Over Brooklyn Hills: Book Three, The Steep Climes Quartet
In 2035, addressing climate change remains a one step forward-one step backward jig. Battles over climate policy and new legislation continue, as does the march upward of average global temperatures. In the courts, finally, there are some very real legal threats to the fossil fuel industry fighting for its future against the advancement of clean tech.
Davin Caine is at last on Medicare and is getting a modest Social Security check each month but still works with Berkshire Interactive. He's also been busier in his studio and has sculptures in galleries in the Berkshires and the Hudson Valley, and his solar/batteries and VPP membership keeps electricity bills down. His three house sharers, with housing still scarce, help with expenses. Marsha's been with the Housatonic House on the Hill for nearly a decade, and she's queen of the big vegetable garden. Charlie is a more recent house sharer, and a nigh-on perfect one, since he's often away on business or holed up in his third-floor bedroom working. The newest house sharer is Be, a ceramic artist who helps Davin out with the first floor Airbnb apartment and who has just claimed a corner of the studio and could easily claim his heart if he isn't careful.
But as 2035 summer approaches, a stunning heatwave settles over New York City, west to Lake Erie, and south into parts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The heat drives people to escape into the relatively cool hills of the Berkshires just as high season is coming on, so there's little room for the hordes. Young Brooklyn hipsters take up camping in the woods around Monument Mountain Reservation and along the Appalachian Trail, or double and triple up at the summer homes of friends' parents, or anywhere, somewhere, to sleep. Many in the town aren't happy about it, or the spike in petty crimes, and it's up to Marian Gray-Fletcher, Great Barrington's town manager, to solve the problem. But she's distracted with her own philandering husband, until a drug-gang killing focuses her attention.
The international news is full of climate migration stories and political problems in Europe and a conflict between India and Pakistan. Central and South American climate change-induced droughts make for huge numbers of people heading north and the militarized southern border and running battles between cartels and U.S. forces are in the headlines. And then there's No One is Safe, a climate terrorist organization that has a history of blowing up refineries and pipelines and the occasional oil exec, and one climate direct action veteran finds himself wondering how deep the NOS-cartels connection goes.
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