Welcome to The Spot Writers. This month’s prompt is
to find 5 words in a news article that jump out at
you. Write a story using those words.
I picked these words, climate change, CO2
emissions, coronavirus, pandemic, and isolation from a news report commenting
on the impact of the current pandemic on carbon emissions. I imagined a
conversation between several of the graduate students in the climate change
novel I’m working on when they were in high school. My novel begins in 2027, and
this story takes place in the spring of 2020 at the height of the coronavirus
lockdown.
For information on The Road to
Environmental Armageddon, my climate change novel in the making for
many years, visit my website (https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com) and read the posts in the Road to Environmental
Armageddon category.
Can
COVID-19 solve the climate crisis?
by Phil
Yeats
The conversation happened via
email chat. It was more like an argument than a normal discussion, but this
wasn’t a normal time, and we weren’t normal teenagers. We were the four most
dedicated members of our school’s environment club and trying to keep things
going by meeting online. School was closed and the coronavirus pandemic had
everyone in forced isolation.
A
newspaper article about decreases in greenhouse gas emissions resulting from
the pandemic-generating a slowdown in the global economy triggered the
discussion.
“That
proves the climate change crisis is false, perpetuated by guilt-ridden liberals
looking for reasons for self-flagellation and pleasure denial,” John wrote.
I
stared at my computer screen, and I’m sure, the others did too. John’s big
words and bizarre right-wing intellectual concepts came from reading
conservative blogs. Not sites catering to yahoos, but ones favoured by climate
change deniers who wanted to give the impression they thought about the
problem.
“What’s
that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“That
Draconian solutions aren’t necessary,” John responded. I imagined him assuming
one of the threatening poses he often used to reinforce his arguments. “If a
natural event like the coronavirus outbreak lowers CO2 emissions by
twenty percent and generates pledges for a low carbon path to recovery, it’s
not an insurmountable problem.”
“GARBAGE,”
I typed. “You suggesting worldwide responses haven’t been Draconian, and
anyway, twenty percent is a number some extremist pulled out of the air. It
will be like the economic downturn in 2008—emissions will decrease for a few
months and bounce up bigger than ever in the next year.”
“Come
on Dan, these chats are no fun if you two get into arguments,” Madison said.
She was as passionate about the environment as anyone, but hated
confrontations. She spent more time defusing arguments, usually ones between
John and me, than expressing her ideas. Those attempts at peacemaking often involved
touchy-feely stuff to calm John down, but that couldn’t happen when we were
stuck in our various houses staring at our computer screens.
Emily,
as usual, had the last word. She was our most cerebral member, fascinated by
mathematics, and destined to attend some prestigious university on a monster
scholarship. “Scientists and engineers have known how to curb carbon dioxide
increases for years. It’s not the ability to act, it’s the will. Individuals
and their governments, lack the will to act.”
The Spot Writers—Our Members:
Val
Muller: http://www.valmuller.com/blog/
Catherine
A. MacKenzie: https://writingwicket.wordpress.com/wicker-chitter/
Phil
Yeats: https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com
Chiara
De Giorgi: https://chiaradegiorgi.blogspot.com/
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