Globe Facts - The Sky is Falling Alex Bozikovic Illustration for The Globe and Mail by Neal CresswellNEAL CRESSWELL/The Globe and Mail
Facts & Arguments is a daily personal piece submitted by readers. Have a story to tell? See our guidelines at tgam.ca/essayguide.
In slow single file, we tramped up the steep incline, our boots squeaking in the snow. At the summit we halted and stood catching our breath – I, a 79-year-old man, Darcy, my eight-year-old grandson, and Brandy, my four-year-old granddaughter.
"Grandpa, look!" Darcy shrilled, pointing to a spot a short distance ahead. "A dead bird!"
Brandy ran a few paces and sank to her knees. "A-a-a-h-h-h," she said, reaching toward the bird but not touching it. "The poor thing."
I took off my gloves and pocketed them, walked over and picked up the bird. "Blue jay," I said. I turned the stiff little body this way and that, probed gently between its feathers with the tip of a finger, and found no injury. I shook my head. "Can't say what killed it, though."
Brandy had been standing on tiptoe, closely inspecting the bird in my cupped hand. "O-o-o-h-h, it's … so blue, so beautiful," she breathed softly.
Suddenly she frowned and looked up at me. "Grandpa? Betcha I know what killed it." She pointed a mittened finger overhead. "The glass, breaking and falling." And she nodded, pressing her lips firmly together.
"GLASS!" I exclaimed. "What glass?"
Again she pointed overhead. "From the greenhouse fact. Up in the sky," she said, with the absolute certainty of the very young.
Darcy, hooting with laughter, did a complete spin around then collapsed onto the snow. "The greenhouse fact," he guffawed.
I finished smoothing the bird's feathers, slid it into a side pocket of my parka, then bent down to Brandy. "Not, the greenhouse fact. The greenhouse e-ffect," I said, enunciating the words
slowly. "E-e-e-FFECT – something caused by other things."
I straightened, took her hand and made a half turn as though to continue our walk. Darcy jumped to his feet and pointed into the distance. "See? Those are greenhouses! Not in the sky, you dummy!"
Half a mile away, a row of glass roofs flashed orange fire under the noonday sun. Brandy glanced at them, then gave my hand an impatient tug. "Grandpa? Then what's it made of?" She pointed at the sky. "The big greenhouse! Up there."
"Well, it's not glass, that's for sure. But you're sort of on the right track." I pursed my lips, frowning, then: "Okay. Yes, it is a greenhouse, but a different kind of greenhouse. Made of gas, not glass."
I took Brandy's other hand. Solemnly, she looked up at me. "You know what a gas is?" I asked her.
Darcy had been listening intently. "I KNOW!" he shouted. "It's what you put in cars to make them go." And he made r-r-r-m-m-m sounds as he sliced a hand back and forth through the air.
I shook my head. "Well, that – yes. But I'm thinking of a different kind of gas. You know, air is a gas. Though you can't see it, it's all around us. Without it we couldn't breathe, couldn't live. Nothing could live. Not the trees, the birds, the animals, not you two, and not me. But sometimes the air gets too full of the wrong things."
"Like smoke?" asked Darcy.
"Yes. Like smoke, from chimneys and from cars and big trucks. And other substances, with fancy names like carbon dioxide, methane, chlorofluorocarbons. Oh, all sorts of things. Thousands of things."
"ZILLIONS and ZILLIONS, I bet!" cried Darcy.
I placed a hand on each small head and turned the children
so they faced the distant greenhouses.
"Why do we have greenhouses?" I asked them.
"That's easy!" exclaimed Darcy. "So the flowers and stuff will stay warm."
"Exactly. To keep the flowers warm. But what if the heat gets turned up too high and they get too warm?"
"They'll DIE-IE-IE!" the children chorused triumphantly.
"Yep, they'll die. Now, as to this greenhouse effect," I said, slowly raising both arms and curving them to make a rough circle overhead, "think of that sky up there as a bi-i-i-g blue bubble. And whatever it is that the bubble is made of is getting thicker, like … like … it's got too many clothes on. What happens then?"
"It gets too hot under it," Darcy said.
"Yes. Now, what we all must do, all the people in the world, to stop the air getting hotter is to put less smoke and fewer chemicals into the sky."
"Pollution!" said Darcy, frowning fiercely.
Brandy was staring solemnly up at me. "Grandpa?" she asked in a half whisper. "If it gets too hot, am I going to die – like the blue jay?"
I mock-frowned down at her. "Ye-e-e-s, you certainly are," I said, putting a growl into my voice. Then I grabbed her and swung her up in my arms. "But not till you are an old, old lady with white hair – and WRINKLES!" And I squeezed her giggling little body in a fierce bear hug.
"Grandpa!" she squealed in mock terror.
Darcy laughed and laughed, the sound tinkling on the cold air like china bells.
I took his hand. "All right!" I said. "Lunchtime. And Nanna! My heavens, she'll be wondering where on earth we've got to."
Hugging tight the little girl, hand in hand with the small boy, I headed back down the slope.
Derek C. Askey lives in Vineland, Ont.