James W. Kunetka

7.8 billion population in 2020
Nature's end is a book that almost reads like a nonfiction. I found myself looking up places on Google maps, when speaking about a fire in the Santa Monica mountains. Supposedly it takes place in 2035, when the population is at 7 billion. John Sinclair is a journalist who has developed a program called Delta doctor. Given enough data, it becomes so like the person that is being convicted, that anyone can ask questions of it, and it will tell the truth.
For example, Gupta Singh is the leader of a movement of Depopulationists -- a movement that wants to kill one third of the Earth's population.
At a time to be set, every single person on the planet will take a pill. nobody supposedly will know who has the placebo and who has the poison. In this way, they hope the Earth will be saved.
They already have members in congress, who have introduced the bill to implement the Depopulation Manifesto. Now that John SinClair is building a conviction against him, Gupta Singh is taking steps to kill him.

Hardback 1986
P.31:
"historically, the passivity that now freezes mankind existed in a milder form back in the last century, when the terrible significance of things like pollution pathways and atmospheric degradation was unrealized. in those days effective action would have been cheap compared to what we must pay now. but there were still trees in 1950, and sunny days in 1990, and it was easy to pretend that the future would never really arrive.
now that the death of the earth is far advanced, we are really in a panic. just like Bell says, we are Frozen with fear – we've gone passive."

John and his family travel to Calcutta, to interview Dr singh, one of the first steps in building a conviction against him. Dr Singh dare not deny him.
P.42:
"most of the passengers went on electrosleep, but I was afraid to because it might upset something in my gerontology program. when you're 72 you think very carefully about doing things that aren't on your list. for all I knew, the electrosleep process might cause my free radical suppressors to neutralize. Then I'd age, possibly years, in an hour. I look 45, and I want to stay that way. Agedness disgusts me, frankly. . ."
"sometimes, as youthful and strong as I am, I feel that I have become separated from my own self. I am a young body, a vital mind, but deep in me, in the places I don't usually go, there is a shadowy old man, confused, meeting the world with the same dim eyes as the tavway attendant."

Dr. Singh:
P.55:
"even compulsory birth control has not been an effective means of solving the problem. Although the planetary population is now stable and shows signs of a slight decline, the presence of over 7 billion human beings on Earth is simply too much, and there is not enough time for natural attrition to save the situation period with natural attrition alone, the needed reduction of 1/3 will not be accomplished until 2077, far too late."

Furious with John sinclair, Gupta singh carries out a vicious attack against john. John and his wife are registered in a gerontology corporation, which controls their aging. Gupta Singh wipes out John's account in their database, so when John goes in for his next anti-aging appointment, he is refused treatment. Frantic at the thought of aging, he goes to an independent gerontologist for a consultation . The news is not good.
P.118:
" 'you'll age at first. rapidly. I think you'd go down to maybe a 5-year spread before you stabled out. I'd expect a good gerontologist could hold you to about 65 or so.'
He was saying that I was going to age 20 years. 'how long will it take?'
'that's the problem. because your clinical age is so great the bioclock will be very aggressive. We'll be dealing with all kinds of problems. Mainly oxidation and high production of aging factor. At least you're not cancer suppressed.'
'at least.'
it was only then, as I heard those acid words come out of my own mouth, that the full impact of my problem hit me. I slapped my AmEx card down on his reader and got out of there. My heart was pounding, tears were blurring my vision and all of a sudden I was running down Sunset, past elegant clothing shops and expensive mood mixing boutiques I was totally unprepared to cope with old age, and coming so damn fast!
I thought of the people I saw in Calcutta – bent legs, sunken eyes, withered skin, shaking, claw-like hands, white hair. I was confused, frightened,...."

The Delta doctor now has enough data to answer some of John's questions of Gupta singh.
P.218:
"...'man is not easy to love. as a doctor, I have an interest in the body of man. But man's great obligation has been to live in harmony with the planet. Everything is in disharmony. sometimes I think that the life of a gopher is worth more than that of a saint, so rare have animals become, and so common are saints, at least in the streets of calcutta! Man has not evolved properly, and cannot do so. Look at the effects of intelligence enhancement. those children are terrifying. they're dangerous and they cannot be controlled. They are what the species itself will become in another 200,000 years, and they are hideous failures.'
– does it matter if the species is destroyed?
'the species, the species. I am tired of hearing that word. no, it does not matter. The species is a failure. the danger is not that the species will be destroyed, but that it won't. we have the Depopulation – we at the highest levels – know that, added to natural attrition, our program will trigger Extinction. we welcome this. before God and nature, it is very much needed and even overdue.'
– what makes you despise mankind?
'human beings in their natural state are simply machines that process valuable Earth resources. The world is driving me mad, it is so jammed with pointless, aimless people. Why should the whole planet be destroyed just so these idiotic lives can be lived out?' "

Imagine that this book was published in 1985. Here we are in 2020, and wildfire events are out of control, hurricanes are at the highest velocity that has ever been recorded. The Arctic and the Antarctic are melting at fantastic rates. And yet, do we see our government doing anything about it? Do we see human beings themselves demanding change, demanding protection of the only planet we have? No. People go on dumbly, even electing Joe biden, thinking that he's going to be their savior. capitalism is out of control--it's eating up our planet. people continue to pop out babies like we have a healthy planet to live on . Like there won't be water wars within 10 years. Like there will be air to breathe. JFC.… (altro)

As a child of the 1980s, I remember well just how dark the shadow of nuclear war cast upon us. With billions of dollars being spent on “survivable” nuclear weapons systems and Ronald Reagan joking over an open mic about launching a first strike against the Soviet Union, it seemed as though nuclear war was not a question of “if” but “when”. This feeling was reinforced by the response of numerous writers and filmmakers, who flooded the decade with novels such as Doomsday Plus Twelve and The Postman, movies such as Testament and Miracle Mile, and television shows such as The Day After and Threads, all of which conveyed the horrors of such a conflict and the miseries that its survivors would suffer.

Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka’s book was one of the most successful of this genre. Set in 1993, it is a fictional travelogue of the two authors journeying across the United States five years after a “limited” nuclear war (the “Warday” of the book’s title) triggered by the deployment of a space-based anti-missile system decimates the United States. Electronics throughout North America are destroyed by a massive EMP attack that cripples the economy, Washington D.C. and San Antonio are annihilated, New York City suffers a near miss, and large portions of the Great Plains are irradiated by strikes on missile silos. Much of this is related through the recollections of the characters in the novel (some of whom are fictionalized versions of the authors’ friends), and through documents they collect on their travels.

As the two discover on their journey, the nation is falling apart. Millions of Americans aspire to relocate elsewhere. The British and the Japanese assume an increasingly dominant presence in much of the country. In west Texas, secessionists establish a Hispanic-majority nation of “Aztlan,” which the rest of the state is marshaling forces to attack. The West Coast, which was spared the worst effects of the war, is an exclusionary region that is slowly moving towards independence. The Midwest suffers from recurrent fallout caused by weather stirring up irradiated soil from further west, hobbling efforts to rebuild the economy.

Reading this as a teenager, the future prophesized for a “survivable” nuclear war was a grim one. Re-reading it years later, the grimness is still very much apparent, even amidst the undertone of determination and glimmers of hope that the authors inject in the narrative. Much of this is due to the effectiveness of their approach, as by imagining themselves as part of the story they infuse the book with an extra sense of personal suffering, of the exhaustion of living through an imperfect recovery and sadness over what has been lost. While readers today can enjoy the book with a sense of gratitude that no version of the future they envisioned ever came to pass, the book nonetheless serves as an effective artifact from a time when a sense of imminent destruction felt omnipresent and the future horrifyingly bleak.… (altro)

I finally got through the post-nuclear novel WARDAY. Supposedly, it was quite controversial when it was published. Some parts are graphic, horrifying. What were you expecting?
There were graphs and charts pertaining to megaton yields and casualties within X miles of ground zero for each affected US region. I found those to be a distraction, those numbers have no point of reference for me.
The protagonists were two men out to write a book about warday, as they call it, interviewing people Studs Terkel style. These interviews were the best parts and held my interest.

I guess I will stop whining about having to wear a mask now.… (altro)