Apocalypse and Sustainability

Hello, Wilson.

I don't know whether you're in a safe place atop Mount Adams, but at least you'll have a good vista point when the comets start falling.  I have it on good authority that the world is coming to an end September 23, 500 days after French Foreign Prime Minister Laurent Fabius and US Secretary of State John Kerry allegedly announced the length of time we have before climate chaos.

Don't worry about the date. The last Friday in September will be the last Friday--period.

 This Armageddon announcement comes as a courtesy of the renter in my house in Pacific, WA, who fell under the spell of a gay-soon-to-be-straight homeless man-of-god who, with the help of an ample amount of marijuana, has a Rasputin-like hold on her that facilitated the end of days for her third marriage. In January, the scales fell from her eyes, she abandoned the Mormon church as the work of the devil, and, at age 45 went into retirement so she could focus on warning everyone to prepare for the end.

Uh, this is not a joke.

In a retirement letter and multi-page manifesto she alerted 300 co-workers to the coming calamity. She also told me that, although her contract runs until Nov. 30, she won't be in the house in October.

Well, of course not. Self-declared as one of God's cruise directors for the Rhapsody, she'll be with Jesus. Following the formula of offer + acceptance = conclusion, my attorney readily accepted her intent to get out of the house two months early, declaring her contract curtailed. This was strictly a business decision. I figure there are going to be plenty of prospects wanting to move in when the comets hit their homes. I'm seriously considering raising my rate in preparation for the increased housing shortage.

This isn't the first time that the City of Pacific has faced the end of days. This last-picture-show town, a carbuncle on the backside of Auburn, eyeballed the Apocalypse barely three years ago (that's actually when I learned how to spell Apocalypse) when one narcissistic mayor was replaced by a crazy one who came on like a plague of locusts and just about destroyed the city by making it uninsurable. These images, from Speed Trap City, a blog about Pacific's impending doom, sort of tell the story.

At the last minute the city found a new insurance carrier who postponed the, uh, end by offering less insurance for more money.

What if she's right?

But this time, I'm wondering whether my renter might be on to something. Time to hedge my bets. Where's a guy to hide at a time like this?

Ah, now you finally understand why I'm in Hong Kong.

I found my renter's proclamation so disturbing that I decided to spend my 70th (and final) birthday as far from the end of the world as humanly possible, so here I am in China's honey pot. But I'm not sure I'm any safer here, because this city may be just as crazy as my renter is.

And regarding China...

For sure, China seems a little nuts. This morning I Skyped with my son, the shoe designer, who has visited Chinese factories many times. In Hong Kong, he notes, at least you can see the sky. "In southern mainland China," he adds, "you can't see more than a few blocks at times." And yet China has announced plans for a mega city complex around Beijing. They are talking about a city of 130 million. That seems a little nuts.

But back to Hong Kong, closer to a scale that we can imagine. Check out the photo below:

According to the Climate Change Business Forum, Hong Kong is a "thermal heat island."

 Not only does Hong Kong have a lot of its capital vulnerable to rising sea levels, it also is getting hotter, because it is a thermal heat island. Don't believe for a  moment that, because they live here, the locals are used to the heat. Check out this image of a high-rise:

An air conditioner for every unit.

 Now consider this photo:

A glitzy indoor multi-level air-conditioned shopping mall.  Hong Kong has more than 100 malls. The mirrored surfaces help to create an illusion of more space.

Right now, Minions are Hot! Malls are a place to recreate, and the "culture of cute" provides Mom with a photo op during an outing to the New Town Mall.

 Shopping malls in this city of 7 million are the new social space. They provide room to move around and recreate. Shopping is a major activity and you see something in Hong Kong you don't see in America--people using rolling suitcases to pack what they buy.  When you rely on the subway to get around, that only makes sense. And since virtually all malls are air conditioned, you escape the smothering heat/humidity.

The malls also make possible what has been described as the world's most efficient urban transit system. The "MTR" subway system makes owning a car largely unnecessary for most residents. When you transfer from one train to another on the underground, the system is so well timed that the other train has probably just arrived and is waiting for you as you disembark the first. And they, too, are air conditioned. Meanwhile Hong Kong is experiencing the hottest temperatures recorded. And it is muggy. Really muggy.

At virtually every subway stop there is a mall; the malls underwrite the system, enabling it to be profitable and efficient.

Reliance on China

Hong Kong goes to great lengths to capture its drinking water. But other household water is shipped in from China, reports a visiting professor in urban sustainability at the summer institute of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Facts and figures roll off his tongue faster than I can record them, and it's more than you probably want to know. But what catches my attention is that the food, household water and electricity which Hong Kong depends on largely come from China.

Then there is the consideration of the cost of living. 500-square foot apartments are largely the norm. According to this professor, approximately half the Hong Kong inhabitants live in public housing. And the best description for the cost of food would be "freaky." 

For example, consider the package of meat below, photographed in one of the malls.

No matter what cut this meat is, it's still unbelievably expensive: $230 per pound. (*Correction: I think I was off by a decimal. It's probably only roughly a miserly $23 per pound.)

What the price of this package of meat reveals is an extreme income disparity in a city where the most expensive home is reportedly $1.8 billion. Of course, the people who actually pay that price presumably fall into the category of the highly refined and uber-wealthy but the price is still an eye-opener, at least for me. Compare this price of meat to the cost of the meal below, which I purchased at a subsidized student cafeteria for approximately $2.50 U.S.

A meal at the student cafeteria.

So I leave you with the question: Which is more crazy -- the lady who wants to be our cruise director for The Rapture, or Hong Kong? I'm too new here to know what to make of this, but to me, it's bizarre.

I hope you'll join me for the next dispatch, Fruits and Futbols.
Love,

Robert