The sun dipped low over the terminal, casting long, amber shadows that stretched across the “Prevent Global Warming” sign like a final, desperate plea. The six members of the Green Pulse collective were packing up, their voices hoarse. They had spent the hour oscillating between the melting permafrost and the local debate on migrant housing—a broad, dizzying agenda that left them feeling more like echoes than agents of change.
As the last megaphone was clicked off, an elderly man shuffled into the square. He wore a coat that had seen better decades, but his eyes held a piercing, analytical clarity.
“Science is nonsense,” he croaked, his voice cutting through the evening chill.
“We’re wrapped for the day, sir,” replied Hana, the group’s youngest member, already unchaining her bike. “Come back Saturday if you want to debate the IPCC reports.”
The man unscrewed a small bottle of whiskey, the sharp scent of peat mingling with the city’s exhaust. “I helped write the precursors to those reports,” he said, a ghost of a smile appearing. “I spent thirty years at an atmospheric research institute. Back when we were first mapping the Oceanic Niño Index (ONI) and realizing that the warming wasn’t just a cycle, but a pulse we were accelerating.”
The group paused. This wasn’t the usual street-corner heckler.
“If you were a scientist,” Hana said, pausing with one foot on her pedal, “then you know the limits aren’t in the science. We have the data. We have the CO_2 parts per million climbing past 420. The limits are in the will to act.”
“No,” the old man countered, taking a slow sip. “The more we quantified the feedback loops—the albedo loss in the Arctic, the methane release from the Siberian shelf—the more we hit a different kind of wall. Science is a master of the how. It can tell you exactly how a photon interacts with a greenhouse gas molecule. It can model the 1.5°C threshold with terrifying precision.”
He stepped closer, the orange light catching the grime on his spectacles. “But science is silent on the why. It cannot tell you why the universe is indifferent to our survival. It cannot explain the ruthlessness of a hurricane that destroys a village of people who never owned a car.”
“So, what?” Hana asked. “You’re saying we should just give up?”
“I’m saying you’re fighting a physical battle with physical tools, but the stagnation you feel is spiritual,” the old man said. “I’m a scientist, which is exactly why I’ll tell you that religion—or at least, a moral philosophy beyond data—is the only thing that can bridge the gap. Science gives us the diagnosis, but it doesn’t give us the ‘why’ to keep living in a world that feels increasingly irrational.”
“Sounds like a pitch for a cult, uncle,” one of the others muttered, moving toward the bus.
The old man laughed, a dry, rattling sound. “A cult offers answers. True religion just helps you endure the questions. I spent my life looking at the stars and the sea through a lens of equations. Now? I just look at the sunset. The equations are still true, but they aren’t enough to warm the heart.”
He turned away, blending into the shadows of the terminal, leaving the activists standing in a silence that felt heavier than the one they had arrived with.
All names of people and organizations appearing in this story are pseudonyms
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