“Don’t worry about it. I’m sure it’s nothing.”
The very first words of the novel come from the young daughter of Lars, Akira Kristiansen, in which she calls for her dad to take a look at the wildfire she spots by the tell-tale clue of smoke rising above the trees in a valley situated near her home. Admittedly, telling someone to look at a wildfire seems like one of those things deserving of a snarky comeback because a wildfire is such an obvious thing that it rarely needs to be pointed out. But that’s the whole point of opening the book with this scene. Her father’s response can be taken—at the moment—as just the kind of thing that most fathers would say out of a desire to not reveal their own increasing anxiety. In the case of Lars, however, his dismissive attitude toward a wildfire is a projection of his socio-political ideology. He has long frustrated Akira with his denial of climate change. So, it can be said Akira is more than aware that she may need to point out the obvious to her father since he may not otherwise see it coming.
“The Big One. The giant, mythical hurricane that would destroy the entire southeast coast of Florida.”
The narrator is penetrating into the mind of Natalie Martinez. Natalie lives far away from Akira and knows nothing of her climate-related disaster concerns. Wildfires do occasionally occur in Florida, but not generally anywhere near Miami, where Natalie lives. Like every other part of the state, the weather disaster everybody knows is coming someday is the hurricane. What brings Akira and Natalie—as well as two other young characters—together in this story is not long-distance friendships, but the long-distance effects of climate change. The intense focus of the story is on the effects of man-made impact on the climate that extends far beyond mere temperature increase. Though that, as the title suggests, is an essential element. Akira’s battle against the changes which have made the fire more threatening is juxtaposed with Natalie’s story of changes that increased the ferocity of hurricanes. Climate change is testing the limits of what was thought to be a mere myth.
“That’s a hell of a thing, isn’t it? How bad is it when you’re hoping global warming will save your dad’s life.”
George is talking to Owen, who is his best friend. Their confrontation with the effects of climate change is more shocking than the others. One day they head out for a snowmobile ride only to come across the quite unexpected sight of a polar bear. A polar bear in a location where a polar bear should not be. And it is neither happy to be there nor to see them. The effect of their story is to illuminate how the impact of climate change is not just more severe wildfires and more Category 4 & 5 hurricanes. Rising temperatures impact the water first. George’s optimistic response is to Owen’s suggestion that the melting of the idea may ultimately cause the Northwest Passage to open for business, creating an economic boom in Canada spurred by an increase in the shipping of goods to Russia. The use of the word “bad” in this quote is especially interesting because it could be interpreted in more than one sense. George could be asking whether it makes him a bad person for suggesting there is an upside to the downside of climate change. Or perhaps he is commenting on how the downside has already gotten so bad that one is just desperately hoping there might be an upside. Of course, he could always mean it both ways.
