The Far Dawn (31 page)

 

1. Sea Level Rise:
If all the ice in the world melted, it would raise the ocean level about two hundred feet. Even the most worried scientists don't think the Antarctic ice will melt anytime soon. But the Arctic ice and Greenland ice could definitely melt (and they have in
The Lost Code
). This would raise the sea level by about twenty feet. Doesn't sound like that much, but it's enough, when combined with severe storms, to wreak havoc on, if not ruin, the major coastal cities. And that's not all: over two hundred million people live along the world's coasts, and nearly 45 percent of the
world's
population live within about sixty miles of the coast. So think about what would happen if all these people needed to move . . . where would they go? The problem starts to get scary, especially if it happens faster than humans can respond with new places to live.

2. Desertification:
The second huge problem with the planet warming is that warmer air can hold more water vapor (that's why it feels so humid in the summer). The warmer it gets, the more water will stay in the atmosphere, and the more places will dry out and become deserts. This is already happening in much of the southwest of the United States. So not only would there be fewer places to live because of ocean rise, there would be fewer places to live because large areas are becoming deserts. And because rain has to fall somewhere, other areas are becoming tropics with dangerous monsoon and hurricane seasons, soil too wet to farm, not to mention new strains of disease.

3. Ozone Depletion:
Not directly related to global warming (but related to humans' effect on the environment) the ozone layer is decreasing steadily over time. This is the part of the atmosphere that protects us from harmful sun rays like
UVB
, which you will see mentioned these days on sunscreen bottles. In
The Lost Code
, the ozone has been depleted so badly that being in the sun is dangerous, which is why everyone wears No Rad lotion.

4. Pandemics:
So, if all these people have nowhere to live, things are going to get pretty crowded. And places with bad health conditions, like in refugee camps and crowded slums, are prime breeding grounds for diseases. In
The Dark Shore
, we learn that there have been at least six major pandemics, which are outbreaks of diseases that affect the whole world.

NOTE: Those last few paragraphs are pretty scary! So I just want to remind you: it's super unlikely that all these things will happen at once or that fast. This is a FICTIONAL world. So don't panic, but also learn what you can do to help keep our world safe for our future.

 

QUESTION #3:

In
The Dark Shore
, much of the action later in the book revolves around the idea of the cryos, which is short for
cryogenics
. Is this idea based in FACT or FANTASY?

ANSWER: This idea is based in FACT, and is one of the big ideas for how we might send humans out across space someday, but scientists have yet to successfully use cryogenics to freeze and reanimate a human (that process would technically be called
cryopreservation
). There are places where you can have your body (or just your head!) frozen, but those companies aren't entirely sure how to unfreeze you yet!

The biggest danger from freezing living tissue is the damage done when ice crystals form. Much of the research around cryopreservation involves finding chemicals that can be used to allow freezing without ice, but that also won't poison the tissue. So far, scientists have frozen things like human eggs, semen, embryos, and plant tissues.

Did you know there are animals in the world that successfully freeze and unfreeze during the winter? This is called
freeze tolerance.
There are a few amphibians, reptiles and single celled organisms that can do this. They pull this off by replacing the water in their cells with sugar.

 

QUESTION #4:

In
The Dark Shore
, we encounter the second
crystal skull
. Are these crystals skulls FACT or FANTASY?

ANSWER: Crystal skulls exist, but their origin and power are definitely FANTASY. The first crystal skull seems to have appeared in the late 1800s and was sold to the British Museum. This was during the age of adventurers looking for lost civilizations. The skull was rumored to be
Mesoamerican
in origin (likely Aztec). The most famous crystal skull is the
Mitchell-Hedges
skull, discovered in the 1940s.

Crystal skulls have been thought to be special talismans, alien in origin, and, you guessed it, relics from ancient Atlantis! In recent decades, these skulls have been examined and tested and determined fairly conclusively to be hoaxes that were created in modern times. All that said, I think they're spooky and cool, and I liked that idea that they could be objects that held Atlantean memory. Plus it would be creepy to find one glowing in a hidden temple!

 

QUESTION #5:

In
The Far Dawn
, Paul says that our ancestors were microbes that traveled by comets, making the case that life on earth came from the stars. Is this idea based in FACT or FANTASY?

ANSWER: This idea is based in FACT, or more accurately, on as-of-yet unproven scientific theory, specifically the theory of
panspermia
or
exogenesis
. Some scientists have theorized that the first building blocks of life on earth, either organic molecules or primitive bacteria, arrived here on meteors or comets from older parts of the universe.

There are theories that the complexity of life may have taken longer than the age of the earth (which is about 4.5 billion years) to develop, while the
age of the universe
may be more like 13.8 billion years. Just based on those numbers, the idea seems possible (and fascinating!) to me, which is why I used it.

 

QUESTION #6:

In
The Far Dawn
, the Paintbrush of the Gods uses fault lines to cause volcanic eruptions that will cool the planet down. Is this idea based in FACT or FANTASY?

ANSWER: This is FANTASY, but again, I was thinking about a few fascinating concepts:

 

1. The Ring of Fire:
The Atlanteans have placed the Paintbrush on a connected series of fault lines that is called the Ring of Fire. If you look at a map of the
tectonic plates
of the earth's crust, you will see this ring extending up along the western side of South America, North America, then around the southern coast of Alaska, and down the eastern coast of Asia. These fault lines are areas of intense geologic activity (usually
subduction zones
). The Ring of Fire has over four hundred volcanoes—that's 75 percent of the active volcanoes in the entire world! If you could somehow set off all or many of those volcanoes at once, you could definitely change the planet. Unfortunately the Ring of Fire is also where 90 percent of the world's largest earthquakes occur, so you'd be likely to cause some other trouble as well (as the Atlanteans did).

2. Terraforming:
Why would the Atlanteans want to make volcanoes erupt? They were trying to change the atmosphere to stop climate change. This was an ancient version of terraforming, which is the concept of altering a planet to make it better suited for life. Right now, scientists are trying to figure out how to terraform Mars, or other destinations in our solar system. Large volcanic eruptions could have the effect of cooling the atmosphere. You can probably guess why: the clouds of volcanic ash would block out the sun. The Atlanteans planned to harness the power of hundreds of volcanoes at once to blanket the earth in a cooling cloud, to stop their cities from flooding. The problem with volcanic eruptions is they can also have the opposite effect: by releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, they can warm the planet. Or, by releasing lots of sulfur dioxide, cause dangerous acid rains. I'm not sure the Atlanteans knew exactly what they were getting themselves into!

3. Holocene Thermal Maximum:
But why were the ancient Atlantean cities flooding? Based on the reading I'd done about Atlantis, from Plato's ideas to newer books, it seemed like the Atlantean civilization would have most likely existed around ten thousand years ago, so roughly 8,000 B.C. This is an important date in the research I did about climate change, known as the Holocene Thermal Maximum. The Holocene is an epoch, or geologic time period, that spans from the last great ice ages until recently. (Some scientists argue that we should call our modern era the start of the
Anthropocene
epoch.) In the middle of the Holocene, there was a period of global warming not unlike ours, called the Holocene Thermal Maximum. During this time, it is theorized that great floods took place that very ancient humans witnessed. It is possible that global warming during this period was the cause of the many
flood myths
that exist in different cultures. This became the foundation idea for the entire Atlanteans trilogy: ancient people fighting against the same thing that we're fighting against now (and will be in the future, like Owen).

 

Thanks for playing FACT OR FANTASY! There are many other possible topics for this game throughout the Atlanteans trilogy. If you ever want to ask me about one, write to me on Facebook, Twitter, or by email: [email protected].

 

And a special thank you to the following teen readers who gave me great feedback on this section: Abby, Samantha, Ethan, Ti'anna, Brendan, Colin, Max, Josh, and Annie. You rock!

EXCERPT FROM
EXILE

Want more fantastic fiction from Kevin Emerson?

Read on for an excerpt from

 

 

Formerly Orchid @catherinefornevr 5m
Former phenom band manager dines on nachos alone, or close enough.
Across town, other life proceeds without her. #pityparty #goingincircles

Just after dinner on the night before the start of senior year, Dad polishes off his guacamole garden burger, looks at me seriously, and asks, “So, now what, then?”

Tonight is also my eighteenth birthday, which means that I've known my dad for six thousand five hundred and seventy days, and so I probably should know that he means this question to sound supportive. Concerned, but supportive.

But my heart races, and all I can hear is
I told you so.

“I don't know, yet,” I reply, shoving the last chunk of burrito into my mouth.

“Honey, it's senior year,” adds Mom, whom I've presumably known for about nine months longer, and who I know means to sound supportive, too. But Mom wears her worry on every word.

“I've heard,” I say around food.

Now what. . . .
Senior year is supposed to be the culmination, the big finale of an epic journey, but given our surroundings, I wonder if I'm going in circles instead.

We sit in a red-vinyl booth, hunched over a linoleum table decorated with a cliché painting of the Mexican desert. Around us blink the jalapeno-shaped lights and other assorted kitsch of La Burrita Feminista. Freshman year, I brought my five closest friends here for a birthday party, complete with poppers and present bags and personal piñatas, but invitations for this year's celebration went only to my parents and my aunt Jeanine. Maybe I'm not just going in circles. Maybe this is actually a downward spiral, like into a black hole.

My parents normally prefer something a little more sanitized than a radical feminist burrito bar, especially when it means driving all the way into Hollywood. And normally I'd prefer not to be spending my birthday with my parents. But I think they sensed that I had no other options, and found it in their hearts to make the effort, even if Dad defiantly ordered a garden burger at a Mexican joint.

Also, Aunt Jeanine loves this place. My parents think it's because she's secretly a lesbian. I'm more inclined to think it's because: a) she knows a good burrito and a fun atmosphere, two things my parents couldn't possibly comprehend, and because b) regardless of her orientation, she knows that men are vermin.

Dessert arrives before my parents' line of questioning can continue. Feminista has this crazy cake that you're supposed to split called the
Orgasmo de Cacao
. Any other night, I'd share one, but anticipation about tomorrow and a series of tweets I've been getting all evening have me wolfing down a whole one myself. Mom and Jeanine are sharing one, and Dad got, for dessert—I kid you not—a side salad.

As we dig in, I read tweets on my phone from all the people over at the Hatch, the best all-ages club in Silver Lake. They're seeing a band called Postcards from Ariel. Tonight's show is their North American tour kickoff. Thirty dates, coast to coast, celebrating the release of their new album,
Dispatch
. Postcards is from my high school. They graduated last year.