A Diary in the Age of Water, page 17
Like mortal pawns trapped in the crossfire of two competing gods, the ants are manipulated by the butterfly and wasp in a seductive and devious tango.
Nineteen years ago, CanadaCorp hired me to work for their Watershed Management Group. I thought I was making a difference, working for a Canadian corporation and helping to manage our water for Canadians. I studied and reported on water quality, as well as on nutrient and trophic dynamics and their impacts in reservoirs across Canada.
I didn’t care that CanadaCorp had international ties to the Chinese government. Good Lord, who didn’t? China owned everything, especially the water. I had no clue that CanadaCorp was really just an arm of the multinational water corporation Vivanti, which gave it its mandate: take all the water and make everyone pay for it. I didn’t know until Daniel told me. It was simple math, but I’d refused to accept it.
We all just let it happen. We paid attention to the wrong things. Distracted by seductive promises and political shenanigans, we failed to recognize that our country was slipping out from under our feet, like water down a hill. Una saw it. She saw it all. But she believed in Canada and humanity. She believed, despite what she saw, and that killed her. She died sad and broken.
They lied to us when they flagrantly named the company CanadaCorp. There is nothing about Canada in CanadaCorp—except what it exploits.
We are the ants.
May 23, 2064
CUCKOO MAFIA: A social parasitism strategy in which an invading brood parasite imposes reciprocity on its host to raise its young
Like the cuckoo, the brown-headed cowbird (Molothrus ater) lays its eggs in another bird’s nest to spare itself the effort of raising its own young. If the host bird ejects the cowbird’s eggs from the nest, the cowbird destroys the host’s entire clutch. Running its lifecycle strategy like a mafia extortion racket, the cowbird ensures its host’s allegiance through the threat of retaliation. The host birds tolerate the additional work of raising the parasite in their nest to avoid endangering the lives of their own offspring. This only works if the cowbird is both present and swift in its retaliation; otherwise the host bird that quickly removes the parasite egg from its nest will be at an advantage over its more compliant cohorts. Other defences against the cowbird’s mafia behaviour include avoiding the parasite in the first place. Other birds can select nesting sites that are difficult to parasitize, start incubation early to prevent invader eggs being placed there, and nest in aggregations which they can then defend as a group.
But it never ends: hosts and parasites compete against each other in an evolutionary race. Each strategy is met with a counter-strategy. Arne Traulsen at the Max Planck Institute in Plön says, “There is no optimal behaviour in such host-parasite relations. Neither party can outsmart the other on a permanent basis.” They are forever locked in a tense covenant, so long as both exist.
When I was four years old, my mother took me to an old church in downtown Toronto to see Maude Barlow, Chairman of the Council of Canadians. She’d just published her book Boiling Point and was speaking about Canadians’ dangerous relationship with water.
My mother had wisely given me a notebook and crayons to play with to keep me quiet and occupied; but I remember one thing Maude said: “We [Canadians] have a myth of abundance.”
By then, China had lost half of its major rivers and invested over two hundred million dollars on artificial rain programs. Spending over sixty-two billion dollars to pump nearly a tenth of the nation’s water from its wet south to its dry north wasn’t enough.
No wonder China did what they did. And the U.S. did what they did. And CanadaCorp did what they did.
Maude Barlow was a clarion in a time of whispers. She made waves in a dangerous calm. No one wanted to know that the world was ending. And the water companies, bankers, politicians, and multinationals were too busy having a grand old party.
How do I protect my little Hilde? She’s not so young anymore—she’s now twenty-three, pursuing a degree in Environmental Science. And she just landed a position as a researcher at the Wilkinson Alternative Energy Centre on Spadina Avenue. How does she feel about living in an indentured country that was once one of the top twenty wealthiest—and happiest—nations in the world? A country once blessed with a vast wealth of natural resources, including a fifth of the world’s freshwater. Canada once contained a quarter of this planet’s wetlands, and Canada’s plentiful groundwater was an oasis to exploit for Vivanti and Nestlé before it. Now Vivanti is turning it into a desert.
Hildegard never saw Niagara Falls before it was shut down. She only experienced snow a few times as a child. She never swam in a lake or walked along a pristine beach. Perhaps she doesn’t feel the loss as I do. I don’t ask her how she feels about that.
When she directs our conversations toward my old work and the subject of water, I quickly deflect her. In the beginning, I’d shift our discussion to another related topic, but now I just truculently refuse to engage.
I never once challenged any of the executive decisions or policies of CanadaCorp in my position with the Watershed Management Group. I literally kept my head down, busied myself with my research, and worked on those reports and briefs. Reports and briefs whose recommendations went nowhere, except into some obscure filing cabinet to prove due diligence in a world where due diligence was extinct.
I did it for Hilde, to keep her safe. Then I did the unthinkable to Orvil. And then to Daniel.
I hate myself.
June 1, 2064
CUMULONIMBUS: A dense, towering vertical cloud with a low, dark base and fluffy masses above. From the Latin cumulus, meaning heap, and nimbus, meaning storm cloud, this is the cloud associated with thunderstorms and atmospheric instability. It forms from water vapour through strong upward air currents.
Clouds can be useful for several things besides forecasting upcoming weather. They can serve as signposts for navigation and for sensing one’s surroundings. For instance, there are generally fewer clouds over lakes than over the land that surrounds them. This is best seen in large lakes, like the Great Lakes.
To an explorer, the ability to read clouds can make a huge difference, as it can help in finding much needed water or land. Clouds behave differently above land’s warm rising air than above cooler water. The underside of clouds can also suggest what’s below, from sandy deserts to dark forests to deep lakes. Over sand and surf, clouds look light and white. Over lagoons, their undersides appear green, and over forests, they are even darker.
Hilde befriended a mysterious girl named Hanna. Apparently they met on Oracle. Hilde shared that it was the book Limnology by Wetzel that I’d given her for her tenth birthday that had caught Hanna’s attention. Hilde had stumbled on Hanna’s blog while searching for lake zonation. Hilde corrected something Hanna had written with a quote from Wetzel. Hanna appreciated the correction and, in turn, shared other interesting things about water: its anomalous properties and some unscientific claims about its strange behaviour. They became friends. Hanna provided wild claims and Hilde quoted facts from Wetzel.
Hilde has become close to that strange girl, and that makes me very uncomfortable.
Now with Hanna baiting her, Hilde comes up with even more difficult questions for me. I find myself tightening with anticipation when she approaches with a new question, each time more difficult and controversial. I lash back by interrogating her about this interloper. Then Hildegard clamps down. She is reticent—she’s learned that from her mother. And I learn nothing about this stranger except that she’s an American. That’s reason enough to make me suspicious of her.
June 11, 2064
96-HOUR ACUTE TOXICITY TEST: An acute toxicity test is a standard test used to determine the concentration of a substance that produces a toxic effect on a specified percentage of test organisms in a short period of time (e.g. ninety-six hours). Death is most often used as the endpoint of the test. Toxicity is determined by measuring the concentration of a compound that is toxic to a percentage (e.g., fifty percent) of the test organisms over a 96-hour period (96HR-LC50). The LT50 (lethal time to kill fifty percent of the organisms) is usually attained using a single concentration of undiluted compound.
While acute tests can define a single exposure concentration that will kill an organism, they say nothing about the more insidious exposures that occur over a longer time period or in concert with compounds that can amplify the effect. In short, they are great in the lab but suck in the real world. They reveal the obvious murderer, but say nothing about the subtle killers.
Hanna is trouble. Who is she? What is she? What does she really want with my daughter? Hilde thinks Hanna either works for Google or has major contacts there. She doesn’t even know Hanna’s last name. That American is too secretive, and Hilde is too naïve and trusting. Is Hanna a spy for CanadaCorp or DARPA? Is this a trap? Am I the target? Is Hilde just an unsuspecting tool to be discarded once I’m snared?
It bothers me that I can’t read the American. She’s slippery … like ice. And shady… like a thunder cloud. She seems to cross the Canadian border unscathed whenever she pleases, not like us plebes, who need special dispensation to cross into the hydrated U.S.
Haseem tried for two years to cross the border into the United States to attend the Water Management Authority Water Summit at the University of Wisconsin. He finally made it to Madison this spring with a paper on fog harvesting technology in Nova Scotia. He never gave his paper; he got himself arrested instead. We don’t know what the circumstances were. The info is sketchy. André told me they are holding Haseem for questioning to do with some terrorist activities. It’s been close to three months now. Haseem is no terrorist; he’s just a Canadian hydrologist and engineer with the wrong kind of name and face.
Hanna just slips across the border like a nameless secret agent.
She is no ordinary girl, wandering aimlessly here and there like some hippy gypsy. There is nothing aimless about her. She is full of secrets. Her cavalier attitude veils sharp purpose. Her random unannounced comings and goings hide her insidious intent to unbalance and maintain ignorance. Hilde is a willing pawn. I mentioned that I don’t want Hanna here in this house. I told Hilde it was because we have illegal water tech—which we do. But I’m certain she’s been here while I’ve been at the university.
Yesterday, as we did the dishes, Hilde let slip out something that set off alarms in my head. It started out innocently enough, with a nice discussion about science: “Mom, you know about the Great Dying at the end of the Permian that wiped out ninety percent of all life on Earth?”
I said I did. Then I added, “Ninety-six percent of sea life and seven out of ten species of land life went extinct in the space of a few thousand years.”
“The latest notion on it is that the Permian extinction happened when the Siberian Traps spewed out huge amounts of carbon dioxide, methane, and sulfur, which acidified the oceans and caused global warming,” she said. “Sulfur-reducing organisms made massive amounts of toxic hydrogen sulfide, turning the oceans into a toxic soup. They say that over two gigatons of carbon per year was released then—we’re increasing our carbon input into the atmosphere by about ten gigatons each year—”
I slowed my washing. “That’s cause for alarm, no?”
“Yes … and no,” Hilde countered. She stopped drying.
I stopped washing.
“Well, we know that it took ten million years for life to bounce back from that mass extinction, but that it resulted in greater diversity and success,” she explained. That’s when she said the strange thing: “But it’s like Shiva, who destroyed his world—and himself—to create a better one. Hanna says that it’s only a question of when. She says it’s inevitable that a Nataraja soul will harness the frequencies of water and destroy the world in a Tandava dance of subatomic matter. And, just like Shiva did with the Ganga River; this time it will release water to make its cosmic journey to a new home.”
What the hell? Mother of God, what are those girls smoking?
I remember Daniel’s bizarre question about saving the planet at the expense of humanity, and I haven’t been able to shake it. What would I do? What would Hilde do?
I want to strangle that American. She is dangerous. But Hilde sees no danger. Hanna’s toxicity is subtle. That’s what makes her all the more dangerous.
August 17, 2064
ENVIRONMENTAL GENERATIONAL AMNESIA: A term coined by Peter Kahn, professor of psychology at the University of Washington, that argues that each generation can only recognize and appreciate the ecological changes they experience in their lifetime
A few days ago, I was clearing out the downstairs closet when I came across a box of old children’s books I used to read to Hilde when she was little. I’d kept them for when she was a mother to read to her child. I pulled out the large green square book by Shel Silverstein, The Giving Tree and wondered why I’d kept it for her. We’d only read it a few times before I abandoned it with some disgust.
The Giving Tree eventually ends up a stump. This is because the tree faithfully gives limb by limb to a disrespectful self-serving boy who evolves into a disrespectful self-serving man. The boy-man never sees the tree as more than something he can use for himself. Such a deliberate view permits him to rape and mutilate this magnificent and beautiful tree with impunity and absolutely no regret. This represents the current relationship of virtually all cultures with Nature: one of dominance and disrespect.
University of British Columbia Fisheries biologist Daniel Pauly, when he witnessed the collapse of fish populations on the west coast, noticed that people just went on fishing ever smaller fish. Pauly named this impaired vision “shifting baseline syndrome,” a willing ignorance of consequence based on short-term gain.
What psychologist Peter Kahn calls “environmental generational amnesia” is really no more than a total disconnection from and disrespect for our environment. And that is proving disastrous, because we are part of the environment. Our inability—our unwillingness—to participate respectfully with our “giving tree” is at the root of our amnesia. How can we expect our children to understand or appreciate our despair over the diminishing quality of our fresh air when we smoke in front of them?
The detrimental effects of “environmental generational amnesia” only exist in a world without connection. When youth truly connect and participate with their “giving tree”—no matter what stage it is in—they will care enough to act and to “remember” the environment’s legacy. Such connection has produced the likes of Rachel Parent, Ridhima Pandey, Autumn Peltier and, of course, Greta Thunberg: champions and fierce warriors for our giving tree. Una told me about how these brave girls “schooled” those currently in power, who were applying their own version of amnesia to serve the wealthy few. Where are girls like these in this next generation?
My sweet, kind, gentle, unexceptional Hilde isn’t one of them. I’m worried about her activism. And now this strange American with subversive ideas is influencing her.
The same day I found The Giving Tree in the closet, Hilde confronted me with a challenge: why did I hate the world so much? I was stunned at her aggressive remark, wondering what had triggered it, and chalked it up to the influence of her strange American friend. I responded, “I don’t hate the world; it’s just that humanity—”
“The boy-men,” she said in an almost scoffing tone and pointed to the book I’d left on the table.
“We’re a virus killing the planet.” I picked up the book we had read together. “We are all that selfish ungrateful boy,” I said. “We don’t deserve the tree.”
“Why don’t you do something about it,” she challenged in a quiet voice.
I felt cornered. “What can I do? There are too many of us. There are just too many humans on the planet. It isn’t so much the evil corporations or incompetent governments. It’s just that there are so many of us, doing what we’ve always done for millennia. I can’t change that.”
Hilde was silent. I felt so small. I wanted to shrink from her gaze, to look away. Our eyes locked in some kind of exchange that made me very uncomfortable. I still don’t know what she was thinking. But it felt as though, for the first time, she was looking straight into me—and didn’t like what she found.
December 21, 2064
PARASITOID: An organism that spends a significant portion of its life history attached to or within a single host organism, in a relationship where the host is ultimately killed. Insect parasitoids include braconid and ichneumon wasps, and flies. In many species, eggs are laid within the bodies of other organisms (most commonly other insects). The eggs then hatch and the young feeds on the internal organs of the host. Initially, the parasitoid larvae feeds on non-essential organs in order to avoid killing the host. Eventually, the larvae either feeds on the vital organs, killing the host, or pupates within the host, and then emerges as an adult, killing the host. A hyperparasitoid, in turn, feeds off a parasite or parasitoid.
A female Glyptapanteles wasp pounces on an unsuspecting caterpillar and drills into its flesh with its ovipositor. Then she injects some eighty eggs into the living caterpillar. The eggs hatch into larvae that feed on the caterpillar’s fluids, then gnaw through its skin and exit en masse, using their last moult as sutures. The caterpillar, which miraculously survives this invasion and egression—rare for a parasitoid—becomes a slave bodyguard to the maturing larvae. It wards off predators, including hyperparasitoid wasps, until it drops dead from starvation. This bizarre phenomenon happens because one or two larvae sacrifice themselves: they remain inside the host, controlling its mind with a cocktail of chemicals, in order to protect their siblings. Here’s the thing, though: the defending caterpillars somehow attract the hyperparasitoid wasps, which will eventually inject the Glyptapanteles pupae with their own eggs. What goes around comes around.
