The weather was warmer than usual, and though the CEO's and their reporters were touting how this was a good thing, and that a warmer, wetter, world was good for the people, others were taking notice. While the CEO's, subtly, not so subtly, began building sea-walls to protect their mansions, the rest of the populace of the world began to defy their masters, and work on ways to curbing emissions. Those CEO's that tried to stop them... got a sharp reminder that the population don't like to choked out and overheated. -- Anon Guest
Time conceals patterns. Those who refuse to learn the lessons of history fail to see the warning signs, and become potential lessons for those who follow them in the stream of time.
Case in point: The Terran colony, New Freedom.
Like thousands of others before it, the colonists went with the intention to exploit as much as they liked and to ignore the consequences as much as possible. Consequences that hit well before the colony reunited with the Alliance.
Consequences that included the very thing they set out to deny - anthropogenic climate change.
Those with the money had mountainside retreats with more than the normal style of fortifications. They also had 'apocalypse proof' mega-yachts that were essentially floating mansions. All whilst selling shorefront property to the plebes at bargain rates.
They also developed all the lowlands to be housing complexes for those of lower incomes. Giving themselves insurance dividends when the inevitable floods came.
Fortunately for New Freedom, there were more than a few citizens who had learned from their own history. In that the Executives always acted in their own self interest. If the Executives had mountainside villas, mansions, and retreats, if they had staff compounds above a certain elevation, then that meant something horrible was going to happen to anyone underneath that.
The first three floods were a dead give-away. The news touted them as once-a-century freak weather events. They did that three seasons in a row.
The mob gathered in the foothills as the fourth cyclone formed. Improvised weapons at the ready. Insider knowledge from those who worked on the inside, and had learned of the betrayal from their masters.
It was a bloodbath.
The mob took over the mansions. Set up bunks in the ballrooms. Secured and sheltered the yachts and everyone aboard to survive the weather. So that when the oceans rose and the lowlands were overwhelmed, the survival rates were astonishingly high.
Except for the Executives themselves, but they were only point zero zero zero one percent of the population, so they were statistically negligible.
If any were alive to protest, they might have been offended by that assessment.
[Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash]
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