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A bad dream/vision from our future in 2035

Ron Walter writes about what life in the future could look like
MJT_RonWalter_TradingThoughts
Trading Thoughts by Ron Walter

It was a Rip Van Winkle dream — waking up a generation in the future just like the fairy tale character.

A vivid as the dream was, not everything stayed in my memory. Here goes what I recall.

It was morning. My Rav4 hybrid needed re-fuelling so I headed to the Co-op gas bar. On the way down something struck me as strange. Almost every building had solar panels on the roof to produce electricity.

Arriving at the First Avenue gas bar I noticed only two gas pumps isolated in the midst of numerous electric vehicle charging stations.

The attendant came to me as I asked: Please fill’er up.

“Can I see your fuel permit?’’ he asked

“What fuel permit?”

The look on his face said it all: What planet had this jerk come from?

“Sir, you need a fuel permit to buy gasoline. If you don’t have one we can fill out the forms and get you a temporary one until the fuel allocation agency processes and allocates gas based on your need and occupation.”

I was flabbergasted, What year is this?

There was that look again. “It’s 2035 sir.’’

We filled out the forms and the attendant warned me that being retired wouldn’t get me much gasoline allocation.

I filled up and headed south to a Baildon farmer friend wondering how he felt about this situation.

On the way I passed that $700 million natural gas co-generation plant SPC built in the early 2020s. The large building was covered with solar panels and a couple of wind turbines poked through the roof.

The SPC sign was gone, replaced with a sign reading Livestock Seaweed Inc.

That seemed odd.

Arriving at my farmer friend’s place I noticed solar panels on all buildings, a wind turbine and a rather large whiskey still-like apparatus.  Had the energy permit process pushed him into making home brew?

He was operating controls on the apparatus.

“What’s that?’’  I asked

“This is my bio-fuel processor.”

We chatted awhile until I asked him how he felt about the fuel restrictions made to adapt to climate change.

“It was hard at first, but we got used to it,” he said. “Since we’ve been growing grain for our own fuel, food and fibre things have improved.

“Price has never been better since farmers around the world started doing the same.”

I asked about the $700 million SPC co-generation plant and the Livestock Seaweed Inc. sign.

The co-generation plant had been converted into a factory growing seaweed culture,

“That’s the only way the livestock sector can survive and meet reduced methane emissions,” he said. Seaweed feed cuts methane emissions from cows by 60 per cent.

At that point I woke up to a barking dog in the alley.

Lying there in the darkness I pondered the snatches of the dream that I remembered.

Will something like this happen? It probably should but the growth-oriented wealthy nations will resist the sacrifices. And the lesser developed nations will stall on sacrifices to target improved living standards.

Maybe humanity will develop its own hellish lake of fire as described in the Bible.

Ron Walter can be reached at ronjoy@sasktel.net

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of this publication.  


 

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