You won’t read this because time zones. I fail to sleep in Dubai. I thought you couldn’t drink here… I was wrong.

The Global South. The Global North. The reality is, no matter how we combat climate change, we’re going to do damage. People will be damaged. We are going to pay more for things. Some people will lose their homes and jobs. This has to be a just transition, but it will not be perfect. Thermodynamics are going out the window; we propose approaches that make little scientific sense but that do make climate sense.

I wanted music this morning, so I played this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmXFF_whkVk. First song that came up. Then I watched the video. Keeping going until you see the world burn. Yes, it’s hot here. At home, it’s snowing. You’re a miracle. I’m a dodge. King Charles was here. So was this sad Italian woman who looked like she wanted to pump her fist in the air, like all the time.

The funny thing is, the people are wonderful. All of them. They’re relatable, they’re human, they’re privileged, they’re worried, and they’re right next to me. I believe in the Three Body Problem. I also believe we have a Two World problem: the world where we are our digital selves and argue with each other constantly, positive we’re right, sure that we have to convince others of our right-itude. And then you meet people in the flesh, and they’re real, and it’s not like that at all. Which is actually the Real World, rising above the Other One?

Ten years from now, cancer will be cured. The Maldives will be gone. A nuclear weapon will have been used. Mental health will be the leading cause of death. All of it, fiction and other made-up stories. You can go crazy in the sand, and you can find lemonade in the desert. Be kind. Have a hot chocolate in my backyard, just tell me when you’re ready. We’re out of marshmallows. I see a future of kindness in my kids that I fail at times to see in our Online Real World, because there are few consequences to failing in that Online Read World; in the flesh, well… I bet you are much nicer. And I bet that I am, too.

Here are photos of a future that was 20,000 people strong in 1950. Now it’s three million. Three quarters of the population is male. By far most of the people here are immigrants. I’m an immigrant. When I came to North America, I couldn’t speak the language, and now I call myself a writer. It’s a meagre enticement to form a better sense of existence, dark swirls jumbled up with exuberance. I’ll tell you what. If you want to, write what you think of my story. I don’t care who you are. What you are. Where you came from. Go ahead and dream me, and write what you think of me, even if it’s to cuss me and damage me, or to drag me through the snowbelt on the way to afternoon tea. I’d be honoured to hear what you think of me. I’d be honoured that you tried. You’ll probably fail to get me right. But then, I would fail to get me right, too.

Conduct yourselves as though you’re in the flesh. You are in the flesh. We’re not digital beings of the Other World just yet. Let’s maybe protect the reality of our existence, as it gets hotter and hotter and the shorelines evaporate, and sometimes the only response is to move the chair a little further back so that we can read our books in peace. A year is ending. We’re almost halfway to the halfway point of the century. Peace is a story. And a damn good place to start.