Tag: water shortages

Changing Times

Everything is changing. I’m not stupid. I know that it’s not unusual for things to change. Weather changes, clothes, all that. I’m not stupid.

This is different, you know? This is real change.

I was born in 2032. May, a taurus. I can’t remember much of my early life. I guess it was okay. Then the crumble began. You know, bridges collapsing, blackouts, gas and electricity shortages, water shortages.

I remember that from when I was around ten and our school was shut down. Dad said that taxes had been cut, so you know, the government didn’t have the money for schools, and we couldn’t afford a pay school. Dad was working a full-time job and two part-time jobs. Mom was working three part-time gigs. Working their asses off, both of them. My auntie, who was disabled from diabetes, schooled me and my sisters and cousins in our family room. That’s where she lived.

I did what I could myself. Made some change from helping with cleanups. People would abandon their cars and places, and I’d pirate things and sell them door to door. Tapes and books, old computers, that kind of thing.

We were always hungry, picking berries, apples, plums, whatever we could find. Best time was when I was a teen. Used to be able to pay two dollars to bus tables for fifteen minutes in a restaurant. They let me eat anything that was left. I’d try to stuff things in my pockets for my family, if I could, but I was so damn hungry all the time.

That lasted ‘bout five years. Now I’m 31, and it’s all gone. I’m trying to find a new gig but all I got is my ‘lectric bike and clothes. Most days, it’s too hot to be outside, you know? Gets over 110 by noon, and then climbs twenty degrees more.

Like Mom used to say all the time, the times, they are a-changin’.

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Work-around

So many times, people, companies, and nations develop a work-around, and then accept it as a final solution. Perhaps you know of people who took a temporary position and was still in that position twenty years later. That’s often the classic.

I’m thinking about it today because many work-arounds we’ve developed have been accepted as permanent solutions, but now the problems are being revealed. Fossil fuel is one, water use is a second, and recycling is another. In our town, we’ll start paying more money per month for our recycling. They’re calling the two to three dollars a month extra a surcharge. I rarely notice surcharges going away, myself, but maybe I’m myopic or cynical about it. Whenever I think of surcharges, I think of the airline fuels surcharge.

We’re paying more for recycling here because the Chinese are rejecting our output. It’s too dirty for our standards. Recycling companies are claiming they’re already losing money because supply and demand, and the cost of cleaning the recycling – which uses water.

No, I don’t have the answers. Each individual product and service needs to be addressed. Some are gaining the focus that they need, but, hey, time and money, right?

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Not His Problem

Icebergs breaking off and rising sea levels…they weren’t his problem. Seas rise. That was their problem. Their own fault, for buying land on the coast and building a house there. Their own fault, the fools.

Like building a place where you know there’s an earthquake, or volcano. Only a fool does that.

No, his problem was the dust. It was going to be another hot, dry, and dusty year with not enough water to bring grow the crops. The water levels were down everywhere.

That was his problem.

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