The story of General Patton at the Battle of the Bulge is an excellent example of a story with a message that can be applied to our climate crisis. Our climate crisis is the defining problem for human society in the 21st century. Although the current situation is chaotic, as in this story, several positive paths are now clear enough to allow useful plans for a worldwide effort. One alternative to fear is to build a vision of a viable future through stories. Stories have a long history of being a common tool for building unified societal efforts. The stories that society now needs require both a science-based background and believable characters in effective action on our climate crisis. The elements used to build stories, first the background and then the plot, are called beats. The background beats developed here include sea level rise, no-till farming, population peaking, and technology innovation for the period 2020 to 2100. These beats should enable fiction writers to place stories and characters in a world of action on our climate crisis.
TopIntroductory Story: General Patton And The Battle Of The Bulge
On D-Day during World War II, the Allies landed in Europe on June 6, 1944. By the time winter arrived six months later, and it was a harsh winter, the Allies had pushed Hitler mostly out of France. By that time, General Patton was leading the Third Army in eastern France, pushing toward the German border (Barron, 2014).
Then, on December 16, 1944, all hell broke loose. Hitler had committed all his remaining reserves on the western front into one last drive to the sea, attacking through the Ardennes forest again. It was an all-or-nothing play.
The result was chaos in the Allied lines as the area was heavily forested and poorly defended. The German army successfully pushed a salient deep into the Allied lines, which gave the battle its name, “The Battle of the Bulge.”
When General Patton got word, he resisted the general panic and started to plan.
A few critical days later, the situation had crystalized; officers had some real idea of what was actually going on. General Eisenhower asked General Patton if he could relieve Allied forces desperately denying German access to a critical road hub, Bastogne. Patton did not answer with vague assertions; he answered with a detailed plan already worked out, right down to the orders for troop movements.
Over the next few days, Patton’s Third Army disengaged from one major battle, pivoted 90 degrees, drove day and night in the dead of winter, and immediately took on the German army without sleep or hot food.
They broke through, relieving Bastogne and ending any chance of a German breakout to the coast (Note 1.).
This is a great story from American history, which is mostly true, although it is a summary. It completely omits how much grief General Patton gave his supervisors or how hard he habitually drove his soldiers.
Still, it is a good story and a useful one today. Our current climate crisis has similarities to the Allied situation in the winter of 1944; our present situation is both confused and dangerous. This story can usefully be applied today with its moral about planning in the face of great confusion; planning that later turned out to make all the difference.
The question for this chapter then is thus: is planning for our climate crisis even possible right now? If so, are stories a good form to present that planning to the public, especially to our young people?
The State of Our Climate Crisis
In 1944, the security of the Allies was at stake and everybody knew it. The outcome of the war was still in doubt.
Numerous science-based reports (see reports at the end) document the scope of the current climate problem. Worrying incidents have already occurred, such as Category 5 hurricanes that stall for days, and droughts prolonging wild fire seasons.
For many, the chaos is being lived now. Yet other people are not moved to action. If the incidents become so severe that everyone is forced into action, will it then be too late?