Pastwatch- The Redemption Of Christopher Columbus - By Orson Scott Card Page 0,96

safety, we can reduce the greenhouse effect significantly within perhaps thirty years. But by then, you see, we won't want to reduce it."

"Why not?" asked Diko. "The oceans are rising as the ice cap melts. We have to stop global warming."

"Our climate studies show that this is a self-correcting problem. The greater heat and the increased surface area of the ocean lead to significantly greater evaporation and temperature differentials worldwide. The cloud cover is increasing, which raises the Earth's albedo. We will soon be reflecting more sunlight than ever before since the last ice age."

"But the weather satellites," said Kemal.

"They keep the extremes from getting unbearable in any one location. How long do you think those satellites can last?"

"They can be replaced when they wear out," said Kemal.

"Can they?" asked Manjam. "Already we're taking people out of the factories and putting them into the fields. But this won't really help, because we're already farming very close to one hundred percent of the land where there's any topsoil left at all. And since we've been farming at maximum yields for some time, we're already noticing the effects of the increasing cloud cover -- fewer crops per hectare."

"What are you saying?" said Diko. "That we're already too late to restore the Earth?"

Manjam didn't answer. Instead, he brought onto the display a large region filled with grain silos. He zoomed in and they viewed the inside of silo after silo.

"Empty," murmured Tagiri

"We're eating up our reserves," said Manjam.

"But why aren't we rationing?"

"Because politicians can't do that until the people as a whole see that there's an emergency. Right now they don't see it."

"Then warn them!" said Hunahpu.

"Oh, the warnings are there. And in a while people will start talking about it. But they'll do nothing, for the simple reason that there's nothing to be done. Crop yields will continue to go down."

"What about the ocean?" asked Hassan.

"The ocean has its own problems. What do you want us to do, scrape away all the plankton so that the ocean dies, too? We harvest as much fish as we dare. We are at maximum right now. Any more, and in ten years our yields will be a tiny fraction of what they are now. Don't you see? The damage our ancestors did was too great. It is not within our power to stop the forces that have already been in motion for centuries. If we started rationing right now, it would mean that the devastating famines would begin in twenty years instead of six. But of course we won't start rationing until the first famine. And even then, the areas that are producing enough food will become quite surly about having to go hungry in order to feed people in faraway lands. Right now we feel that all human beings are one tribe, so that no one anywhere is hungry. But how long do you think that will last, when the food-producing people hear their children pleading for bread and the ships are carrying so much grain away to other lands? How well do you think the politicians will do at containing the forces that will move through the world then?"

"So what is your little non-cabal doing about it?" asked Hassan.

"Nothing," said Manjam. "As I said, the processes have gone too far. Our most favorable projections show collapse of the present system within thirty years. That's if there are no wars. There simply won't be food enough to maintain the present population or even a major fraction of it. You can't keep up the industrial economy without an agricultural base that produces far more food than is needed just to sustain the food producers. So industry starts collapsing. Now there are fewer tractors. Now the fertilizer factories produce less, and less of what they do produce can get distributed because transportation can't be maintained. Food production falls even further. Weather satellites wear out and can't be replaced. Drought. Flood. Less land in production. More deaths. Therefore less industry. Therefore lower food production. We have run a million different scenarios and there's not one of them that doesn't lead us to the same place. A worldwide population of about five million before we stabilize. Just in time for the ice age to begin in earnest. At that point the population could start a slower decline until it's down to about two million. That's if there's no warfare, of course. All these projections are based on an assumption of a completely docile response. We all know how