Manuscripts

In the early 90s, I worked at an English-language daily in Tokyo covering social issues. One summer, a source blew my mind by introducing me to the city’s homeless quarter, Sanya.

He stood in the dusty road admiring the graceful curve of the bridge as he contemplated his imminent death. A turn of his head revealed the lush light green of rice fields fertile and damp stretching to low brown mountains.

In 1938, a brilliant German scientist named Hans Bethe proved that fusing atoms rather than splitting them, a process called cold fusion, produces the enormous energy emitted by stars. It is the Holy Grail of scientists because it generates cheap, limitless and environmentally clean energy.

The Alberta oilsands have long been one of the world’s top emitters of greenhouse gases. One of the largest industrial projects on earth, the blasted heath can be seen from space.

In 1997, I joined the Royal Canadian Navy. After freezing through basic training in the dead of a Quebec winter, I was posted to HMCS Venture, the naval officer training centre in Esquimalt, British Columbia.

Despite our lofty perch at the apex of the food chain and possession of the most sophisticated brain in the animal kingdom, we humans have persisted since we walked out of Africa on our hind legs in tearing each other’s throats out in the name of our gods, our causes, our treasure.

I went to war after my daughter’s first birthday party. I began my 10,000-kilometre journey to Afghanistan with the smoke from her birthday candles curling in my nostrils.

The brothers Dombowsky live and work by a simple yet powerful credo; “We never lose. We either win or we learn, but we never lose.”