March 20, 2087. Elliott Lake, New Canada.

The attached manuscript is an autobiographical sketch of the first half of the life of an actual person, Francis McGhee. Mr. McGhee wrote starting in 2014 and continued for about 10 years. The descriptions up to the year 2015 mostly match the real-life events that McGhee experienced. But by the year 2015 McGhee had become severely depressed, apparently due to the unfolding effects of climate change. Then his psychopathology took a significant turn toward delusion and fantasy, whereby McGhee imagined a world unaffected by climate change, in which he had an increasingly happy and satisfied existence.

For example, the character Kate corresponds to an actual individual with whom McGhee lived for 6 years starting in 1988. McGhee's meeting with her in 2004 in France is almost surely fictional, but his meeting with her in 2030 is obviously impossible, since McGhee himself died in 2028 during the terrible fire storm that engulfed the whole San Francisco area. The book proceeds happily toward a world in 2050 that is little changed from the one McGhee knew.

Of course the world-wide economic collapse took place in 2041, and this along with the inexorable and merciless climate changes led to the catastrophic conditions that created our modern broken environment. At the time of this writing (2087), approximately 70 million people are alive, mostly gathered in the upper northern latitudes. Conditions have been improving steadily for several years, and there is hope for a renewal of civilization.

George A. Andrews, Member, Provisional Council, Upper Lake Superior Area