Opportunity lost...

[Javaman]

I like to read sci-fi from time to time, mostly because it takes me to places of fantasy and away from the drudgery of real life. Flying in space ships, conversing with aliens, exploring worlds with nasty beasties, etc.

But sometimes I think about our own little planet as well. Alternative histories comes to mind. I enjoy reading Harry Turtledoves series of books regarding a different outcome regarding the civil war and things like that.

However sometimes, I look at our own current lives and our recent history and how differently it would have been if just a few simple things either weren't changed or had changed.

What am I getting to?

Just suppose that Carter hadn't lost the 1980 election. Or simpler still, the solar panels weren't taken off the White House and energy saving measures were a part of our life as President Carter hoped.

How different our lives would be today. Perhaps no SUV monstrosities, perhaps cleaner air and water, perhaps climate change arrested, or better yet, no global warming. Let's extrapolate, shall we?

More mass transit, more bicycle lanes, drinkable water and not the culture of plastic bottles we have today, etc. It goes on and on.

In some other dimension another earth exists with these very possibilities. I wax on sadly about the one we got instead. Our earth, our wars, our pollution, our climate change, our virtual entropy in regards to forward movement for change, irresponsible government of the highest order.

We are now that sci-fi novel read back in the 1960's and 70's of a world gone bad. Back then we had hope for a brighter tomorrow, today it's hard to comprehend our earth having a brighter tomorrow with out it being hazardous to our health.

I wonder if there will be a change in the subject matter of sci-fi as the world gets worse. Will it be of utopian societies were things go right instead of going wrong? A Logan's Run without the Carousel? A Brave New world with out SOMA? A 1984 without a Big Brother?

Will the stories be of a place of exotic animals that are soon to become extinct? Have foods that are no longer grown due to climate change?

As oil peaks and vanishes and water becomes more and more scarce and our planet heats up, will our lives turn out to be more like Mad Max and our fantasies of what could have been be like Shangra La? or more sadly, like the drudgery of real life?