Fantacies and Inevitabilities

Fantasies and Inevitabilities

July, 2026

We've just entered July and the heat of summer is already old news. Temperatures in the Midwest have been running higher than normal since January. Heat warnings are routine. And it's not just happening here. Europe has been cooking. The oceans are warmer than ever recorded.

The garden responds accordingly. The spinach, lettuce, and arugula bolts. The radishes get woody. But the tomatoes, peppers, and sweet corn take to the heat like a Finn to a sauna.

The people of the world carry on. Construction crews pace themselves, try to stay hydrated. Air conditioners hum, stressing an antiquated grid. Banks funnel money to fossil fuel companies in support of more fracking and drilling and pumping. Data centers appear like dandelions, demanding excessive electricity and water. A blanket of heat-trapping atmospheric gasses grows more dense by the day, as do its consequences. Decades-old climate predictions come to light even as promising green technologies enter the mainstream. A realization settles in: civilization’s influence on global climate will not end well.

There is a trilogy of books titled 2034, 2054, and 2084, novels by Elliot Ackerman and James Stavridis. The books imagine the future through the eyes of two men uniquely qualified to understand how it could unfold.

Elliot Ackerman is a former Marine Raider and CIA Special Activities Officer who completed five tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. James Stavridis is a retired four-star admiral and former supreme allied commander of NATO. Together they weave a cautionary tale rooted in emerging technology, geopolitics, and climate change. Though fiction, the books are based on solid science and a deep understanding of history, demographics, military strategy, and international power.

The impacts of a changing climate have influenced military strategies since the early 1990’s, when the Naval War College warned policymakers about its security risks. Since 2010, the Department of Defense included climate among its highest national security priorities—until the Trump regime took power.

The current administration has weakened considerations on climate change in strategic planning. Crucial safeguards and critical protections have been rolled back. The military’s preparedness for climate-related challenges have been compromised.

In the book 2034, the authors imagine a war between the US and China. In their follow-up novel, 2054, they explore a breakdown in American politics fueled by radical advances in artificial intelligence. And in 2084 they see a world devastated by climate change and threatened by yet another war.

From the website of Admiral Stavridis: “By the year 2084, the world is divided into equatorial countries that bear the brunt of the climate crisis—led by Nigeria, Brazil, and Indonesia—and wealthier countries like China and the US, beset by their own problems after a series of civil wars. Tensions between the two sets of countries have reached a breaking point, until finally the so-called Reparationist nations of the equator decide that only military force can bring them justice.”

This isn’t a Star Wars trilogy. It’s a plausible, cautionary tale based on current realities, written by a duo having a deep understanding of the threats facing our world today. But Admiral Stavridis remains optimistic, saying we can write a different destiny if we imagine it.

But will we?  Or will we continue to act surprised when weather extremes fully explained by a changed climate become more and more commonplace?  Will we divest from fossil fuels? Rise up against a corrupt distribution of wealth? Hold corporations accountable?

Stavridis, clinging to his unshakable optimism, says if we fail to adjust our trajectory and find our way to 2084 as his novel portrays, those standing will still find a way to carry on. That is optimism with a massive cost.

There are fantasies and there are inevitabilities.
We’re writing our sequel now, choosing our future with every barrel of oil burned, every forest preserved, every election, innovation, and act of indifference or courage. 

We’ll get to 2084 one hot July at a time, and history will judge us less by what we believed than by what we were willing to change.