April Fool’s Day is one of the premier radio holidays. A while back Katie and I talked about running a version of an award-winner of mine this year on Ozcat. Time passed. We missed the window, but here’s the sketch.
I sifted through the commercials we produced for past presentations and most can still be used. I also produced an hour including news and info to run at 9am and 5pm. The newscast can be pulled to run at noon, probably padded with some new stories.
Any new production is easier if you know how it goes together. Here are links to the 45-minute synopsis of the 14-hour radio presentation from 1987 so you can hear how we played it on the air. Listen to it, then the rest below will make more sense.
Intervention Day 1987 Synopsis Part 1
Intervention Day 1987 Synopsis Part 2
I’ll wait.
…
The difference between Ghost Town Radio and Intervention Day is that Intervention Day never happened in our timeline. It’s 2056, approaching KZCT’s 50th Birthday. We were never saved by the aliens. We didn’t get all that tech. We weren’t saved from our awful past decisions. We’re living the results.
Global warming has devastated us. After the Greenland Ice Sheet collapses of the 2030’s, sea levels—which were already 2 meters higher by then—rose up to 13 meters. There is no North polar ice. Antarctica lost half of its ice shelves and the rest are melting. Coastal cities have all needed to be moved or sea-walled. At least there’s been plenty of work. Wish we’d started sooner.
The glaciers are long gone in the US Rockies. Aquifers were depleted and poisoned. Water is a critical issue. Desalination technology has, of necessity, improved vastly, but we don’t pump it into deserts. Phoenix has had 160 degree days. Like Las Vegas, few live there by choice. The central valleys of California entered that category decades ago. People live around the Inland Bay, what used to be the Delta. It went under at 1 meter of rise. Now it’s a nice sheltered bay mostly about 30 feet deep. The Sacramento Marina is a vast web at the mouth of the Sacramento River, though most of the river water is diverted into the NorVal Water Farms.
Temps in the Bay area run an average of 20 degrees warmer than now. It’s more like Arizona is today. The vegetation is far different. There’s a valiant effort to save the giant redwoods, with air-conditioned domes being considered. Inland it’s hotter. Nothing’s changed there.
Solar energy is free in an environment like this. We all wish there were less of it. We’d kill for a rainy day. Except when El Nino comes. Then it’s too much water, so most of it washes to the Pacific. We’ve spent billions on waterworks to save as much of it as possible.
Our new tech is stuff we’ve invented over time. Hover and antigrav are realities. Personal orbital vehicles are common. Once you get past that you realize pretty quickly just how big space is. The Moon is a weekender, but Mars is pretty far away. If you want to visit Cosmic Worlds, you’ll probably want to book seats on one of the big cruise ships. At least there’s something to do on the way. You probably can’t afford the advertised 2-hour flight.
Here’s the Earthside Newscast for April 1, 2056: