Friendly Support

TIME TO STRATEGY EXECUTION: 116 DAYS

I received a visit today from an old friend, who so far has been the only person willing to talk to me about what happened yesterday. Alan “Al” Menzies was a teenager on the first Blue Planet Day fifty years ago, and spent much of his adult life doing original environmental research along with working to build support for the kind of strategy that WICO outlined in its Global Emergency declaration. I credit Al with helping me get up to speed on all the issues and providing direct access to the Strategy Integration group, which now appears to be cut off.

“It’s need-to-know time, pal,” he said when I asked his opinion about what was really going on. “The less you know, the less you’ll get hurt when the fit hits the shan.”

“Someone’s protecting me? From what?” I could guess, but it would sound like a conspiracy theory coming from me.

He smiled knowingly and decided to play along. “The perps are still out there, and your buddies at WICO are gettin’ ready to bring the hammer down on them. You gave the friggin’ world cops the evidence to make it stick. The only reason you’re not rotting in a deep hole getting’ your finger nails yanked is that you don’t know any more than everyone knows, so for now you’re useless to the guys who’re getting’ ready to run or fight.”

“Thanks,” I said, choosing to take him literally.

“You made some friends in London. Believe me, I can read the tea leaves.” He slammed his fist on the couch. “What really pulls my pin is the time wasted dealin’ with ‘em. We’re in a CRISIS for sheep sake! Everyone needs to be in marathon mode, figgerin’ out how to take out and tear apart the decades of crud we’ve dumped on the innocents as well as ourselves.” His face flushed with anger. “Now these mofos are tryin’ to run out the clock, and we got another reality show to watch on our poisonous screens while tryin’ to decompress from workin’ overtime for the privilege.”

We sat for a minute while he cooled off, and I got an idea. “Why wait?”

“Unfortunately, it takes coordination,” he said calmly. “We’re part of a system, with cause-and-effect all over the globe. People doin’ their own thing is what made this mess.”

“Something Sally told me might be helpful,” I said, comfortable with referring to Sanda’s alter-ego around Al. I found a reference to it in my blog post on January 28. “We were talking about how the strategy might work in real-life, and she mentioned communication among groups of hunter-gatherers with common skills and knowledge, focused on a common set of activities that should include doing what you’ve always said we should do: making our artifacts and pollution safe and consumable like food in the wild.”

“I remember readin’ that. It was a little too simplistic for my taste. Reminded me of navigatin’ by memory and spoken stories, versus usin’ maps and compasses and such. It’ll do in a pinch, but we got a whole planet to fix and not much time to do it.”

“She was serious.” I was sure, even considering the impact of her/its default speaking style, which was early in the process of becoming close to my own. “I had the impression that it was at least what the end of the process would look like.”

Al looked at me skeptically. “Maybe, but there’s a lot of heavy lifting up front. Like breakin’ down materials and pollutants in a coupla decades that only tech can do, tech that needs complex control to keep from makin’ things a whole lot worse.”

“I don’t recall her ruling out technology, though she did make a strong case for using the Precautionary Principle when using it.”

“That’s a given across the board, from the cradle to the grave,” Al said.

“See? You’ve got it all figured out,” I said.

“Again, not something people don’t already know; and, again, we still need the coordination piece, assuming enough folks can stay motivated.”

“And we need to stop people from sabotaging both,” I added.

Reality Check

This is a purely fictional continuation of the story, though “Al” did provide a means to vent about my own irritations and concerns.