I’ve always wanted to write a book. Ever since I can
remember I was writing short stories or poetry. In my younger years I began a
few attempts at scrawling novels only to get about 20 pages in and watch the
flame slowly dwindle. The passion I felt at the beginning of the book when I
had a vision of the entire story would simply disappear. It was frustrating. I
figured it out eventually, I didn’t have patience. My mind would drift off to
other projects.
My life rolled along and many other ventures would ensue,
but that longing to write a novel would persist, always there at the back of my
mind. And finally, at the age of 42, I found the passion within to finish
writing my first book. The entire episode in my life took nearly two years, a
mammoth project indeed.
There was only one problem. It certainly isn't the type of
book I ever expected to write, and I mean that on so many levels. For one,
climate change was the last thing on my mind until two years ago when I was
doing some research on what was causing some loud booms in Clintonville, Wis.,
a town just down the road from me. I found the Jumping Jack Flash Hypothesis, a
scary idea that methane and hydrogen sulfide gases were pluming into the
atmosphere and causing unexplained explosions and mysterious fires all over the
planet.
That scary notion is what leads to the second reason why it
wasn’t the type of book I expected to write.
I wish so badly that it was on a different topic, a much more pleasant
and inspiring topic. I wish it was on a topic that would bring smiles to people’s
faces. But, unfortunately, that isn’t the case here. My first book became a
massive project delivering an important message that we, mankind, may be on the
cusp of an extinction level event.
Fever Rising is a book about the dangerous gases, methane
and hydrogen sulfide, and how they are pluming into the atmosphere from many
sources all over the planet, and these levels of gases are increasing as we
speak. Methane gas is creating a blanket over the planet, trapping in the sun’s
heat at 25 times more potency than carbon dioxide.
While discussing my book, I was asked today by a mother of a
young daughter what I thought about the future for her child. It was a sobering
question, but not something I haven’t put many hours of thought into myself.
You see, my wife and I have been together for over 20 years but it was just
five years ago that we started adding little rug rats to the household. We have
three children now and are expecting a fourth next month. So, yes, my biggest
concern about the future isn't myself, but for my children and what
will happen to them.
Knowing what I know now after two years of research, do I
hold any hope at all for them? Absolutely, I hold hope that mankind can and
will survive, and my children will definitely be among them. That is one of the
reasons why I so diligently study this theory. Will life change as we know it
if the gases continue to rise at the levels they are? Yes, I believe it will
and there is a great chance that humans won’t survive it at all. But, I believe
some will survive.
I believe we can all survive if we’d just come together and
stop arguing about carbon taxes, or who is to blame, and focus our energies on
massive mitigation efforts that our governments and corporations can undertake.
A worldwide collaborative effort is now the only way that we could possibly
stop what may already be a runaway freight train.
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