Intervention:

-- Solarpunk short story where a family must perform an intervention on their aging father who is addicted to polluting. In a near-future USA President Tammy Duckworth addresses the nation while eulogizing Senator Bernie Sanders at his funeral in the Green Mountains of Vermont. (Bernie chose an eco-friendly Capsula Mundi or wicker casket.) President Duckworth speaks of continuing Bernie’s vision of the Green New Deal and a partnership with the Netherlands on renewable energy and waste reduction.

-- The father rants about how it started with the government telling him what kind of light bulbs he could use.

-- The father has been arrested for smashing his neighbors’ solar panels.

-- He still smokes (polluting his own body), but has to grow the tobacco in his own grow lab in his basement like an old school pot dealer.

-- The final straw comes when the father is in his backyard burning tires. He dug a dozen of them up when he was pouring a new slab for his ancient central A/C unit. Burning tires is a crime on several counts: 1) It violates federal clean air and municipal no-burn laws, 2) It counts as theft of a reusable resource (older model tires are shredded and used in playgrounds and insulation; newer tires used by Tesla are natural latex and biodegrade), 3) The particular model of tires he happened to find have historical significance; they’re used as teaching tools in museums to highlight the atrocities of the past (like the Holocaust Museum or Thomas Jefferson’s slave quarters).

-- Maybe the story ends with the fact that the father is dying (of lung cancer) and gives Chloe and Grant his will, stating that he wants the last undertaker in Lake County that still does 6-point embalming, steel caskets, concrete crypts, and traditional burials to arrange his funeral. Maybe he’s a decorated veteran from Iraq and wants a firing party from the Navy Base (even though military-style guns are outlawed within city limits). Grant, who acted so exasperated with his father-in-law’s antics arranges the funeral per the old man’s wishes and eulogizes him.

-- Maybe an old school funeral like the one the father wants is really expensive and violates several ordinances. Maybe Grant has some money set aside and uses that to cover it. Maybe he makes a deal with the town council to utilize a Civil War-era cemetery that isn’t under the jurisdiction of green burials (the father is a veteran, after all).

-- Maybe there’s a scene where the tires that the father didn’t burn are installed at the Field Museum next to Sue the T-Rex to show a timeline of fossil fuels (and to show the father as a dinosaur).

“We’ve got to talk about dad,” Chloe said and tapped her coffee grounds into the aluminum compost container on her bamboo counter.

“What? Has he been shooting owls from his back porch again?” Grant asked. He thumbed the newsfeed closed and fixed his gaze on his wife across the kitchen from him.

“No, nothing since we had to bail him out for smashing his neighbors’ solar panels. It’s just...he’s become so shut-in lately.”

“Yeah, he’s always been pretty antisocial.”

“I know he’s never adjusted to the warmer summers here in Chicago, but he’s got that old A/C unit cranked like he’s living in a refrigerator and he keeps his shades drawn and lights on twenty-four-seven.”

“I was looking at his utility bill and it’s through the roof compared to other houses on his block. He’s going to exceed his UBI this month.”

“Remember how he protested basic income with that QAnon group?”

“Yeah. Wonder what those nut jobs are up to these days?”

Chloe’s phone rang.

“Hello?” she said. “What? Mrs. Layton, slow down, please. He’s doing what?”

“What’s he doing?” asked Grant but Chloe shushed him with a wave of her hand.

“Yes, Mrs. Layton, we’ll take care of it. Please don’t call the police. Yes. We’re on our way.”

Grant was pinching the bridge of his nose as Chloe hung up. “Should I even ask what the old jackass did now?”

“He’s my dad, Grant.”

“I know, I know.”

“I get to call him a jackass. I don’t call your mother a conceited bitch, do I?”

“You just did.”

“I’m calling Dr. Stephenson, maybe he can meet us there.”

“Yes, and his caseworker too—what’s her name?”

“Molly. You’re right, we’re going to need all the backup we can get. Can you call her?”

“Sure. I’ll call your sister and Aunt Nan too.”

The blaze was going strong when Grant and Chloe pulled up at the house. A mushroom cloud of smoke billowed from the backyard. It was thick and black and smudged the morning sun that was cresting the edge of the subdivision. A crowd had started to gather with shaking heads and folded arms.

“Get the hell off my property!” came a yell from behind the house.

“Every damn week they want me to pick through my garbage like some goddam hobo! Sorting out the glass and the plastic and the cardboard and paper and aluminum and fucking bellybutton lint!”

“Goddam organic, non-GMO, pesticide-free oatmeal! Want some rat shit with your breakfast? Why, yes, please, I would so like that!”

-- Is part of the intervention the kids giving their dad a recycling bin? A reusable tumbler? A countertop composting bin?

-- Could this be reimagined as other countries (Sweden, Canada, Germany) doing an intervention on the US?