Winter Writing Contest Wrap-up: Campaigning and Mudslinging

Blizzards during August

James was a man who is a product of his times. He is a bright and young bachelor, living by himself in a rather spacious apartment and is currently on a sabbatical of sorts to enrich himself with a university course. This is of course a tactful way of saying that he is living hand to mouth with no girlfriend let alone fiancée in a poorly maintained rented apartment after taking on huge amounts of debt to finance his studies at a university for a degree of questionable value in the job market.

He worked for a pittance in a part time job while managing schoolwork. However, since, he is unwilling or unable to set aside time for housekeeping, his home resembled something that one sees in a warzone with clothes carelessly strewn, papers littered all over the floor with the occasional vermin darting to and fro. It was not the best of circumstances but James managed to keep his sanity by ironically harbouring self-delusions of him leading the life of that object of adoration, the eligible and sought after bachelor. It was not desirable but he managed until that very fateful day in which the story will go into detail.

It all started when James woke up to the sound of a barely functional television set that was tucked in the corner of his apartment, featuring a newsreader who said the following:

"This August saw the highest global average temperatures ever since records begun. Scientists say that should the trend of ever rising temperatures continue, in less than one decade, farmers will be put out of jobs due to bumper crops decimating food prices, seal populations will drop due to thinning ice encouraging polar bear predation, textile industries will be badly hit due to staggering drops in demand of winter clothing and healthcare conglomerates will risk collapse due to a lack of illnesses brought about by the cold.

In other news, the searing August heat has sent hordes of refugees thronging the already crowded beaches. Residents living near beachfronts all over the country have expressed apprehension over the scantily clad arrivals..."

Just as the first sound he heard was the reading of the news on the television, the first action he took that fateful day was an almighty yank of the power cable that connected the television to the power source. These were followed by the first words he uttered for the day which were,

"Bloody right wing propaganda..."

James was rightly sceptical of what he heard on the news for he wasn't enjoying a warm and pleasant summer, he wasn't even chafing under the summer heat. Instead his body was convulsed by an unseasonal cold spell made all the worse by the fact that he was dressed for the summer.

With his arms and legs quivering involuntarily due to the sheer cold, he stared intently at the thermostat for a few minutes which of course showed very low temperatures and then he opened the dust caked curtains only to find that the windows were covered in frost. If James thought that by doing so, he would be reassured that his sensory faculties are not out of order, he'd be right and relieved. If James thought that by doing so, the weather would revert back to normal, he'd be wrong and delusional. Either way, the more he stared at thermostats and frosty windows the more he was convinced that winter had come and that he would be badly screwed.

This crisis of sorts was accentuated by the fact that he had little money on him and that his friends and family were physically rather far away from him now. This of course made it quite difficult for him to seek help from others.

James can of course choose to help himself but there were a few impediments. First, he attempted to leave the apartment only to find out that the winds were strong and it was snowing. Second and rather damning for James, was that despite the amount of rent he had to pay, the heating appliances in his apartment weren't functioning. Third and perhaps most important of all, James, to be very polite, was not the proactive type who can brave snowfalls and think of ways to keep himself warm that do not involve electrical appliances.

This left James in quite a conundrum and he could have been on the way to a mental breakdown if not for the television, his mobile phone and his laptop, these devices to which men and women of this age look to for spiritual solace. James could at least reach out to people he knew and source for information pertaining to his wintry predicament.

He reattached the plug for his television set as quickly as he pulled it out a short while ago only to be treated to yet more dry news,

"An unseasonal cold snap is paralysing parts of the country due to cold winds blowing from the warming Arctic. Scientists are unsure how long the cold snap will last with projections lasting from a few days to a few weeks. They are however certain that this is caused by increasing global temperatures worldwide..."

James, who was rather dismissive of the news moments ago, took this report rather seriously. Waiting for the cold snap to go away and for normal summer weather to return is not an option for him now seeing that it might last a few days if he is lucky or several if he wasn't. Either way, it was a death sentence of sorts. Yet, like any patient who is diagnosed with AIDS or any other terminal disease, James decided to seek a second opinion, this time from his laptop, searching for news from 'alternate news sites' and internet fora, those bastions of unquestionable truth for men and women of this age. He went to a few sites and read a few articles pertaining to the weather (or climate) conditions over at his place. Here are a few explanations that were noteworthy but not for reasons a sane and rational man might think:

1. Contrails are used to increase the concentration of aerosol-like gases that will cool the atmosphere thereby lowering temperatures. This might explain the frequency of fighter jets whizzing across the sky spewing their climate cooling gases in the process.

2. State of the art weather machines are discreetly installed at locations around the city. Supposedly, these machines are able to create what is known as a 'endothermic reverse heat island effect' which lower temperatures city wide. The technology behind these weather machines are so 'state of the art' that even conspiracy theory websites have difficulty concocting what might be the mechanism of those machines.

Here are a few suggestions about why the forces that be want such weather (or climate) conditions:

1. There is a Malthusian and Darwinian conspiracy to freeze part of the population to death thereby saving the Earth and eliminating persons who cannot stand a bit of cold from passing their genes down to future generations. The government would not need to dole out that many pensions and they could balance their budgetary deficits from a hike in death taxes.

2. The insurance oligarchy is seeking to eliminate competition from smaller insurance firms by creating extreme weather conditions that result in lots of illnesses, deaths and even more claims. These claims would of course bankrupt their competitors and in the dearth of competition, the insurance oligarchy can raise premiums that will be imposed on a gullible public who thinks that buying more insurance would mean more security for them.

3. A sinister circle of those from the baby boomer generation are in collusion with the insurance oligarchy to take advantage of the deaths of their parents who are from the supposedly "Greatest Generation" but not great enough to survive the cold once they turn old and decrepit, and their "Generation Snowflake" millennial children who ironically are more likely to die in a blizzard or a cold snap than those from the "Greatest Generation", to claim insurance money.

4. The government wishes to build a large natural reserve and amusement theme park called "Winterland" around the area where James lived. This natural reserve will be home to flora and fauna that tend to inhabit the tundra. By bringing the permafrost further south from the Arctic Circle, the government hopes to reel in dollars from masochistic tourists who want to experience sub zero temperatures all year round.

Reading that warmed the cockles of James's heart that prior to this, was slowly sinking into despair. He laughed, laughed and laughed till he developed a very bad cough. Nonetheless, all of that exertion made James forget about the cold and lulled him into a false sense of security that everything will be alright.

"All of these stories in the media are scare stories. Cold snaps don't last for that long and no one can come up with something that contrived to earn money or 'save the Planet'", James thought to himself as he huddled in the corner and shut his eyes in an attempt to go back to sleep though he just woke up hours ago.

Days later, many people died due to the cold snap. However since it happens more or less every year, the media and indeed the general public paid little attention to it.

Weeks later, James's parents were cashing in from the insurance money paid out due to an Act of God which saw James's parents being one son poorer and hundreds of thousands of dollars richer.

Months later, the country enjoyed a short term economic boom brought about by increased economic activity in mortuaries, funeral parlours, insurance companies and hospitals. The government is optimistic that in the years to come, the deficit will narrow due to the drop in welfare and pension payouts.

Years later, the neighbourhood James lived in was turned into a ghost town due to the sheer cold and the permafrost conditions. This was when plans to start a nature reserve at the site where James lived came into being.


This has been a segment of the Conspiracy Theory Show sponsored by impressionable viewers like you.