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    Beyond the Strandline
    Beyond the Strandline
    Beyond the Strandline
    Ebook73 pages1 hour

    Beyond the Strandline

    By Toby Clark

    ()

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    About this ebook

    This novel is an accompaniment to my ebook 'Tipping Point' which charts our current situation and the impending peril of climate change. It is intended to put a human face on the potentially cataclysmic events which are already starting to unfold before us that we might understand what the future holds for us all as members of the human race. Since beginning to write it, at least one of its more dire predictions has become apparent - the rate of rise of CO2 in the atmosphere is itself increasing.
    Part 1 brings us into the near future. Part 2 is not yet written but its title is 'Meltdown.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherToby Clark
    Release dateAug 31, 2015
    ISBN9781311793966
    Beyond the Strandline
    Author

    Toby Clark

    email tobyclark1@hotmail.com.

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      Book preview

      Beyond the Strandline - Toby Clark

      Beyond the Strandline

      A novel by Toby Clark BSc CFIOSH AIEMA

      This novel was inspired by Neville Shute’s 1950s book ‘On the Beach’, however the world has moved on to an extent and in directions which Shute could never have anticipated. The likelihood of a full nuclear exchange and concomitant Armageddon on which he predicated his book is relatively low if only because we are now much more inter-connected in the post-cold-war world of the internet and the audio-visual revolution.

      Alas, however, impending catastrophe is nonetheless staring us in the face and our all too human response is that of denial.

      We are sleepwalking into Armageddon.

      As this is written, the world population is 7.3 billion human beings and increasing at more than one new individual every second (estimated to be 2.5!). Already we are consuming 1.5 times the available planetary resources. Global climate change and global warming are inexorably increasing and planetary temperature rise will soon exceed two degrees Celsius above 1990 levels adding to the population pressure and increasingly resource-hungry demands of an ever more sophisticated and energy-hungry ‘Western’ lifestyle. At the same time, environmental degradation resulting from these pressures is limiting our ability to feed and support even the present population numbers.

      On current trends there are predicted to be two billion motor vehicles by the year 2020 and a population approaching eleven billion by 2050.

      As Paul Gilding says in his 2011 book ‘The Great Disruption’ –It isn’t going to happen. We cannot even support the existing population. He observes with ominous clarity that ‘Several billions of us will not be going on the journey’.

      How mankind responds will determine the future, however troubled it will prove to be. At one end of the spectrum we may follow Gilding’s optimistic path, girding up our loins and proceeding on to a war footing as the Allies did in World War Two, united by common purpose and individual self-denial and self-sacrifice to achieve a victorious outcome. The outcome anticipated here is that we will cease to exploit fossil fuel reserves and change our mindset to one which embraces sustainability. It necessarily means the end of economic growth and therefore also the end of the free-market capitalist model on which the world substantially operates as of now.

      Or we will descend into chaos, there is no median path.

      Beyond the Strandline

      God created the Heavens and The Earth. He kept Heaven for Himself but he gave The Earth to Mankind in the sad and certain knowledge that Mankind would, sooner or later ruin it.

      Part 1 The End of the Beginning.

      May 21 2015: The £ was trading at 1.40 euro making the euro worth £0.71 on speculation of Greece’s withdrawal from the Eurozone.

      After a jittery, uncertain day’s trading the footsie 100 suddenly closed down by 423 points just before Friday’s Close to finish the week at 6402.

      Financial Times Someday soon.

      Chapter one

      The storm clouds are gathering

      OMG! Morrison’s is empty. Closed. Trying for Asda.

      Chris.

      Sent from my Iphone."

      Annete re-read Christobel’s text but without really taking in what it meant.

      It was starting to rain outside, splattering against the café window and she had forgotten to bring her PakamaK™ so she would have to make a wet dash for the car park but then she could see that there was already a queue backing up from the exit.

      So there wasn’t any point.

      The few other people around were all busily using their mobiles. Seemingly frantic, making jerky key-presses, squeezing them against their ears, apparently desperate to connect with somebody, somewhere. Except for the pallid and rather spotty, long-haired youth who had earpieces in and was staring with round-eyed vacancy as he listened in to perhaps the utterances of some DJ or maybe the news. She couldn’t tell which and was anyway distracted by the discordant stridency of a police car as its driver struggled ineffectively to bypass the increasingly impatient traffic jam that was growing outside.

      The youth had a can of Fanta, evidently now empty but which he kept raising to his lips to get out the last drops of aspartame induced pleasure. Annette noticed almost absently that he was unattractively obese.

      As she sat looking on, the others were beginning to leave, getting up and collecting their bits together at the same time as mostly continuing their conversations. An older man dropped his phone, unable to manage the crooked-into-the-shoulder pose which seemed to be de-rigeur these days, going on to hands and knees after it as it skittered across the tiled floor and under a table and contriving to drop his laptop bag at the same time causing it to disgorge a couple of marker pens, wallet and his car keys.

      Annette felt a moment of faint amusement at his microcrisis as he manifestly failed to cope in his momentary extremis, then caught a small plastic pill bottle which had rolled against her foot. She glanced at the label, wondering if it was Viagra but disappointingly reading ‘Atorvastatin 20mg’ before handing it back to him. He gave her a weak, agitated smile, recovering his other clutter and muttering his thanks.

      What’s happening?

      He shook his head. "I don’t really know. There’s panic buying. My wife said to get food, any food. Only it’s too late.

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