Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

How science fiction helps readers understand climate change
BBC "News" ^ | January 15, 2019 | By Diego Arguedas Ortiz

Posted on 01/15/2019 7:46:50 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer

... In Kim Stanley Robinson’s novel New York 2140, Manhattan is flooded after unabated climate change causes the sea level to rise by 50ft (15.25m). The amphibian city is now a SuperVenice, a grid of canals populated by vaporettos.

Robinson’s 2017 climate-fiction novel belongs to a growing cadre of works about drowned nations, wind farm utopias or scarred metropolises decades into the future. As diplomats draft the rulebook for the global response to the climate crisis and engineers race to produce better solar panels, writers have found their role, too: telling what Robinson calls “the story of the next century”. In doing that, they might be helping readers across the world comprehend the situation in which we currently find ourselves.

Climate change is a notoriously elusive crisis to make sense of, particularly compared to other human-impact catastrophes.

This is where fiction comes in: it brings the abstract data closer to home by focusing on the faces and stories in these futures. Show readers a detailed and textured account of a climate-changed future, says Robinson, and they have an easier time imagining it.

In the quest to adopt climate change as a topic, writers are doing what they do best: trying to tell a good story. Sometimes they write with a touch of optimism as they negotiate the current crisis. But even with this optimism, these writers want to make sure the world knows they, at least, are paying attention. As one character in Robinson’s New York 2140 concludes, the scientists “published their papers, and shouted and waved their arms, a few canny and deeply thoughtful sci-fi writers wrote up lurid accounts of such an eventuality, and the rest of civilization went torching the planet like a Burning Man pyromasterpiece. Really.”

(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: globalwarming; hoax; propaganda; sciencefiction; socialism
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-29 next last

1 posted on 01/15/2019 7:46:50 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer
Science FICTION with fiction being the operative word. Global warming is fiction, not even science fiction.
2 posted on 01/15/2019 7:49:44 AM PST by from occupied ga (Your government is your most dangerous enemy)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: from occupied ga

btt


3 posted on 01/15/2019 7:50:07 AM PST by KSCITYBOY (The media is corrupt)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer

Propagandist’s new idea...these people are persistent aren’t they? And RUIN EVERYTHING!


4 posted on 01/15/2019 7:50:09 AM PST by goodnesswins (White Privilege EQUALS Self Control & working 50-80 hrs/wk for 40 years!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer
What a triple bag barfer.

Too bad they can't find authors to tell “the story of THIS century,” the effort by federal government Deep State evil-doers to illegally elect the world's most corrupt woman to POTUS, the subsequent effort to destroy Donald Trump's presidency, and ultimately the goal of destroying the US as a Constitutional Republic. Maybe no author will touch it because the plot would be so far-fetched that nobody would believe it.

5 posted on 01/15/2019 7:51:47 AM PST by ProtectOurFreedom
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer

I like that science fiction book where the Graxlaxians come and take all the Liberals off earth to use them as fuel.

“It’s the only thing they’re good for.”


6 posted on 01/15/2019 7:53:31 AM PST by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer

Planet Hoth in Empire Strikes Back had global freezing.


7 posted on 01/15/2019 7:56:47 AM PST by EdnaMode
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer

They keep trying. All the while Europe is having a very very cold winter


8 posted on 01/15/2019 7:56:52 AM PST by Nifster (II see puppy dogs in the clouds)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer

I want to be entertained not brainwashed about the de rigeur acceptability of the the left-wing world view.

I already get that crap from the culture. I don’t need it in science fiction.


9 posted on 01/15/2019 7:58:33 AM PST by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer

“...Manhattan is flooded ...”

And? What’s not to like except that it would drive the rats elsewhere.


10 posted on 01/15/2019 7:59:23 AM PST by Bonemaker (invictus maneo)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer
In Kim Stanley Robinson’s novel New York 2140, Manhattan is flooded after unabated climate change causes the sea level to rise by 50ft (15.25m). The amphibian city is now a SuperVenice, a grid of canals populated by vaporettos.

People learn to adapt to their new environment.

This seems like an optimistic view of the future.

Of course they could just move further inland to higher ground.

After all, even if all the ocean ice melted and water expanded with ocean warming there would still be vast areas of dry land to live high and dry.

But that's a different SyFy novel to be written.

11 posted on 01/15/2019 8:01:30 AM PST by yesthatjallen
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer

Understanding that some works are fictional is important.


12 posted on 01/15/2019 8:02:59 AM PST by DannyTN
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer

In one episode of Star Trek Spock uses the Vulcan Neck Pinch on a green alien who ran a coal fired power plant.


13 posted on 01/15/2019 8:04:39 AM PST by Gay State Conservative (Mitt Romney: Bringing Massachusetts Values To The Great State Of Utah.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Bonemaker

I like KSR as a writer. One of the best SF writers today. Not fond of his political stance. But I generally ignore them. It id fiction after all.


14 posted on 01/15/2019 8:07:02 AM PST by Captain Compassion (I'm just sayin')
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer

So, let me see if I have this in perspective.

Read Science Fiction novels as if they are non-fiction.

Right, that’s what they’ve been asking us to do since the 70’s when Time warned us about GlowBull Cooling.


15 posted on 01/15/2019 8:11:22 AM PST by C210N (Republicans sign check fronts; 'Rats sign check backs.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer

AGW, or is it now ‘anthropogenic climate change’? In either case, it IS SCIENCE FICTION!


16 posted on 01/15/2019 8:13:50 AM PST by A Formerly Proud Canadian (I once was blind but now I see...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer

And if we could just get radioactive spiders to bite people then everyone would have super powers! It’s not like comic book writers could ever get the science wrong.


17 posted on 01/15/2019 8:19:45 AM PST by vikingd00d (chown -R us ~u/base)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer

A 50’ sea level rise in 120 years is so far beyond science plausibility it’s completely fictitious. You may see in a century a 3-4ft change but I don’t see more than 2 feet happening at current rates of change.


18 posted on 01/15/2019 8:26:50 AM PST by Bogey78O (So far so good.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: goodnesswins

Try being **in** SF fandom. Conservative fans are not welcome, and often are excluded and even uninvited. . . .

https://www.npr.org/2015/08/26/434644645/how-the-sad-puppies-won-by-losing


19 posted on 01/15/2019 8:28:17 AM PST by Salgak (You're in Strange Hands with Tom Stranger. . . .)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer
How science fiction helps readers understand climate change

'Waterworld'

20 posted on 01/15/2019 8:36:02 AM PST by yesthatjallen
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-29 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson