Reading between the lines, (and leaving out the celebrity gossip about people none of us have heard about yet) it seems the West finally got savvy about greenhouse gases not a moment too soon, (and, regrettably, too late for large parts of Bangladesh), but luckily by the time China and India were supposed to take up their Kyoto share, in 2012.

The world's two largest democracies solidly threw their weight behind climate change, and announced that they would be going straight to the Fifth ERA Information Revolution, that would incorporate the best and smartest in techno fixes, and skip the wastrel stage altogether. Whole cities were being designed from the ground up to leave less ecological footprint than ever before.

While cars existed, they were able to sell to the West hybrids that outperformed some of the more sluggish Detroit versions, because they were designed to more stringent legislated standards. Borrowing from these urban planning efforts, and sometimes leading them, in Australia we've had lots of building code redesign and retrofitting, with entire suburbs required to give houses northern street orientation for passive solar design, R4 insulation subsidised, mums and dads selling electricity from their sliver solar cells to the grid (and making money), airconditioning carbon taxes, and urban limits. Micro sewage works in each suburb supply community gardens and provide street lighting (from methane!).

Public transport has been revitalised, with light rail circles feeding across and around town, prompted by the 2010 Peak Oil Collapse. The Great Oil Depression of 2011 hit hard and since 2020, a few lucky families now go out in their petrol vintages on Sunday-drives. (Try telling the kids you drove a petrol motor down to the supermarket in 2007 for milk, and they won't believe you.)

Yet, of all shortages, the big challenge has been water. Southeast Queensland went dry in 2009, northern New South Wales has been contending with a steady annual temperature rise and rainfall drop, and Melbourne has been on Stage Three from the Wednesday following the Melbourne Cup for as long as anyone can remember. Some people say successive governments left the water question all too late, fearful of voter backlash about drinking recycled water and paying premium prices for splashing onto Kentucky blue lawns. There were grand madcap schemes to bring in water from the Daintree, but....

When the Murray dried up in four places, and the algal bloom of the Darling River showed how bad things could get, there was a surge of support for the country's leaders to do something more systematic. The biggest surprise was the suggestion to redraw state boundaries to follow watersheds and bioregions resource management. Since 2017, the state of northeast Victoria (the capital is Glenrowan!) has managed its quality education schooling program by selling water rights to downstream buyers; the Darling cotton industry went into voluntary "liquidation", freeing up substantial amounts of fresh water, but there is much to repair from a century of damage. Regrettably, of the 639 Australian species listed as threatened with extinction in 2007, only 105 remain. Along with environmental action, there has been grief, and for others, disbelief.

There have been a few outstanding winners, like the beleaguered town of Goulburn which, from an early time, had pioneered water restrictions, now a national leader in water-saving technologies and water management regimes. It offers advice not just to metropolitan councils and state governments, but to overseas buyers too, anxious to stop the spreading deserts and empty dams.

The collapse of oil has especially hurt Australia. It's meant that agriculture can no longer rely on expensive fertilisers, nor send produce great distances. We've started to grow and eat local, turning to the labour intensive practices of organic and biodynamic farming. This became a blessing in disguise, for a number of reasons. Firstly, these types of farming saw an easing of the saltification, acidification and desertification of marginal lands. Secondly, many environmental refugees from the Pacific Islands, and a long coastline of the Indian subcontinent, their homes drowned by the rising waters caused by climate warming, were now welcomed in Australia for their contribution as a labour force on farms. If our human rights record was still questionable, at least this time we could see self interest apply.

The switch from agro-industry has also mirrored a flowering of a diversified New Health system, based on disease prevention, good food as first medicine, and teaching hospitals where Bach Flower diagnosis, movement therapy, garden therapy and service learning dovetail with our technological achievements.

Few ordinary Australians travel overseas now. Avgas became almost unavailable from 2010 on. Nowadays, the adventurous join the 21st century sailing boats that still take some minerals northwards. But compared to the heyday of budget travelling, we can only think globally, not travel there.

But wait! There's another pop-up. Dang machine. An alternative future. I thought this was going to be only one. Something wrong with the random generator here. This pop-up says each capital city from the original states has a quota of five nuclear power stations. Only half were built, three were shut down within a year because of technical defects in the much vaunted, but untested, Generation Four design. The good news is that synrock may actually be an answer to our nuclear waste problem, perhaps by 2070 (and still counting from the first promise made in 1979), and while we're confirming that, nuclear waste continues to be stored under militarised control. Roxby Downs continued to pump out one hundred million litres of water per day for uranium mining, without charge to the company, until the Great Artesian Basin dried up.

ah, another pop-up. Nothing, after all, is certain. The future is in our hands. Get ready for the changes ahead. They're going to be a doozy. But oh, what a tale we will have our grandchildren: how the world will be saved. Not with a bang, but by community effort, the goddess of small things done with love, and determination unrivalled.

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