Noah’s Ark II: A Story of Earth's Destruction and Rebirth: A Terrifying Science Fiction Novel

By Zvee Gilead

It is the year 2022 and our planet’s climate is the worst in recorded climatological history. Greenhouse gases have already caused and continue to cause disasters that are destroying our earth. Something needs urgently to be done to stop the destructive downward spiral that humanity had created by abusing the planet for centuries. Bill Just, a world-renowned philanthropic tycoon, is the co-founder of a new nonprofit organization developed to wage war against greenhouse gases. Together with his partner Walt Beaufort and the organization’s scientists, he develops six radical plans to be implemented consecutively, hopefully ensuring the eradication of the gases from our troposphere. The plans slowly unfold but fail. Now, all that remained for the organization’s personnel was to devise a new Noah’s Ark, Noah’s Ark II, to save at least some fugitives from the destruction and eventually start from this nucleus a new humanity after the passing of the destruction.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Dec 21, 2018
• ISBN: 9781483493749

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Noah’s Ark II:

A Story of Earth’s Destruction and Rebirth

A Terrifying Science Fiction Novel

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Noah’s Ark, a painting by Edward Hicks (American Quaker, 1780–1849)

ZVEE GILEAD

Copyright © 2018 Zvee Gilead.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-9844-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-9374-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018913095

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Cover painting: Noah’s Ark by Edward Hicks (American painter, 1780-1949)

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 02/18/2019

To Ilan Goldhirsh, my lyricist brother, who wished only the best to all humanity

PREFACE

N owadays, most of us—and not only Englishmen—often talk about the weather and our climate. We sit at night in front of our TV sets, and various climatologists and environmental experts tell us that our planet is rapidly heating up and drying up because of the effect of the anthropogenic (man-made) greenhouse gases. They say that these gases are responsible for the current calamities that our planet is heaping on us—tornadoes, tsunamis, earthquakes, and much more. Moreover, they claim these calamities are but an introduction to two imminent and much worse catastrophes:

1. Our planet’s supplies of drinking water are rapidly dwindling because of a very dangerous decrease in rainfall. As a result, we are suffering from droughts, which also seriously damage food production.

2. Glaciers and snow around the globe are melting and are raising the levels of the oceans. Several coastal cities have been flooded, and it is quite possible that additional cities will soon follow.

We listen to these warnings from the climatologists with trepidation, but we leave the fight against the culprit—greenhouse gases—to our heads of state. They signed at least two treaties against the world’s gas pollution but implemented them very feebly, if at all. If they fail their duty to the world, what can we, ordinary citizens, do to ward off the danger? We shrug our shoulders hopelessly, nervously chew our fingernails, and continue with our mundane lives.

As a retired biologist, I fear for the fate of my children and grandchildren, and I could not remain idle. I decided to join the fight against greenhouse gases to the best of my ability, however small it may be. I planned to write an extremely terrifying science fiction novel that would scare my readers and cause them to join the protest marches against the irresponsible neglect by our politicians. Short of mutiny against our current leaders, we can only reduce our own gas emissions, demonstrate, and march!

But in the middle of my writing, I began to waver. Are the climatologists’ predictions of our planet’s future demise accurate? Perhaps they are they just fake warnings, as President Trump claims. During research for my novel, I read an assessment report on our climate by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a scientific and intergovernmental body under the auspices of the United Nations. This panel stated that satellite and sea level gauges on some islands in the Pacific Ocean do indeed show a rise in sea levels. Fortunately, the report said, this rise is small and does not exceed the regular up-and-down swing of the heights measured in recent years. This report did a lot to alleviate my fears for the future of my descendants and made me stop my writing.

In spite of that reassuring report, I continued with my internet search. Regrettably, I found a worrying article in the December 2017 issue of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the US Department of Commerce. This article stated that global sea levels have been rising over the past century and that the rate of rising had increased in recent decades. In 2014, for instance, the global sea level was 2.6 inches above the 1993 average. Moreover, the article stated, sea levels continue to rise at a rate of about of an inch per year.

In addition, I read a National Geographic report, issued at the end of December 2017, that stated the following: Tide gauge readings and satellite measurements tell us that over the past century, the Global Mean Sea Level had risen by 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters). Moreover, the annual rate of rising over the past 20 years has been 0.53 inches per year, roughly twice the average speed of the preceding 80 years.

True, the rises in sea levels described above appear to be trivial, but I continued my studies further and saw a series of articles that appeared in the Washington Post. These articles cited new scientific evidence that proved that the melting of the glaciers is accelerating faster than scientists previously thought. This dire prediction was not without support. It was followed by similar warnings that appeared in several additional newspapers and climatology journals.

As a result, I decided to complete the writing of my scary sci-fi novel and to publish it, in the hope that it might persuade readers to join the millions who are now demonstrating against the gas pollution. Here is my novel before you in its terrifying glory.

BOOK 1

Battle Plans

CHAPTER 1

Establishment of the Noah’s Ark Organization and the Enlistment of Volunteering Tycoons to Help the Climate’s Victims

J ohn Roberts, a lean, bearded, bald, and handsome forty-year-old man, the spokesman of the new Noah’s Ark Organization, sat in front of his computer. He leaned back and rubbed his tired red eyes but smiled in spite of his exhaustion. He was extremely proud of the work that he had finished after twenty-four hours of feverish writing. His ashtray was full of cigarette stubs, and his garbage can contained eight empty coffee cups that he had drawn from the coffee machine in his office. He’d written speeches for Bill Just and Walt Beaufort, the cochairmen of Noah’s Ark. They would present these speeches in an important fundraising meeting they had initiated. His two bosses were famous because of their previous philanthropic enterprises, and they intended now to start a new enterprise: a fight against greenhouse gases. The name of their new organization was meant to imply fear of a possibly imminent flood, similar to the one that Noah faced in the Old Testament story.

Another task that Roberts had completed in the preceding two weeks was also successful. He had contacted many of the world’s wealthiest tycoons and invited them to a Noah’s Ark fundraising meeting. Most of those tycoons had agreed to participate. While they were envious of Bill Just and Walt Beaufort for their financial successes, they also respected them for their philanthropic work. Most of them realized that Just and Beaufort had planned to enlist their support in an effort to help the victims of climate change. Not all the invited tycoons were selfless enough to help these victims through their own initiative, but their own businesses suffered from the climate’s effects because of a grave reduction in the sales of their products. Therefore, they agreed to participate in the meeting and were ready to do their share of relief work.

The meeting was to take place via simultaneous telepresence with multifaceted Skype screens that recently had been developed by a Japanese company. Before the start of the conference, the screens were quickly installed in the offices of the participating tycoons. Because of different time zones, some of the tycoons had to stay awake at night for the meeting.

At the prearranged time, all screens