Cli-fi

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From The New Yorker:

As part of its ongoing “Original Stories” series, Amazon has assembled a collection of climate-change fiction, or cli-fi, bringing a literary biodiversity to bear on the defining crisis of the era. This online compilation of seven short stories, called “Warmer”—containing work from a Pulitzer Prize winner (Jane Smiley) and two National Book Award finalists (Lauren Groff and Jess Walter), among others—offers ways of thinking about something we desperately do not want to think about: the incipient death of the planet.

There is something counterintuitive about cli-fi, about the fictional representation of scientifically substantiated predictions that too many people discount as fictions. The genre, elsewhere exemplified by Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam Trilogy and Nathaniel Rich’s “Odds Against Tomorrow,” brings disaster forcefully to life. But it is a shadowy mirror. Literature has always been a humanist endeavor: it intrinsically and helplessly affirms the value of the species; its intimations of meaning energize and comfort. But what if there is scant succor to be had, and our true natures are not noble but necrotic, pestilential? We have un-earthed ourselves. Yet we claim the right to gaze at our irresponsibility and greed through fiction’s tonic filter. The stories in “Warmer,” which possess the urgency of a last resort and the sorrow of an elegy, inhabit this contradiction. They both confront and gently transfigure the incomprehensible realities of climate change.

. . . .

Here, work from Jesse Kellerman, Edan Lepucki, and Sonya Larson conjures the oppressiveness of the heat, the desperate thrill of opening a freezer at the store. (“It used to get chilly right before dawn, Daddy told me. . . . Shiver was a word you could use.”) There are economies in which water is replacing cash; the lone, brilliant apparition of a tree; school classrooms where teachers of an older generation pine for what they lost, preaching activism and environmental responsibility to dirt-poor students. The stories think through details. (What would the billionaires do? Start a space colony.)

. . . .

Kellerman’s entry, “Controller,” takes the form of an experiment, with climate as the independent variable. The same story unfolds three times, on the same January day, but at different temperatures. The subtle gradient alters details, down to whether a dog is alive or dead, and determines the pitch of the characters’ rages and resentments. (“The air had changed, no longer a palliative billow but deafening and full of wrath. . . . He might yet bend her to his will.”) The mechanics of the piece gesture at one reason that climate change can prove so tricky a literary topic. We metaphorize nature endlessly, converting its phenomena into reflections of ourselves.

Link to the rest at The New Yorker

PG notes that TPV is not a blog about climate change (and he recognizes opinions vary), but he was interested in climate change as a writing trigger.

40 thoughts on “Cli-fi”

  1. “… as a writing trigger.”

    I’m still waiting for them to remember that we feared nukes would give us a long winter. 😉

    The trick would be who gets to decide just how warm/cool we make things. Mexico City having a white Christmas? 😛

  2. It wasn’t so long ago that global cooling was the subject of speculation.

    Poul Anderson’s THE WINTER OF THE WORLD is set in the distant future after an ice age has destroyed civilization. Niven and Pournelle’s FALLEN ANGELS is set in a near future where attempts to avert global warming backfire.

    One thing the global warming “consensus” purposefully ignores is that there are clues in the geologic record that ice ages begin with a period of global warming.

    Is the world warming? Yes.
    Is it because of human activity? Maybe.
    What comes next? Nobody knows. Anybody who pretends otherwise is lying. The whole narrative is built atop computer simulations built atop assumptions.

    The reason there is so much political fighting is over the assumptions and how the media oversells what the models say, neglecting to report on the probability error bars on the simulation outputs. One side emphasizes the worst case scenario, the other camp the best case.

    The truth will lie somewhere in the middle.

    There is good story fodder for dystopias at the extremes.

    • Money. If there is money in some line of research supporting some hypothesis, everything supports that hypothesis and wants more money. Woe betide anyone whose research suggests otherwise.

        • A million dollars is indeed plenty of money, but a billion is plenty more. Government money dwarfs any other kind, and that is overwhelmingly awarded to efforts to support global warming ideas.

  3. Meh. On the skipped list. Once again, “diversity” means different skin tones and what is (or is not) hanging off of the body. Only one thought.

    (Yes, there are plenty of non-Leftist anthologies that have little to no diversity of thought, too – but they don’t advertise themselves as “diverse.”)

  4. Ignorance or denial? The first thing I see when I click on the New Yorker link is “…the Incipient Death of the Planet. No question that if the status quo continues for the next few years, the planet is going to be badly damaged (as if it isn’t, already). But it will survive. Nobody wants to face the possibility of the incipient death of the human race. At least if you’re rich enough, you can cheer yourself with “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.”

    • You just hit on one of the sore spots: there really *is* a question as to whether the “status quo” as defined by the simulation assumptions really *will* go on.

      It is the same problem behind the Club of Rome predictions in the 60’s, the “end of history” meme of the 90’s, and the peak oil meme of the aughts; the underlying assumption that tomorrow will be exactly like today, even when today is nothing like yesterday.

      In the climate change arena, this is reflected in the hundred year projection across the planet based on a sparse sampling of data, some of admitted dubious reliability, to advocate for action to address the most extreme outcome possible and *only* for that course of action.
      Against that absolutist demand, that only the most extreme response is acceptable, some counter as you say: “let whoever comes afterwards deal with it. I’ll get while the getting is good.”
      Absolutist demands typically receive absolute responses.

      In this case, remember that in many circles, the planet is perceived as being overpopulated and quite a few academics advocate for a “great culling” to reduce the human ecological footprint on the planet.

      To those folks a human die-off is a desirable outcome.

      There is big story potential in many of these publicly discussed scenarios; whether it be outbreaks, wars, or major disasters. And the possibilities aren’t limited to dystopias or SF.

    • No question that if the status quo continues for the next few years, the planet is going to be badly damaged (as if it isn’t, already).

      Why is there no question? When people told us this in 1990, we waited a few years, and they were wrong. We saw the same thing in 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013. We listened, waited, and saw the prediction was wrong. Over and over again.

      In all those years, there was very good reason to question because subsequent events showed they were wrong. Why is there no question now? There are questions about gravity, DNA, sparrow beaks, and everything else scientists look at. Why no questions about this?

      • “Why no questions about this?”

        Because someone sees money to be made. And they might just make some if no one questions their rather flim-flam logic.

        I remember one report way-back-when stating Mt. Saint Helen blew more CO2 and other pollutants into the air in one day than mankind has done since inventing fire. There was another volcano about a decade ago I think that threw enough dust into the sky that it cooled the planet by a whole degree. How the heck are we supposed to make a difference when mother nature can undo anything we try at a whim?

        I can see where places like Holland don’t want warmer weather and rising waters washing over their dikes, but Canada and Russia might enjoy milder winters and warmer summers.

        And of course if things get colder some will be happier while others will not.

        There will be change always, we will adapt or die.

        (Mankind being rather cunning, I figure some will adapt despite their idiot brothers and sisters protests.)

  5. There is something counterintuitive about cli-fi, about the fictional representation of scientifically substantiated predictions that too many people discount as fictions.

    How do we substantiate a future event?

  6. A human die-off would be destructive and disruptive, messing with markets and profits.

    OTOH, oddly enough, a simple policy to voluntarily limit reproduction is met with ferocious resistance by the ‘powers that be.’

    We could cut the population by 50% by making The Pill or the the Implant free at age 15 and the population would drop on it’s own.

    Not long ago, a generation of women went to their doctor’s demanding long-term birth control and certain sections of the ‘powers that be’ lost their minds at the thought.

    I’m not saying that you’re incorrect, I’m pointing out just how inconsistent humans are.

        • The russians are barely holding on after a couple decades of decline.
          France is paying natives to have kids.
          US “fertility” rates used to be stable until this decade when they started to plunge.

          Maybe the next meme will be “the geriatric world”.
          Aging populations supported by hordes of robots while nihilistic youngsters riot on lawns all over. 😉

          • I’ve also read, but have no links, that Muslim women have opted to have fewer children and their ‘powers that be’ are very upset.

            My suspicion is that ‘the powers that be’are upset because they are short on cannon fodder, and rightfully so.

            • I lived in Saudi for a long time. Modern birth control was widely available. The government not only allowed it, they financed and facilitated it.

            • Or maybe they’ve realised, despite the protests of western liberals, that if they want to survive as a cohesive group they need to keep having children.
              After all, the future is only available to those who show up for it.

              • I believe the term used was ‘voting with one’s womb.’

                Which is pretty much what happened here in the USA at the end of 2016 when 4 to 6 million women got the Implant.

                My point is there is no need to engineer a die-off – the effect will be the same.

    • We could cut the population by 50% by making The Pill or the the Implant free at age 15 and the population would drop on it’s own.

      Have we seen that in countries where that is the policy?

  7. The paragraph quoted above by Catana lost me as well. Felix’s summary of the situation accords with my own view. This is, as PG says, not a global warming blog, so I’ll refrain from further comment, other than to say that an anthology with this as its basis will have many readers who are just plain not interested. Of course, appealing to a niche audience may still produce significant revenue. Just not, in this case, from me.

  8. The use of climate change as the method by which billionaire leftists (like Bezos?) convince countries to surrender their sovereignty to a global authority and institute a tightly controlled leftist dystopian future would make for a great cli-fi story. Except that it’s not fiction; it’s actually occurring today.

  9. All these ‘we’re all gonna die ’cause of global warming’ claims are based on projections of trends in the sogenannte data, right?

    Not to worry.

    Moore’s Law projects the emergence of artificial superintelligence (ASI) by 2029. When that happens, ASI will solve all our problems.

    Still, I am flabbergasted that the AGW true believers accept their projection but reject the one that leads to ASI. But the man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.

    • “When that happens, ASI will solve all our problems.”

      There have been movies made where the best solution the AI could come up with is removing the humans from the Earth. 😉

  10. Having seen the mayhem into with on line discussions of anthropogenic global warming frequently descend I am pleased – though not surprised, I trust PG’s readers – that the normal standards of politeness have been maintained in these comments.

    What puzzles me as an observer in the UK is the way in which political ideology seems to determine belief – or not – in AGW in the USA, even though the majority of those with strong feelings on the subject (particularly politicians) appear to lack the mathematical and scientific background that would justify them taking any view. It is as if they do not believe in an objective reality but rather that reality will comply with whatever their politics demands.

    This is not surprising for that part of the third wave feminist movement who are “born again”. Their commitment to standpoint epistemology pretty much inevitably leads to a rejection of a scientifically discoverable objective reality. This approach is perhaps also understandable amongst those parts of the left with a tendency towards Utopianism but I expect better of conservatives (see note).

    Whilst those who reject AGW are probably mostly on the right this political divide does not really exists in the UK. Maybe because one of the earliest significant supporters of the theory of AGW was Margaret Thatcher, who has been demonised by the left as some kind of right wing fanatic?

    And finally to antares who is flabbergasted that I accept AGW but reject ASI, I think he needs to apply his Paul Simon quote to his own beliefs (good video though). Moore’s law makes predictions about transistor density; the idea that a high enough density will give rise to ASI is something totally different and needs to be justified by good scientific arguments – which I don’t think exist – not the normal hand waving. And to the idea that AGW depends on “projections of trends in so called data” the only possible polite reply is “No it doesn’t”.

    The Passive Voice is very much not the place to discuss the details of the scientific case for AGW but I firmly believe that – at a global level – the science is actually a very simple energy exchange analysis and the only real problems are in allowing for feedback effects of the increased temperature.

    Note: I wrote “born again” rather than “woke” as I think it better conveys to outsiders the essentially (secular) religious nature of this ideological project and I used “conservative” with the (non political party) British meaning as I’ve pretty much given up trying to understand it in the American context.

    • “What puzzles me as an observer in the UK is the way in which political ideology seems to determine belief – or not – in AGW in the USA, even though the majority of those with strong feelings on the subject (particularly politicians) appear to lack the mathematical and scientific background that would justify them taking any view.”
      —-

      You are missing a bit of US political history, circa 2002.
      Climate science did not use to be a political topic (Al Gore aside) for the reasons you state, until one specific government employee working the area went extremely political and partisan political using his scientific credentials (violating federal law in the process) to actively advocate for a presidential candidate in the 2004 election. When the establishment pointed out this was not acceptable, the recipient of his support mobilized the party to protect him.
      It has been downhill ever since.

      In the US the debate is not about science any more: it is about politics and economics. “Science” is just a thin veneer of an excuse for both camps.

      In the fighting, real science in the area stopped being performed.

      As for the UK, if I recall, you had a nice little catfight a few years back about cherry picking of data, right? Not about actual science, either.

      It’s all power games.

    • What puzzles me as an observer in the UK is the way in which political ideology seems to determine belief – or not – in AGW in the USA, even though the majority of those with strong feelings on the subject (particularly politicians) appear to lack the mathematical and scientific background that would justify them taking any view.

      At a very basic level, political ideology in the US supports 1) expanded, or 2) limited government. Those whose ideology favors expanded government favor the major expansion of government advocated by the climate activists. This would entail far more government control of the economy, transportation, and daily life. Even if global warming fizzles, they support the increased government controls.

      Those ideologically favoring limited government don’t want more government. They want less than we have today. They also consider government pushing the warming agenda as an example of the constant effort any government exerts to expand itself. Even if global warming is confirmed, they don’t think government is competent to handle it.

      In terms of the simple exchange of energy, there are many factors in the climate that entail a simple exchange of energy. The result is the product of them all working together. Carbon may very well be an upward pressure on temperatures, but other factors may be a downward pressure.

  11. .. Incipient Death of the Planet…. seems a bit off. The planet’s going to do just fine. It’s the organisms that live on it that will likely face an extinction-level event.
    Coral’s already going through it. High ocean acidity will finish off some sea creatures even within the next 20 years.

  12. Just wanted to salute all the commenters here. I honestly think this is the very first climate change discussion I have ever heard that did not devolve into name-calling and anger, and which kept a respectful tone throughout. You fine people just restored a bit of my faith in humanity.

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