SOLUTIONS TIME: POSITIVE CLIMATE FICTION

ENDING THE COSMIC WAR BY IMAGINING DIFFERENTLY

In the near future, an underground group makes tiny nano-drones, too small to be detected. They use them to bring down private jets. As we all know, private jets use a disproportionate amount of the world’s fossil fuels. For the billionaire class, there is maybe a one in fifty chance that their jet will be taken out. Is it worth flying?

Kia Ora Tatou, and welcome to Ending the Cosmic War with Karen Effie.

Cli-fi is generally pretty doomy, as you can imagine, but not always. Here I talk about four books by three authors, that express hope for the future, hope for humans in a degraded future world. The example above is from Kim Stanley Robinson’s “The Ministry for the Future”, written in 2020. Cory Doctorow’s “The Lost Cause”, from 2023, is set in a future where climate disaster has been very destructive, but humans act heroically when they join together. Octavia Butler’s “Parable of the Sower” and “Parable of the Talents”, written in the 1990’s, appears precognizant now, and is set in a post-apocalyptic USA. Also of interest is “The Fifth Sacred Thing” by Starhawk (1993). And I do recommend reading Amitov Ghosh’s “The Great Derangement” alongside any of these books; while it is non-fiction it is a beautiful introduction to the issue of why we can’t think properly about climate catastrophe.

Let’s start with Kim Stanley Robinson, “The Ministry for the Future”. The book begins with a harrowing description of a heatwave in India which reaches wet-bulb temperatures. Frank, an aid worker, finds himself the only survivor in his town. This is not so futuristic. We are there already. As reported on 15 April, the heatwaves in India and Pakistan started early this year. Parts of Baluchistan are expected to reach 49 degrees Celsius. That’s like living in Death Valley. This will test the limits of human survivability in a country where tens of thousands of people have died of heat-related conditions over the last few decades. The heat wave season started early in Europe, with temperatures in Spain at 47 degrees. These are killing temperatures.

Back to the book. In response to this obviously climate-driven disaster, The Ministry for the Future is formed by the United Nations, and the story moves between its head, Mary Murphy, and Frank, now traumatised and frustrated by the world’s inaction. Much of the action takes place around the tables of the world’s decision-makers, but there is also an underground element, like the illegal group that designs the nano-drones. In the end, industries are controlled, tech is developed, economies are changed, and complete collapse is mitigated by human ingenuity. Technology plays a part. India goes against international law and opinion, and uses its air force to add particles to the atmosphere to reflect sunlight. After the disaster at the beginning of the book, nobody blames the government of India. Much of the book is set in Switzerland, where the Ministry for the Future has its headquarters. Switzerland uses public transport and new housing techniques to lower its carbon emissions. It is a remnant from before the catastrophe, where humans can still climb the mountains and experience proper seasons. The refugee crisis features prominently. Robinson does not shy away from the difficulties, both for the refugees and their European host countries. I liked how this book is not America-centric. Robinson is one of few left wing science fiction writers. This is a worthwhile book, even with Barack Obama’s recommendation. And: a mention is made of Hinewai, a wonderful nature reserve near where I live!

Now to Cory Doctorow and his “The Lost Cause”. Doctorow is a prolific writer and cultural critic. Most popularly, he is known for the idea of “enshittification”, where social media begin by pleasing everyone, then they please their advertisers, and then they please no one, and then they die. Anyone remember Facebook?

This novel is named for the “lost cause” of the Confederates, being the American Civil War. The cover has a version of the “Don’t tread on me” Gadsden flag. But the lost cause is also the world. The tale is told by Brooks, an enthusiastic nineteen-year-old who lives in Burbank California with his Maga-loving Gramps. Brooks thrives with the Green New Deal that was passed a few years ago. Most paid work is guaranteed and is involved in good causes, such as caring for the elderly and building houses for the unhoused. Gramps belongs to an aging cadre of angry men, who want to turn the clock back. The Magas are stockpiling weapons and plotting performative violence, but they really want to take back the culture and the government. Gramps dies, leaving Brooks his house. Brooks wants to turn the house into an apartment block, in order to house more people. Meanwhile a caravan of refugees from parts of the United States that have become unliveable is heading to Burbank. They are made welcome, by all except the Maga crowd. These old guys resort to violence at times to further their ends; Gramps has a secret cache of gold, Krugerrands and weapons waiting for the coming civil war. The presence of the refugees sharpens this divide between the young, multicultural libs and the old Maga men. Wildfires break out, and Brooks decides to demolish Gramps’ old house and build his apartment block, essentially under the cover of the fires. He is helped by able refugees and his friends, who have all been involved in rescuing and restoration after climate emergencies. So really, this book is about how to build an apartment building in three days, in the middle of a wildfire. It is as wild and heroic as Brooks himself. It has a sunny, solarpunk feel.

So, gender minorities are widely accepted, food is multi-ethnic and local and vego and lovingly described, sexual relationships are carefully and consensually negotiated, weed is legal, local democracy involves the whole population. It is a bit like permanent Occupy Wall Street as I remember wanting it to be. People cycle and walk. Telehealth is the norm. Young folks are arranged into “affinity groups”. Working for the good of the community is high status. It is also a polycrisis. The climate catastrophe is seldom mentioned as such, partly because it is not yet politically acceptable to do so, or it is taken for granted. But it is hot as hell, and parts of the USA are unliveable. There is also the Flotilla, a group of blockchain inspired (anyone remember blockchain?) billionaires who defy any national laws by sailing around the world proselytising their particular brand of uber capitalism. But the immediate threat is the Maga guys, who at one stage try to take over the government.

Whereas “The Ministry for the Future” is about the international picture, “The Lost Cause” is very local. It is about how much change a place can take, and how people cope with that. It is exuberant and sweet, a bit like its protagonist.

Finally, the magisterial Octavia Butler. Her two books “The Parable of the Sower” and “The Parable of the Talents” are best read together. Octavia is nowadays famous for her prescience. These books were written in the 1990s, and “Sower” starts in 2025. Like, now. The main character is Lauren Olamina, who lives in a Californian gated community that seems impoverished to me, but is safer and richer than the absolute degradation and grind taking place outside the walls. Olamina turns away from her father’s Baptist faith and gradually develops her own: Earthseed. Earthseed has a God of change. God is change. God shapes everything, and we shape God.

“All that you touch
You Change.
All that you Change
Changes you.
The only lasting truth
Is Change.
God
Is Change.”

The destiny of Earthseed is to take root among the stars. Olamina sees the earth as spent by climate catastrophe. The dream of space travel provides purpose, a future to work towards, and an escape.

Octavia Butler did not see Earthseed as a viable religion. But some do; there exists at least one small community living by Earthseed principles.

In “Sower”, Lauren Olamina, now aged 18, suffers through the catastrophic destruction of her community and is cast upon the roadside. She heads north, like most refugees. The context is not happy. United States politics is weak and divided. Corporate towns are springing up, where people can go to work for housing and food, but no wages. Children are trafficked. Slavery and indentured labour are becoming common as the rich get richer and the poor get much, much poorer. Social norms are changing too; even within Olamina’s gated community teenagers marry very early and have babies very young. Outside, different drugs ravage and kill. Gangs are violent and fluid. You report crime to the police, and they will charge you money and then maybe rob or arrest you. Cannibalism is sometimes the only option in places where there is no food. On the road, Olamina develops Earthseed further as she grows in experience. She picks up other kindred spirits along the way, including her love Taylor Bankole, a much older man. Bankole has his own land, in the north of California. The group travels there and settles in a new place where it sometimes even rains. They call the new place Acorn.

The sequel, “The Parable of the Talents” is written from the point of view of Larkin, the daughter of Lauren Olamina. It also draws on the notes of Olamina and Bankole. Acorn develops into a homesteading community, keeping away from the mainstream. A new president is elected. He is a white Christian nationalist with a preaching background, and his motto is “Make America Great Again”. His political speeches are sermons of fire and brimstone. The corporate towns grow in size and influence. “Crusading” bands of thugs wearing white crosses burn farms and kill families they consider heathens; Jarrett denies responsibility but does not condemn them. They capture children and send them to be adopted into Christian households. They enslave adults, with electronic collars that induce enough pain to kill. Acorn is raided by such a brutal group of men. They take the children away, enslave the adults and abuse them. Some die, including Bankole, Larkin’s father. Acorn becomes a prison. After nearly two years of this, Olamina and what is left of her community escape. She starts again, and makes converts to Earthseed on the road. Eventually she attracts the attention of wealthy patrons. Meanwhile, Larkin is raised by a Christian couple who do not love her or engage with her, but she is at least more or less safe. As a young woman, she meets up with Olamina’s brother, now a charismatic preacher with the Make America Great organization. He tells her that her mother is dead. Larkin lives a creative life, and then she discovers Olamina is alive and meets up with her. The two do not get along. The latter part of the book is less realized. Somehow the political and ecological disasters seem to have become resolved, and Olamina’s Earthseed becomes influential and wealthy. The book ends with the first humans beginning the long journey to the stars.

Octavia Butler’s works are not precisely cli-fi; she earned her chops as a science fiction writer, and she wrote before we had the common understanding we have now of the climate catastrophe we face. The degraded environment plays a part in her writing; it is hot, parts of the southern USA have become unsustainable, there is a flow of refugees heading north. The political situation is more prominent. But her writing is undergoing a resurgence as her prescience is more apparent. For me, it had never occurred to me to look at slavery (outright chattel slavery or indentured labour) as a flow-on effect of the polycrisis, but of course it is. Slavery is not in my historical bones as it is Butler’s. The first book begins in 2025: Octavia’s view of 2025 is of the remnants of civil society under siege, rampant privatisation, extreme poverty and violence. The sequel ends in the mid 2030’s, with the situation calmed and the first attempt to launch humans into space permanently under way. She did not predict that space flight would be the preserve of ego-struck tech billionaires who don’t actually care about humanity or the earth. It’s called space flight as in fleeing as well as flying!

Me, I don’t care for it. I love the earth dearly, I love ordinary reality and its gifts, I love the bellbird I hear outside in the rain and the chilly breeze moving the kowhai tree at my window, and the brave spinach I planted from seed in a pot, and I know all of these are doors to wisdom. I also know that when Jeff Bezos and co talk about humanity they don’t mean me, any more than Curtis Yarvin means me. Or anyone I know and care about. What Octavia Butler did not predict was that in 2025 the world would be run by 12-year-old boys who have not developed empathy.

So yes, there is positive, optimistic cli-fi and some of it is well respected and popular. I think this is important. We need to think about options beyond what the mainstream presents to us, and cli-fi provides us with some of these. We need other stories to tell if we are trying not to tell the old ones. We need other ways of thinking about the future apart from the terrible old Cosmic War and its troubling implications.

Thank you for reading, and I hope you will have a go at the books above. Ma te wa!

Further: Adam Becker, “More Everything For Ever”, about AI and the tech future and how the tech bros want to control humanity. Adam is an astrophysicist, which helps. Also Gil Duran’s blog “The Nerd Reich” is interesting on this and related topics. Also Brian Merchant “Blood in the Machine” on Substack. Hammers up!