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The Minister talked on how he had worked hard to bring about government implemented clear regulations on geothermal energy and set up research grants that helped form into the fourth year option at Albert’s university. He waved Albert’s way when he mentioned that engineering program. Minister Teslo had been to the Paris +5 and Paris +8 conferences to keep well informed Albert knew. He and his friends felt a little excited about those updates on Paris. But scared too.
Other new training programs had come out. Duke would be challenging his third class steam ticket that fall. A practical field engineer—the brothers joked neither would be driving a train. Duke told Albert of guys who worked in the coal burning plant getting touch up training tickets as coal plants modified to geothermal. A lot of the same equipment had been upgraded but those guys knew the valves and gauges. Hank had been the First Class steam engineer who helped Minister Teslo’s office talk to the plant employees about their new source of steam. The Minister waved over towards Hank. Minister Teslo had other programs for the coal miners. The initial feasibility study Albert knew showed conversion from coal to geothermal as a cost savings. That was a bonus! When you wanted people to act, money talked loud. The concept plan before had sifted through existing well logs around the coal plants searching for the optimal geothermal reservoir. Geothermal was so cheap when holes already drilled were reclassified as dual purpose exploration wells with a heat play as the target.
Resistance always arose to any change Dad would say. The Ministers said about the same but in different words. Albert’s one friend had a great grandfather who homesteaded close to the coal excavations. His uncle kept the farm for years, always talking how the surface coal mining operation would expand and he’d be moving to Florida. That uncle would never be seen standing under any Energy of Tomorrow banner. He still had his case going in court over appraised land values. Traditional outlooks were one of the reasons people change slowly according to Dad. And politics move in slow unfair jolts. The renewable energy targets had come two Ministers ago, Albert knew and now Minister Teslo was celebrating the credit. He was honorably cool enough to mention that though. Albert had a Prof from Iceland who knew geothermal inside out. Yet he lectured on people and how the laws of physics didn’t care much about people’s diddling around or their reasons for doing anything or not. Albert told Minister Teslo about that law but the Minister’s smile looked kinda vague. Politicians need good advisors. Natural laws don’t negotiate, plain and simple. The Minister did mention that his energy experts projected continuing expansion of geothermal. If politicians listened to their scientists, good enough.
Albert felt the warm breeze on his face. The Minister was lucky on the weather for this podium speech. Dad said they strategically scheduled this ceremony for the calmer fall weather. That early snow dump last year again broke still green tree branches all over town. Albert and his classmates connected that one to the planet’s weakened polar vortex and how that kind of weather was now kinda typical. The new normal was their normal. The Minister’s office might have run numbers on the probability of a baseball hail storm in the summer and the unpredictable floods in the spring. Local extreme weather events here, Albert knew from Rawiri and Kali his social media friends, were happening globally.
Minister Teslo finished his speech and descended beaming at the media people ready to field questions. He kept that power plant in the camera background and Albert glanced back at the plant one more time. He read the sign—this last plant designed around coal had opened four years before his hospital trip. Yeah, he sighed. His life changed then, totally. He was glad to no longer be a boy withdrawn into reading books. He felt like he had grown up and he sometimes wondered about that in some adults. He checked his jPad as he shuffled down the steps towards his bike.
Kicking his way through the leaves Albert thought of the international school children networking that came out of the Paris talks. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in their fifth Assessment Report—their IPCC AR5 conclusion that global cooperation would be absolutely necessary had been reconfirmed at each Paris+. That was true no matter what older generations wanted, believed or remembered. Even back in junior high teachers started that connection with a web of global schools. Albert had researched the basics of the greenhouse gas effect of dirty coal in high school online with his friend in Warsaw. He aced that class. He made good friends with Rawiri in the South Pacific island country of Tonga. The guy had courageous Polynesian ancestors but he worried about rising sea levels. He had met a girl really good at high school math, Kalila who lived in the city of Chittagong in Bangladesh. She tweeted endlessly on their freaky situation. They all agreed true courage meant standing up to old beliefs. Fearlessness became tantamount to finding a global cooperative way forward. That came straight from Paris reminding Albert the Prof just might throw in a paragraph question like that on the midterm. He followed the canary hashtag in Chittagong and he talked face to face with Kali on 4D, what used to be Skype. He told her of their downpours and river floods, but knew they never matched her rising sea level threat. Rawiri lived a little higher above sea level but not much. Kali’s river delta country for sure held the questionably desirable status of the climate change canary. Her tweet bursts to #Canary had helped Albert understand that bird from the archaic days of underground coal mines. A warning signal of bad air, something he certainly needed. They all did actually.
As young adults Albert and all his friends talked at length about the slow human response to climate action. They had all heard his hockey game nearly killed by coal story. Albert was glad his Dad had such a progressive outlook. His engineering student friends knew the risks of technology like carbon capture and storage, how that only kept coal or oil use going. Why not think out of the box? Like geothermal! Dad talked about that long ago politician who called some project back then a no brainer. The geothermal shift fit that easily. No matter what anyone thought, he and his friends knew they would be living through all the scary times of a late start energy transition.
He popped his carrier to retrieve his riding jacket. At the hospital he never had seen his body from above, or flown supersonic down any tunnel to meet an angel or the light. He had come so close to a permanent stay on the blissful side with a silent chest. He found that out when he was more grown. He only recalls coming to looking up at his mom’s tear stained face. Life was a real gift she kept saying then. All life he thought and their planetary life support system.
He swung his leg over this e-bike seat and sat strapping his helmet under his chin.
Albert’s engineering classmates and global social media friends were fully aware of climate change efforts people had yet to make happen. He had learned a lot about the pollution that had exacerbated his asthma attacks and came so close to knocking him off that street hockey day. The farmer kids back in school said their parents talked about the longer growing seasons and bumper crops. Drought hit too or they were hailed out other years. Two kids from that little neighbouring town were canoeing around their house last year of high school—they could almost paddle in the front door that spring. The big house people living on the golf course were totally swamped by that river flood. Others east of town watched from their hallway hideout as huge hail stones smashed through their front windows.
As he pulled out to head back to the city, he felt his highway bike ride elation coming on. People were finally talking openly about climate change...just kind of late. Maybe getting a chance to slowly repair the planet was Albert’s best gift. He was excited about it...and scared. Making friends all over the world was so cool but they were scared too. They should be. That Polynesian boy maybe killed a shark, but Albert had other issues to challenge. It took real courage to speak out. The politicians needed to hear loud voices. And lots of voices. Doing something was better than doing nothing. The new transitional outlook towards clean energy sources would allow clean air and water for his future. A cooperating planet would give people young and old
a happier healthier place to live. Yet still, there was so much more to do.
End
Discover other Writings by Les W Kuzyk
If you like AlberTa’s Gift have a look at my short fiction, A Future History of the Environment that speaks to a global scenario of near future climate change as a young adult looks back on our next few decades and writes her university history exam in the year 2052.
Consider reading Green Sahara and my novel Pinatubo II following oil field engineer Vince when he meets that other engineer Brad in Niger, Africa. There they design geoengineering for the HICCC and seek out a political climate change solution. Or have a look at Next Door Data for another climate change political story.
My soon to be published novel The Shela Directive follows youth in a speculative science fiction novel. The new adult characters in 2029 struggle with the social justice issue of the wealthy, of who owns the wealth and what wealth should really be used for. They had their needs met by the first woman president, but with her assassination each had their social world degraded in this near future urban setting.
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Thanks!
Les W Kuzyk
About Les W Kuzyk
Testing the waters of writing through a graduate university Anthropology and Religious Studies study, Les composed a thesis themed on a morals-based world order. Having thus learned of his passion for words and after publishing several non-fiction writings, he now focuses his writing voice on fiction. He has life experience with various cultures including the pura vida lifestyle of Costa Rica and the Polynesian culture of the South Pacific island nations. He lives with his Eastern European wife and daughter in Calgary.
Connect with Les W Kuzyk
Our Near Future site
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