TWO BIRDS, ONE STONE

The ArteFact Channel

August 2057

SCENE: The enigmatic figure of Artie Sharp is seated at a desk before a blank whiteboard in what is clearly a college lecture room. While his appearance is unremarkable, it is obvious to the viewer that the person occupying this role on screen must be Artie Sharp, because that is the name of the person who presents these segments on the ArteFact Channel on the dark web, and he is known to deliberately change his appearance and role according to the subject for the day. Besides which, there is a name plaque on the desk which reads, ARTIE SHARP.

ARTIE SPEAKS as he scribbles furiously on a desk pad. What he scribbles appears on the whiteboard behind him as a jumbled series of mathematical calculations.

“In recent days, you will have seen the figures released by the Agenda Implementation Tribunal showing our performance with respect to the United Nations Convention on Environmental and Development Objectives referred to in Agenda 2060.

“In one very important respect, it would appear from the figures that we are not doing well at all. This is that perennial chestnut that we all know as Article Five: ‘Reduce man-made carbon emissions and greenhouse gases to zero, and convert all energy consumption to the use of renewable resources.’

“Despite the almost total elimination of fossil fuels from our economies, it would seem that excess amounts of carbon dioxide remain stubbornly present in the atmosphere. Of course, we cannot definitively say who in the world is doing a better or worse job of addressing this problem because, collectively, we are One World—all in this together. But the bottom line is, a solution is needed … and I believe I may have found one.

“I recently received a paper forwarded to me by the well-regarded air and water environmentalist Tony Andrew, in which he provides an analysis of the air we breathe in the average city, its composition in terms of gases, and which of those gases we rely upon to sustain life.

“In simple terms, air is composed of 78.08 percent nitrogen and 20.95 percent oxygen by volume. Small amounts of argon, carbon dioxide, neon, helium, and hydrogen make up the remainder of the balance. When we exhale, the oxygen in the air released has been reduced to 13.6 to 16 percent, and the nitrogen drops to approximately 74.4 percent, with water vapor now comprising 5 to 6.3 percent—but the carbon dioxide has increased a hundredfold, now representing 4 to 5 percent by volume.

“Is this remarkable? Not at all … until you do the math, which I am showing you on the board behind me as I speak. Of course, with mathematics no longer being offered by the education system, you may find all these numbers confusing. But you can easily enter them into the calculator app on your Konektor to verify the answers.

“So you see, on average, we humans take 12 breaths per minute, and the volume of air inhaled per breath is around 500 milliliters. Over 24 hours, we take about 17,280 breaths and exhale 8,640,000 milliliters of air, of which, say, 4.5 percent is carbon dioxide. In a year, therefore, each one of us exhales approximately 141,912 liters of carbon dioxide.

“The next figure is for carbon dioxide’s weight. According to Tony Andrew’s paper, carbon dioxide weighs 183.6 kilograms per 100,000 liters. So, each of us is exhaling 183.6 times 1.41912, which means 260.55 kilograms of carbon dioxide per annum. Who would have thought?

“Coincidentally, in the last week, we heard from the Club of Rome, who remain concerned that Article Eleven of Agenda 2060 has not been addressed, despite the repeated warnings they have given the world since way back in 1972. Article Eleven reads, ‘Work to achieve, by any peaceful and humanitarian means possible, a sustainable world population limit of five billion people within the next one hundred years.’ But as we all know; the world population now stands at over eight billion.

“So, what’s to be done? It seems to your commentator, Artie Sharp, that the math is quite simple: reduce the population by three billion, and we reduce the carbon dioxide load by 781.65 billion kilograms—that’s 781.65 million tons—per annum. Why, we could even start using fossil fuels again!

“Now, how should we go about this? And what exactly is the meaning of the phrase ‘by any peaceful and humanitarian means possible’? Certainly, three billion people is a lot to eliminate from the global population … but the benefits are plain to see.

“So, who volunteers to go first? I’ll leave you to think about it.”

ARTIE SHARP stands up and wipes the whiteboard clean before giving a cheery wave and leaving the room.