What ARE the Odds?

WARNING: Book spoiler alert
I have to admit that I am a fairly pessimistic person. Not necessarily a "glass half empty" person, rather an expect the worst type of person. And I will admit that this class on climate change has not helped this aspect of my personality. As I have become more aware of the state of our climate and the vulnerable position that it is in, I have also become increasingly negative about the eventual outcome of it as well. I picture a dystopian world, something like the movie "The Day After Tomorrow". As Professor Allen put it, a sort of climate change apocalypse. But I have always wondered what is the possibility that we will be affected by these types of disasters due to climate change? (I found a study done that judges the accuracy and actual possibility of  "The Day After Tomorrow" of actually occurring introduced in Science Daily).

Odds Against Tomorrow by Nathaniel Rich is only fueling my curiosity about the actual statistical probability that we will encounter the events that have been predicted by climate scientists. The main character, Mitchell, is some type of mathematical genius, or just greatly obsessed with the future and crazy events that could occur. He preforms these insane calculations of the probability that worst-case scenarios will actually occur. The thing that bothers me about Mitchell's situation is that he is hired by a big name company trying to save their asses and assets if a scenario like Mitchell predicts actually does occur. They aren't worried about their employee's and the safety of them, rather they are worried about the financial aspect of big disasters. This reminds me of certain companies trying to escape responsibilities and problems that they have created nowadays in order to stay rich (cigarette companies, oil companies, etc.). They don't care about the affect that their actions-- or inaction in this case-- have on others.

From what I assume. these crazy disasters are becoming very common in the future world that Mitchell lives in. More earthquakes and mega-storms, more damage and assets to be liable for. And the scary thing is, I feel like this future is not so far fetched. While Odds Against Tomorrow is a fiction novel, it has some very real feeling to it. This may be something that we see in 40 or 50 years, 60 if we're lucky. Granted, the novel has not come out and said that the catastrophic events that Mitchell is calculating for are directly caused by climate change, but I don't doubt it. The world that Mitchell lives in could very well be our own.

Edited to Add:
As the novel progresses, the capitalization of disasters grows and becomes something that all companies need, alongside their insurance plans and 401K payouts. FutureWorld is the future of business. Mitchell warns his clients of the imminent disasters that could strike at any moment and crush their empires and advises how to protect themselves against anything that has a minuscule chance of happening. That is, until something actually does. Hurricane Patricia (which closely resembles Hurricane Sandy that hit NYC in 2012) advances on New York City. After some research I discovered that Nathaniel Rich had been working on Odds Against Tomorrow for 5 years PRIOR to Hurricane Sandy. He actually had to go back through the book as it was being prepared to be published and edit details about Sandy into it. The rains are welcomed at first by the drought-ridden city, that is until they become stronger and don't stop. Mitchell becomes trapped in the city by one of his own disaster scenarios.

I will ruin a little of the book by saying that Mitchell and his co-worker Jane do escape the city (by a twenty thousand dollar art piece that Mitchell purchases on a whim, nonetheless). Mitchell and Jane  escape the effects of the storm, but others are not so lucky. I'm not just talking about the 15 feet of water that turned the city into modern day Venice and littered the city with floating corpses and "floatsams". I'm also talking about the monsters that the people of the city and surrounding areas became. Natural disasters set something crazy off in people. They revert to their animalistic roots. They become selfish and greedy. After all, they're working to survive and preserve themselves. Although this is a fictional piece, I am worried that this is the future that we face as the world becomes more riddled with disasters due to climate change. There is something eerie how about how wild and savage people become when there are no boundaries, no feelings of the everyday life that they are so accustomed to. Mitchell does what I have been so temped to do lately as I have learned about the future that this planet potentially faces as we deal with the effects of climate change. He walks away from it all. He starts over.

To me, this seems like the underlying reason for natural disasters. They are a chance for a fresh start. A chance to do it differently. Maybe it's the Earths way of giving us a second chance, a way of wiping the slate clean. Either that, or the Earth is punishing us for all of the damage that we have done. Destroying what we have built and lived to teach us a lesson. A lesson that we obviously aren't learning very well.