Lately I’ve been working hard against climate doomism. Not just because I’m a naturally hopeful person, but also because I’m become very suspicious of the types of futures we’ve been sold in recent years.
As someone who wrote about the future professionally at one point, the future has always been exciting to me. So this video essay, about the fake futurism of Elon Musk, and how we’ve stopped imagining the future in fun, fascinating ways, really struck a chord with me.
I've also been watching videos from TED Ed on changing technologies and how we can think differently about batteries and infrastructure in the future, like how a battery can come in the form of two lakes next to each other, or how we need to move away from the concrete we see in every part of our city infrastructure.
The key thing to remember is the world isn’t going to end, but it is going to change: and what is that going to look like? Animals are already shapeshifting in response to the climate crisis. We, and our ideas of what the future could hold, should do the same.
I’ve also felt like journalism isn’t necessarily the place to go for this — I needed to think more about what could be, not just what is.
I first wanted to interview Sim Kern when they wrote a thread about the jokes people made about billionaires escaping to outer space:
I really liked their analysis. Not only was it extremely knowledgable and a great refutation of the same damn joke everyone was making, it was also a great way to educate the public on how little we really understand about the space between reality and science fiction.
The lines between science fiction and reality have been blurring for years, so I don’t think it’s necessarily our fault for being misinformed. It doesn’t help that people like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos unfortunately share these science fiction fantasies. Just because they’ve made lots of money off technology (and the backs of exploited workers) doesn’t mean they’re the most innovative or imaginative people in the industry. Focusing on them as leaders of the future is more than a foolish endeavor — it’s dangerously naive at best, and a way of choking truly imaginative solutions about the future at worst.
So while Sim Kern’s realism has been a real godsend, it’s their commitment to climate fiction that really drew me in.
They were completely right, and I knew immediately I had to hear more about Sim’s vision of the future. Below, our interview over email:
What are some of your favorite ideas about the future?
Over the past year, I’ve been most energized by reading solarpunk and Indigenous visions of the future. Solarpunk, for those who aren’t familiar, is an emerging genre of utopian science fiction that sets stories in worlds where our reliance on fossil fuels is a thing of the past, and the global ecology is being restored. I was also very moved by Robin Kimmerer’s idea in Braiding Sweetgrass of living in gratitude and reciprocity with the earth. Perhaps it’s not currently possible for all of us who are struggling to survive under late capitalism to have a positive relationship with the earth—but Indigenous people have been managing it for tens of thousands of years. Hopefully someday I’ll feel that my existence has a net positive effect on my local ecosystem. I’m also currently reading The Red Deal: Indigenous Action to Save Our Earth, which outlines the future I’d like to see, rooted in decolonization, anti-imperialism, Indigenous sovereignty, and restoring positive relationships between humans and non-humans.
What do you think people need to let go of in terms of visions of the future? Personally I've begun to believe that the ideas we have around infrastructure and technology, especially of futures that seem completely divided from nature in terms of form. That's what I felt when watching the battery TED-Ed video and the concrete one — the idea of a natural battery, and the incredibly harmful effects of concrete, had never really occurred to me before.
I think you’re spot-on in identifying an over-reliance on technology to solve our problems. We know climate change is being driven by massive ecological destruction. And yet, for some reason, we think more machinery and technology is a better answer than just…restoring those devastated ecosystems that regulate our climate. Not that I’m totally against clean tech. For example, I think we should absolutely work to replace our car-culture with clean rail as quickly as possible. But a lot of the “clean tech” we’re being sold is just greenwashing the much larger, intractable problem—which is capitalism.
So that’s what I really want people to let go of in terms of their visions of the future. Capitalism demands non-stop growth, extraction, and oppression. It’s an earth-devouring way of life, and it can’t be reformed. Our global society’s #1 priority is to enrich the already-obscenely-rich. That’s a shit priority! And until that changes, no real progress is possible towards environmental or social justice goals. So if we want to fix the climate, capitalism has got to go.
What are some climate change ideas and information that you think are missing from fiction about the future now? Like I said above, I think it's a lot of things related to technology and infrastructure. People have a Blade Runner type of idea of the future but that's like 40-50 years out of date.
A lot of the really popular cli-fi lacks specificity and is so apocalyptic that it invites climate nihilism. Generally you see either the everywhere-is-flooded world, like in Waterworld, or an endless desert, like in Mad Max. These outcomes of climate change are hyperbolic, and even given the direst predictions, would be centuries away. Because they’re such extreme visions, they’re more likely to cause folks to give up hope.
I try to ground my climate fiction in more near-term climate predictions which are specific to a given region. In my novella Depart, Depart! I showed the impact a truly catastrophic hurricane could have if it made a direct hit on Houston. In my short story, “Real Sugar is Hard to Find,” I wrote about how the changing climate will impact agriculture, turning something as simple as baking a cake into an epic quest for ingredients. While these stories do serve in part as warnings, there’s always a message of hope too. A common theme is, “Mourn what’s been lost, but recognize all the good stuff left to save.” I think that sort of message builds your resilience to keep going as a climate activist.
Why do you think people are so afraid of thinking about the future as it relates to climate change? I used to feel afraid too, but I've been exploring climate fiction and trying to write my own as a way to, well, jump start my imagination in terms of seeing the many possibilities we have in the future.
I think people have a hard time even imagining positive futures, because we have so few fictional examples! We’ve been fed a steady diet of post-apocalyptic fiction and climate dystopias throughout my lifetime. When it comes to major, pop-culture works, the only utopian one is the Star Trek universe. And even in that franchise, the latest series have all taken a grimdark turn.
That’s why I’m so excited about the growing interest in solarpunk. It’s still a niche genre, with only a few novels and anthologies having been published. But it’s rapidly gaining a dedicated fanbase, and I think after all the grimness of the last two years, audiences are hungry for positive futures. My dearest hope is that the grimdark-everything trend dies a brutal death, and optimistic, joyful science fiction takes center stage.
How do you think the pandemic changed how people talk about climate change? It certainly feels like people are much more ready to speak about it, but are also much more informed. But that could also be what I feel from being on TikTok and seeing articles and social conversations started by more young people.
I think the pandemic brought climate change home to everyone on Earth in an unprecedented way. Even if folks aren’t aware of the connections between deforestation, climate change, and zoomorphic diseases, we all got the sense over the past year that life on earth, writ large, was not okay. You had the massive wildfires burning year-round first in Australia and the Amazon, and then the Western US. You had a terrifying, unprecedented hurricane season, all while we were in lockdown for this new, deadly disease. 2020 was a humbling year for the human race. Many people in wealthy countries had been able to avoid even seeing the consequences of our consumptive lifestyles until now. And the Black Lives Matter movement, which resurfaced over the summer following the death of George Floyd, educated many about the connections between police brutality, white supremacy, and environmental racism. I saw more people realizing that all these tragedies that have befallen our communities over the past few years are heads of the same hydra, and its beating heart is greed.
So I’m heartened by the growing awareness of these connections between our oppressions. I’m heartened when Facebook friends—who’ve never self-identified as “climate people” or “leftists—” are connecting the dots between climate change and capitalism and racism. 2020 and 2021 were a brutal wake-up call from mother nature. Now that we’re awake, maybe change is possible.
I’m doing more interviews with writers and novelists and just plain interesting people these days. Reply to this email or email me at sulagnamisracontact@gmail.com if you want to talk about your newly (or oldly) published book; a book we both loved and read; or just plain fun internet stuff.
Also, if you’ve emailed me and I haven’t emailed back — please follow up! My inbox is poppin’ these days but I love emails :)