Yet Another Final Warning
In March 2023, the IPCC issued a terrifying statement (as is so often the case with environmental news of late). This is our ‘FINAL WARNING’. Again. Irreparable ecological damage to our home is guaranteed if we don’t react NOW.
It’s March 2037. The IPCC issue a terrifying statement. It’s the ‘FINAL WARNING’. We stare unblinking from the yawning maw of the climate apocalypse.
Though the metropolitan cities of Europe and North America avoid, at first at least, the worst of the apocalypse, our daily lives are a little different. And a little the same.
With the floods of 2030 now a distant memory, commuters have become used to journeying to the centre of Zone 1, which has retained its historical status as centre of society (although these days it takes shape as a vital flood plain for a swelling Thames rather than as a hub of Soho sex shops or Marylebone heiresses). Whilst many of the more squeamish (and often richer) residents of the city have long left for the high and dry refuge of the Surrey Hills, you, a self-respecting and stubborn Londoner, muster the strength to brave the murky grey-brown waters of your commute. For the most part, your journey will consist of wading through this water, waist-deep, flecked with human excrement, cigarette butts, and crumpled cans of Red Stripe.
Desperately clinging to the cultural significance of the Tube, you’ll leave the house with the essential items: your Oyster card, reading material for the journey, and, of course, scuba gear.
Desperately clinging to the cultural significance of the Tube, you’ll leave the house with the essential items: your Oyster card, reading material for the journey, and, of course, scuba gear. With most of the Tube lines now occupied by sharks who’ve escaped the tanks at SEA LIFE, the trusty Victoria Line is still running through deep flood water and therefore, the diving equipment has become necessary.
Boarding at Vauxhall, you sit and contemplate your day ahead. Though the incessant hiss of your breathing apparatus makes reading a little tricky, you concentrate hard to read a new article; ‘The Twelve Best Floating Eateries in Soho’. A floating Belgian Mussels and Beer Bar catches your eye, serving crustaceans right from the water your toes are dangling into. You make a mental note to tell your surviving friends.
The tube parts the waters at Euston, your stop. Breast-stroking above the long dormant escalators, you realise you’re late. Emerging from the station, removing the scuba gear and wringing the cold water from your luxurious (read: indestructible polyester) suit, you do your best to run/wade through water. All the while, you must avoid the local semi-aquatic drunks, gracefully gliding around the courtyards doing a one-armed backstroke and chugging the last of their Crumpton Oaks.
Upon reaching the bus station, the 73 hums in the water. The tapping sound of travelcards and unrhythmic beeps fill the lower deck. One must be quick to reach the sought-after second deck; as those left below are subject to the tidal slosh of the water trapped inside the bus as it swings round the tight corners of the city. As the driver ploughs down the Euston Road, second deck passengers will get a glimpse of the various financiers and investment bankers making their way to the City of London atop re-purposed kayaks garnished with bonnet ornaments ripped from their long-flooded Bentleys. Much like Venice, though moderately more sinister, recently retired Uber drivers hired by the bankers full-time punt furiously as they sing reminiscent sallies of escorting bladdered revellers back home in their Priuses.
As you advance on your office near Angel, a red flare pierces the brow of the skyline signalling that the IPCC has declared their weekly FINAL WARNING. You’re pretty sure that they’re going to move to daily warnings soon.
It’s a report from a hobbled and greying Greta Thunberg…She declares that the Low Countries are completely submerged and refugees from Europe are heading to the safety of the Virunga Mountains in, of course, Rwanda.
Simultaneously, an alert buzzes on your phone. It’s a report from a hobbled and greying Greta Thunberg, her face shiny, red and blistered from a five-day Sweden-to-Holland kayak. She declares that the Low Countries are completely submerged and refugees from Europe are heading to the safety of the Virunga Mountains in, of course, Rwanda.
Now you must secure the all-important pre-work caffeinated beverage. It’s not coffee, as adverse weather conditions have rendered that brew extinct, but rather a novel substitute. London barista’s have learned to strain the caffeine from Red Bull through an old t-shirt, mix it with London’s excess water, (giving it that brown colour that those who remember coffee find comforting), and boil it. You sip, feeling the caffeine course through you. Just another commute in the big city.