Delusion

You looked out the window and, not for the first time, thought about how wrong the weather forecast had been. The sun’s brilliant rays ravaged the flowers you had planted in the spring, despite weather reports claiming summer was going to be milder than last year. Weather reports have, over the last seven years, continued to be optimistic about a reduction in global temperatures. Without a wide brimmed hat and plenty of sunscreen, it’s a nightmare to leave your front door.

It’s quite a shame, really. The sun has its natural fluctuations after all, and unfortunately everyone right now is recovering from the last ice age. Because of course, that’s what the experts say. The man on the television, with a tall puffy face, receding brown hair, snub nose, thin lips, smiling cheek to cheek, reassuring everyone viewers there’s nothing to be done. A Dr. Dosi, with a degree in climate science. He’s regularly invited to the news station you love. You trust him. He has his facts straight. 

You’re not ashamed to be living in the greatest country in the world. Watching industries boom, the market rise; God bless America, right? People are finally getting their jobs, and isn’t that something to be proud about? Younger people can be so ungrateful. They’re so bent on “saving the world” they don’t see God’s miracles. Because this president is a miracle, you’re sure. By dissolving environmental regulatory departments, he has allowed the free market to prosper and large corporations to turn hefty profits. GDP is at an all time high, and, while you’re not sure what GDP stands for, you’d like to think it means God Driven Profits. The president, like Dr. Dosi, says it how it is. He speaks truth in an age of darkness. 

God’s grace really blessed you with a house in the countryside, too. Every morning, the scent of tall aspen trees travels through your window, and you don’t have to waste your time shopping for air fresheners. In the summer, the sky is a beautiful amber at sunrise and a velvety orange at sunset. You can’t ever leave your house anymore because it gets so hot, but hey, once everything cools down you can take walks like you used to. It’s just you and your husband on your one and a half acre home, living off of your impressive investment portfolios as you both savor retirement. 

There’s been gossip on Facebook that city folk have it worse. Dense, toxic smog has (supposedly) developed in many industrial centers across the country. A friend of your son, Caleb, has a daughter named Margaret who can’t go outside anymore because of her asthma. Back in your day, no one needed those masks. God bless that Margaret. Whatever demon is cast into that poor child should be exercised from their earthly body.

 That being said, you’ve never met Margaret, nor have you ventured anywhere near a processing plant, so you can never be sure if "Margaret" is just a person Caleb made up to guilt trip you. Parents these days are so paranoid. Your children are living in a fallen world, filled with hysteria. As much as you love them, can you really trust what they have to say? 

   Ah, you’ve got a nephew: Buck, thirty-six years old, single. He works at a large oil company as a public relations manager, easily making six figures. You should invite him over sometime, show your kids what success looks like. 

You remember a particularly troubling call with Buck, however. A month ago—while you were preparing some of your classic chicken pot pie (the best in the county, if you don’t mind people asking)—you overheard a call between Buck and your husband. There was something about Buck wanting to leave his job, that he didn’t feel right spreading information that could “harm others,” whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean. He’d be an idiot to leave that job. He should watch Dr. Dosi. It’s comforting to know you’re doing nothing wrong.

   Two weeks ago there was a news report on New York, nothing too shocking. The coastlines have been underwater for some time—inevitable, really. Water levels rise and fall, right? But recently New Yorkers have been warning everyone else in the country to reconsider the use of fossil fuels and reduce carbon emissions. They say what happened there was completely preventable if only we had listened to the experts sooner. 

You’d like to know who these experts are. These so-called “experts” haven’t been brought on your favorite news channel, so how legitimate are they really? Is the fear of God burning in their hearts, or have they sold out to a secular world of “scientism” and sin? Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agreed that global warming was man-made? Doubtful. Even so, Dr. Dosi would prove them wrong. Probably. You don’t really understand the nuances of “global warming”, but to you it’s common sense. Sometimes the sun is hotter, sometimes it’s a little cooler. Not all of human history was an ice age, right? It’s going to get hot eventually.

   And hey, how about Venice? That city basically just sits on top of the water, right? Granted, the last time you’ve visited was forty years ago on an all-expenses paid vacation sponsored by your parents. It was so beautiful then: crystal clear canals positioned between beautiful brick buildings built on wooden stilts. People traveled by boats, painted bright yellow and blue. You can still smell the bittersweet aroma of coffee drifting from cafes. You can still taste the salty brine of fresh seafood, accented by a small squeeze of fresh lemon juice. The trip cost upwards of $30,000, but your parents were more than able to pay for such a wonderful experience. Would it really be a shame if every city looked like that?

   Such a shame that many of Venice’s buildings are eroding, having submerged many years ago. There are rumors—they'll only be rumors until your favorite channel discusses it, because that channel is the only reliable source of information—that hundreds of lives were lost and most of the businesses and monuments were destroyed. It’s a tragedy, but at the end of the day, nothing lasts. Caleb said it was exacerbated by “climate change,” but you know there was nothing to be done. All you can do is pray.

   Your son hates when you say that. He interrogates you, makes you the enemy. Why don’t you support clean energy initiatives, or voting to increase environmental protection regulations? It’s a nice thought—you would love to see some more trees to lighten the monotonous grayness of a city, you love the outdoors. Solar energy sounds cool, in theory. But kids just don’t understand that those solutions aren’t the future of this country. America needs fossil fuels because...well that’s the way it’s always been. We’re the biggest economy in the world, right? We can’t keep this machine going if we lose the juice to push it forward. Why does everyone have to sacrifice something for a theory? Climate change is just a theory after all. Moses didn’t write it into stone. 

   What if you’re wrong? Caleb loves to ask that. Always has, probably always will. That boy has a curiosity the size of his appetite. Anyone from the country buffet could tell you how much he could stuff in his face at just four years old. One of the servers, Madeleine, attests to how Caleb was able to clear out the entire dessert aisle in thirty minutes. It’s a miracle Caleb was able to stay so fit. 

 Caleb, your precious son. 

Caleb, who wanted to be an astronaut. 

Caleb who wanted to be a fighter pilot. 

Caleb, with the softest brown locks of hair, with his father’s bejeweling brown eyes, your sharp dimples. 

Caleb, who went to university and somehow got distant, angrier. Told you that you were wrong about so many things. Told you you needed to stop watching the same channels and watch some “real news” for once. The world turned him against you. You pray one day he’ll see better.

   Caleb, come home.

   Whenever he calls, it’s always the same story, spun around to make you scared.

   Farmers in the Midwest have reported that weather has become increasingly unpredictable, he said just last night, leading to poor harvests. Doesn’t this convince you of climate change?

You told him to stop calling if he keeps that up. The only thing it convinces you is God Almighty’s omnipotent grace, making sure everyone knows who’s really in charge. Nature is God’s creation of course. Like all things, it obeys his commands. If there’s a storm, there’s a reason.

Your son yelled back. He said that the price of produce has gone up, and people are struggling to afford food because there’s so many shortages. You have to concede the change in prices. Potatoes used to be just two dollars a pound, now it regularly reaches eight dollars. But surely that doesn’t have to do with shortages. It could be plenty of other things, like....

Like...

Well…

You ended the call. Kids who talk back to their parents don’t respect the hand that feeds them.

If Caleb did that every once in a while—maybe a sly comment during Thanksgiving, maybe the odd phone call—you’d probably be able to live with that. But Caleb does it all the time, and it’s driving you insane.

Here’s another example: Caleb calls to tell you about how “pathogens” are thriving in these warmer temperatures. Anthrax, ticks, diseases spread by mosquitoes and ticks; he tells you the warnings in decade old newspapers have become reality, except much, much worse. He tells you even the “hard working Americans” you love so much are dying at unprecedented rates due to the emergence of these “pathogens.”

People should just be more careful. That's what you say. There’s always something people can do to be safer, even if the weather is out of their control.

But you can’t stop thinking about that conversation. Something about it bugs your convictions. Regardless of the cause, if diseases spread more easily, how are people going to work? How can the economy move forward if people are confined to their homes, or if these diseases spread out of control? God can’t be the reason for these illnesses. God is good, right? 

Thinking about these things makes your head hurt. You open the fridge, and bust open a bottle of beer. Sitting on the couch, you watch the television, trying to numb your doubts.

Ah, it’s Dr. Dosi and your favorite newscaster, Lauren Grinham. Their voices wash over your mind and you nod your head in continuous agreement. They have their facts straight. They say it how it is...