By Robert Bradley Jr.
“I’ll take my chances with energy freedom. I fear the energy dystopia of Climate Big Brother.”
Grist, “an independent nonprofit newsroom that’s spent 25 years telling the truth about our planet,” is now in the climate fiction business. Imagine 2200 is premised on “a core belief: The world we need has to be imagined before it can be built.” Grist’s Image 2200 Creative Manages Tory Stephens continues:
We are living through a moment where the stories being told about the future are shrinking, and the space to imagine something different is being crowded out by fear and despair. Imagine 2200 is an antidote: a global climate-fiction initiative in which writers from more than 90 countries have imagined new futures, shaped by justice and resilience, and informed by the real-world solutions already in motion.
Every story we publish celebrates, uplifts, and radically reimagines the idea of hope. Not the “cross your fingers” kind, but the kind that knows exactly what it’s up against. A clean, green, and just world is not only possible — it’s being written into existence by this community.
Science fiction? That plays into the hands of the ultra-skeptics who reject the causality of CO2 emissions and global warning.
But what to do when climate messaging is in a funk. Stated one activist:
Maybe the problem isn’t climate denial. Maybe it’s climate messaging. We’ve been attempting to scare or shame people into caring, and it’s not effective. Is it time to completely rethink how we talk about climate and sustainability? We’ve spent years trying to influence people through fear, data, and moral urgency. The results? Mixed.
Climate hushing, in fact, defines the issue in the U.S., as shown by the recent election (see Appendix).
It is far better to imagine what year 2200 will look like under a free market, adaptation world. Fossil fuels are still primary, and the anthropogenic warming is either uncontrolled with adaptation or mitigated by new, unimagined technologies. Free markets are wealth-is-health. Real problems inspire solutions.
The second scenario is grim. Energy poverty with poorer populations. And a world where the Climate Police are knocking on the door, checking on your energy usage–and maybe even meat consumption (or taxes could make meat unaffordable).
I’ll take my chances with energy freedom. I fear the energy dystopia of Climate Big Brother.
Appendix A: Climate Messaging Problems
Climate Messaging: The Alarmists are Alarmed (July 29, 2025)
Greenhushing (climate loses its message) October 21, 2026
Climate Retreat Documented in the New York Times (July 15, 2026)
‘Climate Hushing’: Pragmatism Demoting Exaggeration (McKibben fools himself) May 19, 2026
Disaster? NYT Op-Ed on Demoting the Climate Pitch (May 14, 2026)
Climate Messaging: The Alarmists are Alarmed (July 29, 2025)
