Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The Guardian thinks climate change is so “dire”, people can only make sense of it with the help of science fiction.
According to The Guardian;
Climate change is so dire we need a new kind of science fiction to make sense of it
Star Trek was one way of dealing with the social anxieties of the 1960s. Since sci-fi mirrors the present, ecological collapse requires a new dystopian fiction.
Build an imaginary world in your mind, hanging in space. Spin it around a bit; kick the tires. Now change one thing about that world. Throw a bug of your choice into the machine. What if the oceans reclaim your coastal cities? What if you can’t support life? What if the life you bear can’t support you?
…
It can be difficult to conceive of something so enormous through facts alone. But the right fiction can be a mirror, a map and a crystal ball, helping us to see ourselves in the world, negotiate our way out of disaster and imagine how we might live differently.
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The point is that Anthropocene fiction isn’t just science fiction; nor is it just climate fiction. It’s both those things and more. It is all the stories we should tell our children: near-future tales of ecological systems, collapse, responsibility and possibility along with visions of long-term cohabitation with our own environment. The point is to show them not just how the story ends but how we might get through the middle – while we still have a shot at changing it.
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/20/climate-change-science-fiction
I must say, I find the green obsession with frightening the kids with apocalyptic fairy tales, dressed up as predictions, a little disturbing. My parents didn’t let me watch Star Trek, until I was old enough to understand that what I was seeing was just entertaining fiction.
They keep desperately trying to repackage Climate Doom in a way that the public will buy it. But the whole idea of a manmade climate, or of an “Anthropocene” is itself a gigantic fiction, or more accurately a lie, since people are expected to believe it. It is such a huge waste of money, time, and human resources that it’d be funny if it weren’t so sad. It reminds me of Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone, in which he often portrayed human folly as the real threat. We appear to be living in an episode of the Twilight Zone, in which human folly creates and acts on an imagined threat, but the real threat are his own actions and wild imaginings.
The version of climate science that says man is the cause of global warming IS science fiction.
The reason for historical ice ages and warming ages hasn’t been proven yet, nor is it likely that the wherewithal for proof is even available. If the sun varied in intensity, perhaps one day archeology on other planets might turn up evidence (such as thermal ages that parallel those of the earth) but that’s a long long time away. Pointing to carbon dioxide added via human activity as a cause of appreciable warming seems perverse since in most scenarios rises in carbon dioxide follow warming, and any theoretical effect in directly causing warming is small enough to be swamped out by the moderating effect of clouds.
The 2010 Hugo best novel winner was Paolo Bacigalupi’s “Windup Girl” (tied w “The City & The City”). Basically imagine every current alarmism panning out and that puts you in Windup Girl’s world in the 23rd century.
Beyond that backdrop, I enjoyed the story. Well, it is science-fiction.
😎
I think the best way to illustrate climate change would be through pornography.
Maximum dollars with little effort.
This would be more validation for McLuhan when he wrote “the medium is the message”. Might also explain the IPCC chairman of the recent past.
But wait, who would we get to write the script? Hold on! I have an idea!
What we *really* need is a way to deal with the sensationalists who are using science fiction to create the social anxieties of the 21st century.
“Claim: You need science fiction to make sense of climate change”
So, what’s the problem?
Science fiction to explain science fiction.
I’m seeing the Guardian admitting that “climate change” is science fiction.
Can’t argue with them when they are right.
Using the parallel helps explain how someone can write a book that seems absolutely true is actually “Science Fiction.” When I first read “Andromeda Strain” I thought Michael Crichton was trying to expose a hidden incident. I started verifying facts and all seemed to be verifiable. The story seemed true to me. I think that is why Michael Crichton’s, John Clancy’s and many other authors following that formula sell so many books, AND why Science Fiction CAGW was sold to the politicians.
I agree completely that this idea of scaring children with scary end of the world stories is bad.
To me it is more than disturbing, it is sickening, and I think the people that do it are mentally ill, and it should be illegal to lie to children in a school setting, or tell them frightening stories and claim they are facts rather than someone’s fantasy scenario.
Why anyone would think it is OK to let delusional people, with an agenda, indoctrinate other peoples children into their cult is beyond me.
No matter what the delusion, or agenda, or cult. Or even if it is just an ideology.
Why would any permit their kids to be manipulated like this? People only grow up once. At the most.
The late Iain M. Banks’ Culture novels, unsurpassed in my view.
Or Michael Crichton, unsurpassed for near future and the side effects of technology.
But I do agree with several posters, the Guardian has a self righteous view that if people aren’t listening its not the argument that’s the problem, its just that you haven’t communicated it well. I think the Guardian and climate science idiots just have no idea how good normal people’s BS filters are, especially when they are being bombarded by Chicken Little scenario’s.
If you can’t dazzle them with your brilliance, baffle them with your errrrr…… climate fiction.
Climate fiction should not be compared to science fiction. Perhaps a comparison to sword-and-sorcery would be more appropriate.
RCP 8.5 is science fiction horror
If I agree at all with the Guardian’s well stressed point about the importance of Fiction (which includes Science Fiction) then Michael Crichton’s 2004 techno-thriller-scifi novel ‘State of Fear’ is very very very important; much more important than any of the science fiction memes/books cited by the Guardian article.
There are several more of the caliber of Crichton’s novel which are not like the Guardian cited SciFi books at all; for example Heinlein has stuff comparable to Crichton’s meme.
John
Actually, in order to make “sense” of the climate change nonsense, you just need to be a moron, drink lots of the special Kool Aid, and wear the special Climate Goggles™.
Nope–you just need to believe everything you hear in the “news,” and never crack a BOOK on any specialty subject.
Climate Goggles™ . I think they have them at ToysRUs, but there marked as ‘Minion Goggles’.
http://www.toysrus.com/buy/role-play/despicable-me-2-soft-minion-goggles-20132-18854396
Cool look for the Kool Aid class.
Suggest you try “The Drowned World” by J G Ballard, which has apparently just been reprinted after 50 years. I enjoyed the scenes of flooded London, and the icebergs floating up the Channel. At least he used a more reasonable idea for the flood – the Sun got warmer and started melting the ice caps – no nonsense re carbon dioxide.
The Blob was a fairly good sequel to The Quatermass Experiment, which was about 5 years earlier. I liked the Blob’s trailer, all that gorgeous melting chocolate! One of the later Quarermass films was Q. and the Pit, happily parodied by The Goon Show in “The Scarlet Capsule”.
Aha! Happy memories.
‘The Pit’ has silly effects but it’s a great story and it’s creepy.
It looks like science but relies on science fiction for its support rather than real world data.
That’s familiar.
Ladies and Gentlemen I present the heirs of L Ron Hubbard –
The Climate Scientologists!
Exaggerated science claims in the ARs which are artificially slanted (made up) by the IPCC are just badly written science fiction mimicking science.
John
Science fiction is putting it nicely.
Corruption, intentional deception, cognitive bias, ends justifies the means, group think and arrogance could also apply if one were not so kind.
Earth’s climate is better than it has been in hundreds of years:
The slight warming since the Little Ice Age is great news for people.
I hope it continues.
The increase of CO2 is great news for green plants, and the people and animals who eat them.
I hope it continues.
Climate reality won’t sell any newspapers.
Climate reality won’t help politicians gain power and halt economic growth.
There is no evidence the change in the climate since 1850 has been bad news.
Climate reality is boring.
But science fiction is exciting, such as the “coming” DDT, acid rain, hole in the ozone layer, global cooling, global warming, climate change catastrophes … all “coming” since the 1960s or 1970s … but the boogeymen never arrive … they must have got on the wrong bus?
Free climate blog for non-scientists:
http://www.elOnionBloggle.blogspot.com
I wonder if the writer of this article has paid any attention to current science fiction. I have always liked scifi but the trend in the last 20 years has been wretched dystopianism, usually based on climate disasters. Read anything by Kim S Robinson (if you can stand it), or a dozen other sound-alikes, especially the award-winning books. There’s no need to add to that miserable mess. Try something good by Clarke or Niven, and leave the climate-based fiction to Mann et. al.
Having been a reader of science fiction since the 1950’s of science fiction, fantasy, and speculative fiction, I can testify that science fiction has covered any Alarmist take on ecology and climate disasters well covered in print. In fact you could create a new category called Alarmist fiction and instantly fill it with tens of thousands of good books. Many authors from the 50’s and 60’s are, or would be if dead, terribly disappointed that we
don’t even have bases on the moon and Mars.
Please pardon the repeating science fictions.
A deeply popular theme of SF is the secular apocalypse, usually told from a post-apocalypse point of view. The authors know not to focus too much on the actual event because it does not hold up under close scrutiny. Climate apocalypse is one of the most popular subsets of the secular apocalypse. The cheesy predictions the current crop of climate obsessed extremists are making about the climate apocalypse demonstrates why it is better to focus on the post-apocalypse period: Predictions are seldom accurate if they are made before hand.
A “tell” that the true believers in the climate obsession are peddling bs is that they are turning to myth making to instill the proper piety (fear) of CO2 which is required to set aside one’s critical thinking skills and rational thought processes and accept their claptrap.
The disgraceful Labour government in the UK has already tried frightening the kids.
This was the TV advert they created way back in 2009, to get kids to pressurise their parents about CO2. However, the general reaction was to incense the parents, and stop them voting Labour. They lost the next election.
How about stories where a bunch of totalitarian creeps make up stories, take over the world by lying to everyone about AGW, destroy human freedom, and pretty much crush civilization.
Translation: “We need to lie more entertainingly.”
Or maybe: “Santa Claus is real. Coal is evil.”
Or maybe: “Make them forget the facts. Further soften the mushy minds with fiction.”
Or maybe: “Ignore reality. ‘Imagine’ this.”
This sounds like something Joseph Goebbels might have said if the Third Reich believed anthropogenic climate change was an enemy of the state..
He was a genius evil, not a stupid one.