On Writing Fiction About Climate Change
On this Earth Day morning I heard an interview with a woman who insisted that we had to go into war-time–emergency–measures mode to enable governments to force industry and citizens to change their ways. The examples she gave were of victory gardens in the front and back yards of households and the prohibition of the manufacture of new cars during World War II. It is essential, she said, that our countries reach zero carbon emissions within the next decade while refocusing on renewable energies. This will not happen without some level of coercion.
The news is dire. Climate change is happening now, and much faster than had been predicted. We are experiencing extreme heat, more storms, wildfires, flooding and drought, oceans acidifying, mosquitoes and ticks spreading illness, and so much more. The anthropocene era has arrived. What humans have wrought demands that we somehow undo it, or at least stop in its tracks.
There are no shortage of solutions—the Green New Deal, for one, which was introduced by Senator Ed Markey and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez recently narrated a film that presents an alternative vision of a carbon free world, and which was created by artist Molly Crabapple and Canadians Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis, founders of LEAP, a change-oriented organization.
The Swedish teenager Greta Thumberg is challenging leaders around the world to pay attention to the harm that has been caused to the environment and to the future of subsequent generations. Her warnings are supported by nonagenarian David Attenborough and reinforced by environmental organizations such as Greenpeace, 350.org, and the World Wildlife Fund, among others. Nevertheless, it is difficult not to be pessimistic about the willingness of governments to disrupt the lives of their citizens in ways that are essential to bring CO2 levels down to zero emissions in enough time to prevent the catastrophes the world is heading toward.
We are bombarded with overwhelming facts about the future that we may feel helpless to do anything about, and, therefore, we may just turn off and carry on with our daily lives. I believe our creative people—artists, poets, writers, dramatists, filmmakers—provide us with alternative ways of seeing the future, ways that empower us to seek solutions to what appear to be intractable problems.
And that is where my story Operation Noah’s Ark comes in, which is set in the mid-twenty-first century, when life on earth has become unsustainable, governments have failed, and anarchy and chaos reign.
Since Nature abhors a vacuum, in my story, artificial intelligence and its programmers and computer scientists have spent some thirty years preparing to resettle selected individuals on space stations and eventually on habitable planets. They have been working on the construction of rockets and space stations, identified potential Cinderella planets for colonization, developed the necessary robots to assist with recruits and the running of the compound, and determined what characteristics would be found in the best recruits for a future colonization mission—all in secrecy.
The mission’s central command post is located in northern Ontario in an old radar station built during the Cold War by the U.S. military; there are a number of similar stations across the globe where plans are being made to abandon Earth to start over on other worlds.
It may well be that the story demanded to be written when I, who has very little fiction-writing experience and certainly had no thought of writing a novella, allowed the first few lines of Operation Noah’s Ark to emerge, and Jenny, a twenty-year-old biracial woman recruited to leave Earth, sprang to life.
How would she cope with her decision that initiated a process over which she had no control? How would she deal with the dilemma she faced to stay with the known or set out to uncharted territory? How would her parents, friends, and those of the other recruits handle the fact that their family members and friends vanish into thin air?
In conducting research for this novella, I discovered how far along plans are with respect to the very things I write about. Efforts are being made to leave Earth and settle on other planets. The National Space Society (NSS) quotes from a 1975 NASA sponsored study: “The people of Earth have both the knowledge and resources to colonize space. We can do it, starting now. A future with space settlements is vastly better than one without them.”
The lure of space includes the belief by the NSS, and others, that moving to space offers a better future for growth, wealth, energy, survival, spiritual development, knowledge, and diversity; will solve serious earthly problems; will fulfill a sense of destiny and responsibility in humans; and will even be fun. Much more could be written about the plans that are underfoot to find a way off Earth by wealthy individuals and by government. This is a very serious matter as resources that may otherwise be used to improve conditions on Earth are being and will be used to leave Earth.
In writing a fictional account of something that is not totally beyond the realm of possibility I confront such questions as: Who would make the best recruits to establish new colonies in other worlds? Who will determine the criteria for making such decisions? Should it be the wealthy billionaires now working on building rockets and making plans for space tourism? Those who wish to exploit resources on other planets as suggested by the NSS? Those who go forward with the same mindset that has led to the destruction of so much of the environment? Or should we stay where we are and do everything possible to save our precious home planet?
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Gloria Geller, a former professor in the faculty of social work at the University of Regina, retired to Hamilton after more than forty years as an educator. She has written on women and justice, young women’s aspirations, and women caregivers and healthcare reform. Operation Noah’s Ark is her first published work of fiction.
Find out more about her on her website http://www.gloriageller.ca/
Climate change having drastically altered life on Earth, Operation Noah’s Ark is a secret mission to start over again off-Earth by colonizing Cinderella planets with human, animal and plant life. Recruits to eventually settle on other worlds are brought to the Central Command Post, an old radar station in northern Ontario. Jenny, one of the recruits, arriving at the Central Command Post, is simultaneously excited by the possibility of this new adventure while grieving the loss of her family, friends and everything she knows.
Meanwhile Jenny’s Parents and friends hire private investigators Ira and Brenda Brown to find out what happened to Jenny who has mysteriously disappeared without a trace, all evidence of her existence having been extinguished….
Category: On Writing
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