This is part 1 of a series on world-building Climate Change scenarios for fiction.
Once upon a time I done some research on Climate Change mitigation.
Wait. Hang on a minute.
Not like “doing my own research”, I mean like for real… doing… my own research. I had access to a laboratory, okay. It’s different.
Anyways, my days went by with topographic maps, historical data sets, and occasional tree hugging. Sometimes ecologists need to hug trees, okay? For science. Anyways, I am, in theory at least, an officially stamped and approved expert on climatey sciencey sorts of things.
Later on, at a low point in the tree-hugging, I started writing fiction. Obviously, having being so deeply involved in Climate Change, I decided to place my stories in settings that never never never never never…..
… never never never never never…
…no no no no no….
…. ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh… please God no …… never… never… never…
… never never never ….
… never ever had to deal with Climate Change. Instead I avoided the subject entirely.
My early attempts at writing (may they rest in peace) were all contemporary settings, or fantastical, or took place on other planets. For a long time I not once tried to write about Climate Change.
Partly, I think I might have been traumatized (postgraduate research can be pretty stressful). But mostly, I think I avoided the subject because I knew enough to know that I didn’t know enough. I’d been around scientists. I knew what real expertise looks like.
Climate Change is complicated. I’ve read IPCC reports and come out even more bewildered than when I went in.
Climate Change is the most profound planetary transformation on Earth in thousands (if not millions) of years. Everything, everywhere will change.
Climate Change stretches the limits of science, hinges on uncertain human choices, and in many ways exceeds the limits of knowability.
Thousands of scientists have spent lifetimes studying tiny corners of this topic. Who are you in comparison? To top it off, Climate Change is caught up in a polarized political information war. So good luck with that.
Better to just leave it alone?
I’ve spent a lot of time learning about possible climate futures. Even now I still feel major trepidation about trying to create a scenario and put it to paper. World-building a plausible climate future can feel overwhelming, even impossible. And If I’m feeling it, I know others are too.
So what do we do? Climate Change is too big to ignore.
Well… one answer is to make **** up.
One of the most common fictional climate change scenarios that I come across is... ehem… ah… yeah... that’s not really a real scenario.
And I should note, I’m talking about stories that read as straightforward science fiction, not fantasy, or weird tales involving giant flying bears. Clearly a lot of people either don’t know how to get this stuff right, or just don’t care.
I call this the “Shrug-n-Guess” scenario.
“Gee, Bob, putting Climate Change in our story looks confusing.”
“Don’t worry Pam, we can just Shrug-n-Guess.”
“You mean...?”
“Sure. We’ll just say they built a seawall and everything was fine.”
“But I thought Climate Change was worse than that?”
“Hmm, good point. In that case, we’ll say the polar bears caught fire so everybody moved to Mars.”
“Oh, I get it! We can just make **** up, like say something-something ocean currents so New York freezes solid under miles of ice for some reason.”
“Exactly! Then we could say dust-storms mean living in space is preferable for some reason.”
“Yes! And we could say that only Mt Everest is above water because polar ice melting made sea levels rise by 7600 meters for some reason.”
“Then Earth could melt!”
“...and explode!”
“Gee-whizz. The possibilities are endless when you just Shrug-n-Guess.”
How common is Shrug-n-Guess?
I don’t know. Every work of fiction uses some amount of guesswork. Maybe some are honest mistakes, or maybe the author’s nuanced understanding got lost in the writing process. Much of this is deliberate exaggeration too (more on that another time). Either way I’ve certainly come across a lot of apocalyptic utra-doom scenarios, especially in environmentally conscious short fiction. Climate Change is bad, but yikes!
I want better. Therefore I have unilaterally decided people need Climate Change world-building tips.
This is my attempt. I’m no climate scientist. This is the best I can figure out. But it’s a damn sight better than unrestrained guesswork. (In contrast my guesswork is polite, and restrained, and holds the door open for the ladies. M’lady.)
With a bit of understanding we can do much better than wild guessing. Writers like Kim Stanley Robinson show what it’s like to go substantially beyond Shrug-n-Guess. Their story worlds are nuanced, and raise profound questions that will soon confront us in reality. Even a tiny bit of this nuance makes a difference. Shrug-n-Guess creates settings that are one-dimensional, even absurd. Such settings are bad at informing people what Climate Change actually means. Shrug-n-Guess feeds doom and complacency. Both of those are super unhelpful.
Ultimately, Climate Change education matters. Sure, Shrug-n-Guess all you like about aliens on Mars, but for Climate Change...? Please no! We actually have to live with the reality of this stuff. People need to understand, like, facts and logic and stuff.
In the rest of this series we’ll be figuring out how to world-build Climate scenarios that are actually plausible.
It’s hard, but not that hard. A few basics. Some tricks. An awareness of certain issues. Guesswork can never be eliminated from fiction, but it does help to know which guesses are broadly plausible and which are total bonkers.
Next up, we’ll get into some basics I will crucify an innocent bystander as a warning to the others.
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