The Day After the Day After Tomorrow

"Perhaps our most controversial president, Dick Cheney (2007-2012) [1] is often – and understandably –portrayed as a monster. It is certainly true that many of his policies were ill-advised…operation "Preserve America", the establishment of US rule in Mexico by US troops from the South and recalled from abroad, was carried out in the awareness that there was no way Latin America was going to be able to absorb roughly 150 million refugees on short notice…many of his initiatives were poorly thought out, hastily put together in a terrible rush to do something, anything, as people starved and froze by the millions…remembers operations "Freedom from want", in which crops and food supplies were seized in Central America, the Caribbean…" Lend a Hand" and the mass use of forced labor to carry out agricultural expansion and construction programs… "Restore Freedom", in which the reestablishment of government authority over much of the US was carried out more like the military occupation of a hostile state rather than a mission of mercy…not to mention operations "Robin Hood" and "Angry Rabbit", of which the less said is the better…the establishment of a rationing system based on "utility" of the recipient…

…in fact, most Americans were quite sympathetic to Cheney's cancellation of the 2008 elections, given the continued catastrophic conditions…the rumors that circulated of plans to cancel the 2012 elections were never confirmed…too many now remember that 60% of the population of the old US died under his watch…40% survived, and the US survived as a nation, rather than a disliked Diaspora scattered in many lands or a remnant on the southern fringes of our former territory…like Roosevelt during the Great Depression, Cheney convinced people things were getting better by the sheer scale of activity – even if many of his initiatives were unproductive or even counterproductive, at least he was seen as getting things done…insane level of activity for a man whose heart would finally give out, after six previous attacks, on a cold February day in 2012…a cruel man, perhaps, but so was Peter the Great…"

Colossus of the Fall: a New Biography of Richard Bruce "Dick" Cheney, Paul Ascherson, Frostbite Press, Philadelphia 2027

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North America partially warmed up again, eventually, as the world settled into a new equilibrium after the collapse of the Gulf Stream. By 2027, things had settled down: overall planetary temperatures were creeping up again, as CO2 continued to enter the atmosphere in reduced but still substantial amounts. Eastern North America was substantially colder than it had been in 2007, western and northern Europe much colder. The Mediterranean nations, less affected by the ocean, weren't hit as hard, although the general cooling of the northern hemisphere did have some effects. The southern hemisphere stabilized at conditions comparable to pre-super storm -indeed, in large parts of Africa south of the Equator, 2027 was an unusually hot year.

Although the line of sustainable agriculture moved several hundred miles to the south (wheat generally remains uneconomical to grow north of Nebraska) North America was never as dependent upon the Gulf Stream as Europe was, and there are settlements of stubborn stay-behinds along the east coast as far north as old Nova Scotia, although snowy Philadelphia remains the northernmost sizeable US city east of the Mississippi. Surviving Canadians (surprisingly many: Canadians know how to deal with severe cold) have generally moved south and integrated into US society, although there remains a population of stubbornly nationalist Canucks who either live near the frozen shores of the Great Lakes and hope for continued global warming, or have moved to the rump "Canadian republic" around Vancouver (much of the west coast, once the situation stabilized, ended up not much cooler than OTL). The Vancouver Republic's claim to the rest of Canada is supported by the US, in exchange for which Vancouver makes no fuss about any US military bases or commercial projects in the vast frozen wasteland to the east.

Most of the US population lives south of the 40th parallel, but given the mass southern exodus of northerners, this does not make the US as Red as one might think. More intensive and extensive agriculture means the US is feeding itself again, but exports less than OTL and stockpiles heavily in case the weather goes mad again. The largest city is Los Angeles: New York, in spite of its Labrador-like weather, still has stubborn inhabitants, but far, far fewer than in 2007. Many live in reconditioned underground subways, which are easier to keep warm than above-ground territory. Along with other largely abandoned northern cities, much of NY is under martial law to deter looters, and is being slowly "mined" by government-approved organizations for valuable materials, lost art treasures, etc. (A committee of still-rich ex-New Yorkers are trying to raise multiple billions to roof over at least the nicer parts of Manhattan).

The US currently has 48 states, four states still having too few inhabitants to escape renewed Territory status (the Dakotas finally just merged into one state to regain voting status in 2025), but in the meantime having added the three states of Cuba, Jamaica and Puerto Rico: several other Caribbean states are now US protectorates. Mexico, however, is an entirely different kettle of fish. Even with the famines, etc. of 2007-2008, there are still 10 Mexican citizens for every 20 American ones. (And that's not counting US citizens of Mexican descent, more of which have been arriving from the south since things started warming up north). After a decade of debate, a decision has finally been forced.

Mexicans prepare for an especially energetic and after lively September 16 this year: the last of the votes have been counted, and the result is in: Mexico will not become a part of the United States. The vote might have been different if held in 2006, but, like Canadians OTL after 1812, US invasion and occupation has strengthened nationalism. Mexico will not regain full sovereignty till 2028, but over the next months more political power will steadily gravitate to Mexican nationals.

This of course greatly angers many US nationals living in Mexico. At its peak, nearly half of Mexico's population had consisted of US refugees, and with the enormous damage to infrastructure and housing stock through most of the US, they had been slow to leave: even today, twenty years later, nearly one in six inhabitants of Mexico's territory is a US citizen. Not allowed to vote for Mexican absorption, even in those border states where the proportion of US citizens was rather higher than 1/6, often resident in Mexico since the Superstorm, they feel betrayed by their own government. The President, however, is determined: even if it loses him the next election, he's going to avoid destroying the fragile amity reestablished between Mexico and the US by filibustering even one pre-Storm Mexican state.

It's not that there's any real likelihood that the Mexican government is going to chase out the American residents or take all their stuff: after all, doing so would collapse the Mexican economy. However, as usual, people are not reacting rationally. Death threats are multiplying faster than the Secret Service can handle them.

Latin America south of Mexico wasn't impacted very hard by the weather, but the resultant global economic collapse was No Fun, and although Latin America can grow its own food, matters of distribution, economics, and large areas planted with not very nutritious export crops meant there were some famines, too. Various revolutions and counterrevolutions followed. Currently, Latin America is divided between an alliance of US-paranoid states led by a lefty Brazil which has developed its own nuclear arsenal, and a number of right-wing states who don't trust the US either but find them preferable to the alternative. With US farm production down and European production gone bye-bye, Latin America grows rather more food for export than OTL, and with US help Argentina has fully modernized and industrialized its agriculture.
Colombia collapsed very messily, and the ultra-leftist "agrarian communes" of the interior are too weird for even the Brazilians to deal with them.

Latin America's relationship with the US is further soured by the presence of millions of European refugees, which are a bit resentful over the US for shutting the Mexican door on them right from the start, and for surviving better than their old countries. Their relationships with their host countries is also complex: initially welcomed, as economies collapsed European "extra mouths" were not appreciated, and those without helpful skills were often pushed to the back of the line, forced to do unpaid "volunteer" labor, in some cases even raped and killed. Some immigrants have since climbed to positions of power and influence in their new countries, but their position remains somewhat shaky in most of the southern continent.

The Eskimo who survived the storm have moved south into eastern Canada and along the St. Lawrence.

Europe was hit harder than the US, and organized civilization only held out in the Mediterranean, although much of the snowy and tundra-y north is now claimed by various states (the Australia-New Zealand union claim the UK by right of inheritance, and have several bases on its frozen shores). With less military projection power, and a sea between them and a North Africa which was food-deficient to start with, a forcible "move and plunder" was not really practical, although after the weather cleared there was a heavy flow of refugees, millions, to South America and Australia-New Zealand for some months until the food started to run out and local governments shut the doors. The British starved to death fairly politely: even when cannibalism set in, it was those already frozen to death that were thawed out and eaten, rather than any uncouth cannibal mobs. Some managed to survive along the southern coasts, by a combination of fishing and heated greenhouse gardening after they got a couple nuclear power plants working again.

Today such nations as the British and the Scandinavians exist only as scattered Diasporas, although some Germans have begun to re-colonize their Siberia-cold-at-best homeland. Spain, Italy and France survive in the Mediterranean portions of their nations, France including so many Swiss, German and Low Countries survivors that various Germanic dialects are heard almost as often as French. Not that northern France, Spain, etc. are _uninhabited_: it's just that with climates comparable to Newfoundland at the best, the population is by necessity thin. The surviving European nations – chilly little Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, the Adriatic Statelets, Greece and Bulgaria-Romania – suffered human losses worse than the US, and have stabilized at substantially colder temperatures, if not as devastating as those of Northern Europe.

Human freedom did not do well under the circumstances, and only France can be said to be a relatively stable democracy nowadays (and even there police and Emergency powers are ominously strong). Relative to the US, they are both poorer and less populous than OTL 2010, and American feelings towards them are somewhat like OTL late 1800s feelings towards the Balkans – a backwards, violent and politically unstable area. The French are even more pro-nuclear than OTL, and have plans ambitious beyond their limited budget to re-settle the north with "atomic cities."

Russia is largely gone: after the initial freeze showed little signs of letting up, millions of starving but armed Russians moved south in hopes of better things, and starving (but not as much) Ukrainians opposed them. And then some Poles showed up. Putin tried to pull a Cheney, but lacked large military forces in place in areas not under 15 feet of snow, and was unable to pull off a proper invasion of the Middle East, most of which was too much of a mess to support Russians anyway, except maybe through cannibalism. Things remained chaotic for the next couple of years, before population finally bottomed out and some sort of cycle of life without most modern conveniences was established by farmers along the northern shore of the Black Sea. A number of smallish Slavic states, with little better than Sub-Saharan African living standards, exist north of the Black sea (as far north as Kiev), while a larger one, with some surviving patches of industrial modernity, exists along the eastern shore and into Georgia: it has a rather large inherited nuclear arsenal, and is currently pushing into Siberia, clashing with the Unpleasantness coming out of Central Asia: given it's continental climate, Siberia is generally not much colder than it is OTL.

Sub-Saharan Africa suffered nastyness post-storm as most of its major cities headed for collapse as food and fuel imports were cut off: the mostly self-sufficient subsistence farmers were squeezed for food, by organized armed forces in stronger states, by a thousand new petty warlords in areas where the state was weak. The "years of blood" (2007-2014) destroyed many of the old states of Africa and threw up new ones: only a few countries (most notably Tanzania and South Africa) were able to avoid at least bloody dictatorship. As of 2027, large parts of the interior are still warlord territory, and South Africa has expanded considerably to the north. New international aid agencies based in the Americas and South and Southeast Asia are helping to stabilize things, and in a few places, where corrupt and parasitic governments collapsed entirely, stronger and more effective states emerged, at least able to organize feeding the population and suppress (often with extreme brutality) the violence. The Warlord of the Cameroons-Gabon may be a total bastard, but those who know him also say he's a magnificent bastard.

The Middle East was far enough north to get hit by some of the bad weather: although the Mahgreb did not receive the sort of very heavy snows that covered Spain, there was an intense enough cold snap and sleet that badly blighted much of the year's crops. Turkey suffered terrible losses in its highland territories, and even Cairo suffered from a blizzard. Famine and political violence stalked the area: Islamicist governments came to power after bloody civil strife in Egypt, Morocco and Algiers, and Libya descended into chaos. Israel set off a few atomic bombs in (mostly) uninhabited areas to remind people not to fuck with them, and a million or so Palestinians fled/were pushed over the borders (details of the story vary). Lebanon blew up again. An independent Kurdish state emerged, and nobody paid much attention either then or during the starving to death of more than half its population. Iraq broke out in violence again when the last US troops departed, and the Iranian regime invaded to "restore order." A new religion was invented in the Yemen and twenty years later has over three million often-persecuted followers.

Iran proved no more successful than the US in bringing peace and quiet to the area, and between that and the terrible weather and the collapse of the already wobbly economy, the Islamicist regime did not survive. The 2027 government, although still rather Sharia-friendly, is no longer vetted by a Supreme Leader, and most women now go unveiled. Turks are a tough people, and managed to restore their nation, although useable agricultural land has shrunk in the highlands. Saudi Arabia, to everyone's annoyance, also survived, trading oil for food with the few countries which still had something to export, and having enough imported talent to keep the machinery going and harvest the (very expensively irrigated) crops: indeed, the Saudis actually played good Samaritan, providing free oil shipments to Islamic countries in East Africa and to Egypt after the Muslim Brotherhood took over. Libya is currently divided among Tunisia and Egypt, and Israel is rather unhappy about New Palestine, which after taking over in Jordan, went on to absorb large parts of civil-war ravaged Syria and central (Sunni Arab) Iraq after the Iranian pullout.

India had some weird weather, the usual economic crisis, and soupcon of famine: no worse than a lot of crap Indians had put up with in the past. Twenty years later India is doing fairly well economically, and is stronger relative to the US than it is OTL 2010, if still a very poor nation. It has taken advantage of Chinese problems to establish a protectorate over Tibet, and with it a nice big buffer between them and China.

Central Asia, from Afghanistan to Siberia, is no-man's-land. Pakistan is currently being propped up by the Indians and the US, fearing that the collapse of the badly eroded nation will allow the chaos to spill over into the subcontinent. (Iran has a heavily fortified northern frontier, and maintains some micro-states in western Afghanistan to provide a buffer against the Brotherhood of God, who have replaced the Taliban by being even more ruthless SOBs).

China survived, although the Super-storm ravaged their country: the government relocated to the semi-tropical south, and did unto Myanamar and Thailand what the US did in Mexico, albeit rather more clumsily by essentially giving 30 million hungry young men guns and pointing them in the right direction (Vietnam was left alone, for understandable historical reasons). The Chinese are still there today, and refuse to release any statistics on exactly how many Thai, etc. are actually still alive. Nor will the government release any information on how many Chinese survived, although most estimates put the die-off at over 60% (which still leaves some 500 million or so.) As China's climate has nothing to do with the Gulf Stream, the north has thawed over the last 20 years, being only slightly colder in the north and northwest, and a massive government-backed program of rebuilding is ongoing. The pre-war structure of the Communist Party failed to survive, and China is currently run by military Junta, although there have been a few tentative gestures in the direction of democracy lately.

Kim Il Jong at 79 is still going strong, thanks to his father's paranoia: the vast system of deep tunnels beneath the country and the several years stock of dried and canned foods (mostly untouched during previous famines save for some given to army and party leaders to keep them loyal) in case of nuclear winter meant that when things started to warm up a bit in '09 the North Koreans were able to emerge and take over what was left of the South. Quite a bit of eastern Siberia was also taken over by Korea once it thawed out. There still was a lot of famine and cannibalism, but in the end there was still a surviving state, and as one party propagandist put it "fewer but better Koreans."

The Quintuple Alliance of Indonesia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Vietnam, formed to ward off northern invaders (nuclear weapons provided by the Taiwanese) and for mutual economic and technical aid post-Storm, has become a major regional power. Its population includes some 10 million Japanese refugees: the peak number was 15, but many do not wish to return to the nuclear-armed ultra-nationalist dictatorship that came to power after the Great Dying (especially not the women, since the Party made failure to bear children by the age of 30 a crime against the Japanese people).

Australia and New Zealand had some tough times when trade collapsed, but managed to remain democracies and with careful rationing and a lot of sheep-eating managed to avoid famine: a formidable expansion of crop-growing took place in green New Zealand, which is now rather more densely populated than OTL. Refugees remain a sore spot with some other nations: North Americans are rather unhappy with the "you don't work, you don't eat" attitudes towards all but the earliest of their refugees, and the Japanese really hold sort of a grudge over those boatloads turned back at gunpoint. Worried about its long-term survival, New Zealand entered into a federal union with Australia in 2012.

After two decades, the global economy has finally perked up again, and standards of living in the US, Australia, China and South America have caught back up to where they were pre-storm: in South Africa, India, the Quintuple Alliance and Korea they are actually higher, a good bit higher in some cases: rump Europe, the former Soviet territories, Japan continue to lag. (Mexico, thanks to US investment, industrial development, etc. is rather wealthier than OTL: think Greece or Portugal before the economic crash).

Technological growth was slowed by human and material losses, but hasn't stopped: there have been advances in computer tech, and much investment in synthetic food production, power storage, insulation, plant genetic engineering, etc. have brought advances. The International Space Station, abandoned for a number of years, has been reoccupied and restored to function, and fusion power is only 20 years away.

Energy, power, is an important issue. The disaster of '07 made the control of planetary climate a vital issue, along with the control of carbon emissions: however, progress in addressing these issues has been badly delayed by the strongly pro-warming lobbies in the US and rump Europe, who want to thaw out their lands – never mind that the best current calculations that returning Europe to a pre-Super-Storm climate will bring drought, untenably high temperatures, and death to perhaps a billion people in the equatorial regions. The "anti-warmists" are currently dominant in the US, and along with the Brazilian Block, Australia-NZ, and the Quintuple Alliance, are busy helping the less developed parts of the world move from fossil fuels to solar and nuclear power: the Indians are now 40% nuclear, and China is making strides of its own. The Spaniards and the Italians, not to mention the Slavs to the east, are defiantly burning loads of coal, to most people's annoyance. With a couple decades of greatly reduced demand, "peak oil" is currently just a small dark cloud on the horizon.

Culture tends to emphasize the fragility of human life and the implacable face of nature, or the Helplessness of Man in the Hands of God, but as the Vietnam loss led to Rambo, a counter-reaction in the form of a sort of Muscular Humanism has appeared with much emphasis on what Science! can do: these are the sort of people who are big on building atomic-powered underground cities in the frozen areas, or building giant orbiting solar mirrors to warm up the North Atlantic and reestablish the Gulf stream. Former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin's TV show, Survivorwoman remains popular in reruns. [2]
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"As usual, New Hollywood has produced a "historical" movie almost devoid of historical content…it is amazing that only 50 years after the Global Storm, a major studio could produce a film so historically inaccurate…as anyone over 56 remembers, the US government relocated to San Antonio, Texas, not Mexico…in an amazing example of our national "perpetual innocence", what rapidly turned into a US military occupation of Mexico is shown as the Mexicans taking in (out of the goodness of their hearts, presumably) unarmed refugees…in which we learn that we can outrun a 200 MPH downburst of supercooled air…events that took place over months are compressed into a matter of days, for maximum slam-bang…for those who may be disturbed by the New York Public Library Scene, relax – the survivors were not so stupid that they burned the books rather than the wooden furniture…" – 2007: Insulting my Intelligence and Yours, the Grumpy Critic, Havana Sun-Times, August 7, 2057

[1] - The President in the movie failed to make it out of the US, and the vice-president in the movie was reportedly modeled on The Notorious DC himself.
[2] – The story that she made it south from Alaska on a raft made from the frozen bodies of her speechwriters is generally believed to be an urban legend.