or the oil industry, but about the majority of the industries that tend to strip the planet of it's natural resources and hardly ever give anything back. Plus considering that we don't happen to happen to have the space travel yet in order to go find another planet (and this is yet another reason why we need to fully start up the space program again), we need to get to taking care of this planet again. Which means that those that not only don't care about this world but are willing to make a buck and don't care how they do it in the first place, they need to be shut down, or if not shut down, at least scaled down. After all for the longest time, it was the oil industry that fought against the all electric cars that we now have going all over the place. Which means that we know now after all this time that what was being said had been a lie to keep us in oil.
I know that I might be sounding like a tree hugger like I did in an earlier posting, but when you happen to have rain in the middle of summer, or at the start or summer, then you know that something is screwed up. Hell part of the time when I happen to see a bumper sticker that says stop global whining, I'm seriously half tempted on telling them to get their heads out of their asses and look around at the planet around them. I know that the oil and coal industries (among others) don't care not only one wit about us, nor about the planet that they're killing, but only about the amount of cash that they happen to be making in the first place.
With me being homeless, I always keep my eye not only on the weather channel at all times (I look at it every day after 4p pst because it gives me that night along with what the next day is going to be), but also on the sky. Now just this past weekend we had thunder and lightening storms here in the bay area with rain, now we're talking about rain in the middle of summer here, this seriously shouldn't be happening at all. I know that every morning except for a few times this summer, it's been cold and cloudy each morning that I happen to wake up. This seriously isn't normal in the least. Now I don't give one rats ass what the so called bloody experts are saying since they're getting paid off anyway, but yes I'd say that we're suffering through global warming here right now. Now I don't know if we're going to end up being like Water World, or that something else is going to happen to our world fast, but I do know that this crap that they're pulling right now has to stop, it's going to be the only way that we're even going to have a chance at all.
After all I know that eventually I'll get off the streets (and get my wife out of her mother's place), but in the mean time the one thing that we need to do is not only get people's heads out of their asses, but we need a MAJOR radical shift when it comes to our planet right now. Other wise everything that's been written by those that wrote science fiction about how our planet is doomed, well they're going to be coming true, and that's going to be the last things that we're going to be needing here at all. I mean I personally don't want to see our world go right into the crapper, but out of lack of choice the one thing that I do know is that the Republicans and those that want the money don't give a damned about our world, and from a comic book stand point, they're not only the bad guys, they're the ones that have been able to convince the rest of the people of this country and the planet that what they're doing is best for the whole world when in fact it's actually not.
Look to be totally honest here I'm just a guy with dreams that has a hard time writing a book because 1)I have no one encouraging me to actually get it done (and right now I'm on 6 or 7 of 28 chapters), and 2)it's because of that lack of enthusiasm that won't let me actually write the book (or my fictional blogs) at all, and it's starting to get irritating. I write these blog entries for everyone, and yet except for the two that admin the page with me, I don't hear back from anyone else at all. I get maybe a like or two where I might end up posting it, but beyond that, there's nothing. So please let me know what you all happen to think of all of this, and maybe encourage me to keep working on the book that I'm writing, yes it's science fiction, but unlike what I had been talking about above this here, is a more positive spin on time, considering that I had first written it back in high school but couldn't get it published, so now I'm writing it for ebook publication, and hoping that you'll all love it when it does come out.
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Felix Sanchez
Carrier for Martinez News-Gazette, Martinez, CA
Alhambra High School
Class of '97
Twitter: @thecat2643
Skype: timetracker2643
