In my younger and more impressionable years, the world was ripe with climate messaging. Politicians warned us that the world was ending. Actors preached the end of days from global warming.

They were sycophantic preachers, their mega yachts were their cathedrals.

Those people, all having the best of intentions, thought they were saving the world one paper straw at a time.

But peaceful Michigan summers, once adored for their New England-like gentle warmth and beach memories, have become a Ryan Gosling film.

And I am not talking about Barbie or The Notebook.

Since 2001, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has detected that 9.1% of days at the Pontiac Station reached or exceeded 80 degrees Fahrenheit.

Narrowing the figure down to 2020, 9.6% of the days have done the same. Even after accounting for the cooled but ashy outlier of 2023. That’s about two extra humid hot days every year.

The trend is only pointing up.

A few days this year, Detroit has been covered by the dirtiest air on Earth. The sapphire sky lies hidden behind the ashes of Ontario.

Homes, particularly in Indigenous Canadian communities, have been ravaged by uncontrollable fires. And the only relevant conversation that our politicians seem immediately interested in having is how the Canadians are not doing enough.

It is likely true that recent budget cuts to Ontario fire services are proving unwise.

But two things can be true at the same time.

Maybe no one is doing enough.

While more of North America is turning into kindling each year, it seems incomplete to stop with Canada. Several U.S. states seem to have recurrent issues with fire.

The state of California, being an inferno, has been a punchline a lot longer than Ontario, methinks.

Not to mention the excess mortality from heat alone. No blaze required.

But everyone seems distracted.

Doesn’t it all seem kind of monochrome?

Blade Runner, Cyberpunk, Neuromancer. Bleak worlds dominated by grey, interspersed with neon pleasures.

Fans often point out the obvious similarities between Cyberpunk-style fiction and the real world. Fandoms miss one key point, however.

Cyberpunk fiction is post-apocalyptic.

The bullet train from modern cities to Night City is typically wrought with climate catastrophe, resource wars, pandemics (natural and manmade) and economic calamity. Civilians are too immersed in digital utopias, distractions as opiates from a bleak reality. None of that is making the parallel any more reassuring.

The only reassurance to be found, in a sense, is that we are not Neo or V, or even Ryan Gosling with Ana de Armas living in our pocket.

For now, we as individuals can still say enough.

To vote — both democratically and with our wallets — to enact sensible climate policy that can make our children’s skies a little bluer.

We need to make their skylines soften the Kafkaesque dread.

Plus, there is an almost zero chance that OpenAI or Palantir are cool enough to make the fun parts of the dystopia, like space casinos or cyber-samurais, anything more than the electric sheep robots dream of.

Just the drugs, gambling and smog.