by dissimulo » Tue 09 Aug 2005, 06:23:00
2050 was the year the power came back on. Even though things were getting bad back in '20, people still didn't really take the problem seriously. Ten years of bad recession had crippled the economy and more people were homeless and hungry than the heights of the Great Depression. But, somehow, the people were still waiting for something to happen. Everyone assumed that things would get better. Science always brings a better tomorrow.
Well, science didn't come through this time. By '25 personal motor transportation was ended for all but the very rich. The government nationalized all power production, rail, and air transportation. The marginal suburban middle class dropped in with the rest of us lower class folks overnight. This was the first year of the "in n' outs" - busses came to the suburbs loaded with food for distribution and left to take the workers into the city.
In '29, the dispute in central Asia overheated and the nukes got dropped. Everybody called it a "small exchange", except all those farmers in California that had to decontaminate every crop before it went to market. The radiation wasn't too bad, but the jet stream just kept bringing it in.
In most ways it was a good thing though. After getting their dusting and the plaugue of '30, China settled down. In fact, it sobered up most of the world and nations spent more time looking inward, trying to solve their own problems.
By '30, things were bad in the States. Enthusiasm for funding nuke plants fell quite a bit when people started to realize that prices on electric cars would never be affordable again and, of course, after the little mishap in Las Vegas. Coal plants were faster to build and they didn't poison folks quite as fast as a nuke plant gone bad.
But, they had their costs. Because of the costs to build plants at a distance and maintain the extra infrastructure, they just kept building them closer to the cities. That black coal smog in New York, Chicago, and DC made the old LA smog look like paradise.
I remember, as a young man, working in India for several months and contending with the daily power outages. I felt a certain sense of shame in the '30s when the daytime power allowance was reduced to four hours. That was when things really started to get ugly in the cities. With so many folks out of work, and the power (and entertainment) taken away, crime went off the scale.
I remember hearing on the news how great Europe was doing with all their nuclear power and public transportation. There was a lot of information to the contrary on the internet, talking about hot summers, cold winters, droughts, crop failures, and terrorism. I was never sure which picture to believe and I still don't know.
Those were bad years, but the '40s were the worst of all. Drought set in hard all around the country and crops failed. The worsening state of the roads and the lack of rail-to-market transport infrastructure made it difficult to get the crops that did come in where they needed to go. For the first time, food wasn't always available to the employed.
The '40s also were the exodus from the desert. People had been leaving the southwest for years, but when the water transport systems started to break down, it was the end. So many folks headed for Oregon and Washington that those states limited immigration. The federal government overruled them, but they just ignored the feds. Rumors were rampant that California, Oregon, and Washington were going to seceed from the US and form their own country.
In '44 the US population was 312 million and unemployment was 31% (marginal employment was another 17%). In '45 we had the famine and the Brazilian Flu. One of the saddest parts of being poor and weak is that things tend to only get worse. By '47, unemployment was down to 19%, but the US population was down to 262 million.
'47 was the year the power went out. Lots of folks went to work trying to put the pieces back together. Building infrastructure is not easy when the raw materials are scarce, the factories are few, the pieces have to be transported long distances, and there is no money to be made. Nonetheless, Americans proved they'll work for no more than a meal and, very slowly, some of the critical pieces were repaired and the slow process of building more nuclear plants has started again.
So, 2050. This year the power came back - for a few hours a day at least. Most folks got on fine without it. Turns out that the need for power is generated by how much you have. As we lost it a bit at a time, it turned out we needed less and less. But, having a light to read by and a little TV is nice.
Don't get me wrong - I'd go back to the wonderous days of 2005 in an instant. We still don't know what the future holds. Life is hard and lean and there is still no miracle science that is going to keep us in energy forever. I'm an old man now and I don't know if I'll be able to work the garden next year. Medicine is not what it used to be and I pray every day that I don't become a burden to my family.
I remember thinking one day I'd hear of men leaving to colonize distant stars.