09:56 (Washington Time)
Tuesday, March 5, 2041
White House Situation Room
Washington, D.C.
U.S.A.
President Ronald Mason looked quickly around the large table and, seeing that everyone that needed to be present was in the Situation Room, nodded to the staffer standing ready to brief him. ‘’Now that we all are here, you might as well start, Mister Blake.’’ ‘’Thank you, Mister President!’’ replied the State Department briefer before switching on the first slide of his briefing on the large digital screen set against one wall of the room. With a laser pointer in his right hand, he then started speaking in a measured tone. ‘’Mister President, ladies and gentlemen, this is the latest State Department update on the World situation as it refers to the progressive global warming and consequent rise in sea levels. Yesterday, the last line of dikes protecting what was left of Bangladesh, along with the Indian city of Kolkata, broke and let the sea in. With the situation in that region already catastrophic and with little local government resources left, the flooding that ensued swamped the totality of the Ganges Delta, including the cities of Dacca and Kolkata. The millions of refugees that had been sheltering in and around those two cities never had a chance to escape and were swept away by the incoming waves. Our estimates are that most of the 43 million people who were in that region are now dead.’’ Ronald Mason, a slightly overweight big man approaching his sixties, lowered his head for a moment, saddened by such a tragedy. Unfortunately, such tragic news had become way too common in the past few years, with the steadily rising sea levels and increasing global temperatures causing a litany of floods and droughts. Those floods and droughts had in turn cost the lives of hundreds of millions of people around the World. While the floods could be prevented, at great cost, by the building of defensive dikes, there was little that could be done about the droughts and accompanying high !
temperatures, which burned down the crops on which so many people depended. Most of the Indian sub-continent, Arabic Peninsula, North Africa and parts of Southeast Asia were now routinely experiencing ambient temperatures above forty degrees centigrade, with spikes up to fifty or more degrees centigrade. Millions of people had died from the excessive heat, while tens of millions more had died from the famines caused by the droughts. The stampede by millions of refugees trying to find more livable places in other countries had further aggravated that chaotic World portrait. Shaking off those dark images from his mind, Ronald Mason looked back at the briefer.
‘’How are the Indian and Bangladeshi governments responding to this?’’ An embarrassed look appeared on the briefer’s face as he recalled the information he had himself read only a couple of hours ago. ‘’From badly to not at all, Mister President. In the case of the Bangladeshi government, it was already in a state of deep turmoil, with the various local politicians blaming each other for not dealing effectively with the situation. From the last report received from our embassy in Dacca, the government’s senior members either fled to higher grounds or were swept away by the floods, leaving nobody in effective charge. Our assessment is that Bangladesh is now probably finished as a viable country, with its agricultural system destroyed for good. The already insufficient arable lands are now under seawater and will not be able to raise crops afterwards even if the sea withdraws, due to salt contamination. As for the Indian government, it has had to deal with more than its fair share of ecological disasters during the past decade and the Indian Army and police forces are having a hard time dealing with multiple mass riots by starving refugees and rural populations dislodged by the floods and droughts. The latest disaster which erased Kolkata from the map may just be the one that will break the Indian government’s back. And that is not all for that region, Mister President. General Ismail Khan, who took power last year in Pakistan via a military coup, is apparently preparing to deal with the floods and droughts that also ravaged his country by getting ready to grab some higher, safer and cooler lands, namely parts of the Indian Punjab and of Kashmir.’’ From sad, Ronald Mason suddenly turned to irritated.