Isabel Allende begins her memoir MI PAIS INVENTADO (2003) in this fashion:
Nací en medio de la humareda y mortandad de la Segunda Guerra Mundial y la mayor parte de mi juventud transcurió esperando que el planeta volara en pedazos cuando alguien apretara distraídamente un botón y se disparan las bombas atómicas. Nadie esperaba vivir muy largo. (11)
This fear culminates for the people of her generation in the Cuban crisis. Many have seen in those days each sunset with a feeling of apocalypse now. The fear was held in common.
What about us? We seem to believe we are well aware about the atomic destruction. Soit. But what about this unpredictable fluctuation--of the world's temperature?
Those who study ancient ice cores are concerned. Like tree rings, they read the record of global temperature "over a quarter million years." When it changes, it changes in DECADES. Who can say we are not living such a decade of radical change?
I am concerned. The summer in Tokyo has been becoming unbearably hot over the past decade. I am lucky to be out of it in the cool southern winter. Wright quotes Richard Alley as saying:
"[H]umans have built a civilization adapted to the climate we have. increasingly, humanity is using everything this climate provides... [and] the climate of the last few thousand years is about as good as it gets." (52)
Wright's chilling remark follows:
"Droughts and unusually hot weather have already caused world grain output to fall or stagnate for eight years in a row. During the same eight years, the number of mouths to feed went up by 600 million." (ibid.)
Dear Northeners. How can you be NOT apocalyptic when your sweat is flooding your floor like that?
