Crafting Climate Futures We Can Survive
By Julie Carrick Dalton | July 2, 2021 |
It’s been hot this week. Really hot. I spent the past several days hauling compost to spread in a vegetable field and pushing wheelbarrows full of hay uphill to cover the compost and keep the moisture in the soil from evaporating.
No shade. Just hot, hot sun. Record-breaking, blistering sun.
With sweat pouring down my neck and back as I spread shovels full of compost, I wondered what this heat would do to my vegetables. They wilted a bit, but they would probably be okay because my well provides abundant water for irrigation. But what if I didn’t have enough water? What if the aquifers dried up? What if the heatwave didn’t break? What if my crops failed? What if everyone’s crops failed?
These questions trouble me as a gardener, but they haunt me as a writer. I can’t stop thinking about various climate futures and what they might look like. What are the worst-case scenarios? And how do we stop them from coming true?
As a writer, I can craft visions of a future version of life on Earth. My novel Waiting for the Night Song imagines a slightly altered version of contemporary New England in which an invasive insect takes up residence in the pine forest. It’s an actual beetle, the same one that has devastated drought-weakened forests in California and Colorado, leaving dead wood that burns like kindling in a wildfire. In my story, a drought in New Hampshire sets the perfect conditions for the opportunistic invader. Will this really happen one day? Maybe. I enjoy exploring the ‘what ifs’ in climate fiction.
In an April 18, 2021 interview in The Guardian, climate fiction author Jeff VanderMeer is quoted as saying, “It’s useful that a novel can be a laboratory of things that haven’t happened and maybe shouldn’t happen.” I turned that nugget of wisdom over and over in my mind. Novels can serve as laboratories for different versions of the future. Maybe when we read about these various futures and envision what life might look like, we will be motivated to stop these visions from becoming our reality.
It’s very likely my beetle will make its way east. This beetle might set the stage for catastrophic fires on the East Coast the way it has out west. Or maybe it won’t. Like Jeff VanderMeer suggested, my book is just a laboratory for one possible future.
My second novel, The Last Beekeeper, coming out in early 2023, is set in the near future in a world where pollinators are dying more rapidly than we predicted, leading to an agricultural crisis.
I’ve read so many versions of our future in climate fiction novels. In Gold Fame Citrus by Claire Vaye Watkins, much of the western part of the US succumbs to desertification. In The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi, the US splinters over dwindling water resources. In American War, Omar El Akkad envisions a future where the US crumbles under another civil war, this time fought over fossil fuels as coastal cities disappear into rising seas. In Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy, almost all birds, sea creatures, and land mammals are extinct.
None of these are futures I ever hope to see.
Peeking into these fictional futures makes me grateful for what we have now. We’ve already lost so many plant and animal species, and the rate of extinction is increasing. We have much to grieve already. But there is so much still worth saving. We can’t go back in time, but maybe we can choose which future we will live in. Maybe we can craft it.
As I watered down the hay-covered compost and guzzled water under the hot sun, I listened to the audiobook of The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson. Robinson writes a future in which a massive heatwave wipes out entire villages in India, cooking people alive as they seek relief from the heat in a lake. It’s a difficult, gruesome scene, but it feels possible.
As the mid-day sun beat down on me in 98-degree weather (nothing compared to the fictional heatwave in Ministry for the Future,) I continued working in my vegetable field. I enjoy the meditative work of weeding. I don’t mind spreading manure. These chores feel good because I can envision a positive outcome. If I close my eyes, I can picture the pumpkin vines bursting forth with perfect, round fruit that will make spectacular pies. My actions influence how the next few months will likely play out in my garden. But none of what I do on my farm will influence what happens next season, next decade, or next century. That’s a mightier challenge that will require all of us.
In a February Twitter post, author Gary Snyder shared a philosophy that altered my thinking about climate fiction. (Thanks to author Tim Weed for alerting me to this little gem of a quote.) “The first step, I think… is to make us love the world rather than to make us fear for the end of the world. Make us love the world… and then begin to take better care of it,” Snyder says.
Yes, we all need to love this Earth enough to make us want to care for it, to fight for it. Fiction can play a role in the conversation. Novels can spark conversations, feed book club discussion, and inspire awe.
One of my absolute favorite books is The Bear by Andrew Krivak. In his fable-like imagining of the last two people on earth after an unexplained downfall of humans linked to our abuse of the environment, Krivak immerses readers in the life of a young girl fighting to survive in raw and challenging conditions. Even in this bleak world, she still perceives nature with awe and wonder. The girl loves the nature that still exists. Krivak describes her affection for the natural world with such tenderness that it made me want to appreciate every tree and animal that still exists in this teetering world of ours.
I value dystopian visions because they are a reflection, a distortion of the world we inhabit now. I think of them as tough-love warnings of what might come.
As I sweltered on my farm during our recent heatwave, the much bigger heatwave in Kim Stanley Robinson’s Ministry of the Future seemed possible and terrifying. But the part of the story that moved me most were when characters stand still to admire a landscape and a rare mountain goat sighting in the Alps. The sense of awe Robinson triggers made me fall in love all over again with everything we have not yet lost.
When Robinson’s audiobook ended, I put my shovel down and took my water bottle to sit under a peach tree, heavy with fuzzy baby fruit, and I took a break. The view from the peach trees on top of the hill overlooking fields and pastures is beautiful. I promised myself to remember to look up more often and see the things that grow out of the broken-down matter in the compost I so diligently spread.
After reading that Twitter post by Gary Snyder, I interrogated myself about why I choose to write stories that engage climate science. I came to the easy conclusion that I write about nature because I love it. In Waiting for the Night Song, I immerse readers in the woods, mountains, and lakes of New Hampshire surrounding my farm because I love those wild places. In The Last Beekeeper, I chronicle the future collapse of our pollinators because I, as a beekeeper, have lost several bee colonies to Colony Collapse Disorder, and I grieved their loss. I want to share my love of bees and the wilds of New England with my readers. I want you all to love them as much as I do.
Because if I can make you love the forest and the bees way I do, maybe you will want to protect them too. Maybe we can craft that future together.
What books inspire you? Why? Do you write (or read) novels that imagine the future? What kind of future would you want to write about?
Julie Carrick Dalton is the author of THE LAST BEEKEEPER, longlisted for the Massachusetts Book Award, and WAITING FOR THE NIGHT SONG, a Most Anticipated book by CNN, Newsweek, USA Today, Parade, and Buzzfeed, and an Amazon Editor’s Pick for Best Books of the Month. As a journalist, Julie has published more than a thousand articles in publications including The Boston Globe, BusinessWeek, The Hollywood Reporter, and the Chicago Review of Books. A Tin House and Bread Loaf alum, and graduate of GrubStreet’s Novel Incubator, Julie holds a Master’s in Creative Writing and is currently on the teaching faculty of Drexel University’s MFA program. She also teaches Climate Fiction to undergrads at Tufts University. Julie is a frequent speaker and workshop leader on the topic of Fiction in the Age of Climate Crisis at universities, libraries, museums, and conferences nationally and internationally. Mom to four kids and two dogs, Julie is an avid skier, kayaker, open-water swimmer, gardener, and wannabe herbalist. Her third novel, THE FOREST BECOMES HER, is forthcoming from St. Martin’s Press. You can connect with her on Instagram @juliecdalton, or at juliecarrickdalton.com.
Hi, Julie. I believe climate change dwarfs all other public policy issues in importance, but I feel a deep sense of frustration that powerful special interests are still blocking meaningful action. The hour is getting late and I am not optimistic that political leaders grasp the urgency. As for the questions you posed, I was inspired by the ending of Emily St. John Mandel’s novel, Station 11. I found the ending hopeful. On the other hand, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road left me depressed and feeling bereft. I give you credit for tackling this crucial issue in your fiction writing. Stories are powerful motivators for change. As out good friend Lisa Cron says (paraphrasing), stories are how people make sense of the world, how people vicariously experience events. Thank you for this thoughtful post. Wishing you a great summer and stay cool!
Unfortunately, climate and environmental issues aren’t limited to future and near-future settings. I write contemporary romance set where I live, on the Jersey Shore. Every little beach town here has a constant challenge of balancing big-money development demands versus preserving and maintaining the fragile, constantly shifting beaches and coastal ecosystem. In my novel, Better Late Than Never, I was able to use this as a subplot. I didn’t set out to teach any lessons, but it’s a given, if you portray truth about your contemporary setting, where ever it is, there will be an environmental issue. Where there are issues there are sides. Where there are sides, there is conflict. So, it’s perfect ground for novels.
Thanks for the post.
Hi Julie, I love your passion. If only we could awaken more people on this gift of the earth, to realize the situation we find ourselves in. During the pandemic, we moved from Southern California back to Chicago. I so miss California, but already they are dealing with temperatures beyond normal and the water situation will worsen. It’s nice to have Lake Michigan nearby! Nevada is becoming a crazy place, as all they do is build and build with no thought of where the water will come from as Lake Mead dries up. We have a huge garden here, and instead of writing, I will be weeding. Thanks for using your passion. We need you, Beth
The past repeats itself. What we think about we bring about. We all need to love Mother Earth and stop hating. Thank you. I’m eager to read your novel about bees.
Julie, I’ve been completely captivated by imagining a true Christendom as outlined in The Splendor of Creation by Fr. Joseph Iannuzzi with Satan chained for a thousand years and our propensity to sin at a minimum. Oh to live by the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes!
I don’t generally go for dystopian stories unless there’s a lot of hope and story people to love. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand remains one of my favorites because she imagined what if all the makers and doers quit.
I hope your summertime is lovely and green and full of growth. We enjoy gardening too and are learning about permaculture–bit by bit we are transforming our backyard. We keep bees too.
It’s been said of Christianity that when people accept it, it’s not because they are persuaded by arguments or facts, but because they feel a personal relationship with God and Christ. Maybe one problem with getting people to act positively on climate change, instead of merely fearing it and wringing their hands, is that they’re not moved by facts alone. We need to re-establish a personal relationship with the earth, with nature and the good things it provides. In this age of mega-stores, multinational corporations, and Internet commerce, I think we’ve lost that.
Julie, this is a beautiful, powerful post. I was reading a Summer Reading Guide in The Atlantic yesterday that brought this back to me, and wanted to share it. You may already know about a book called The Properties of Perpetual Light, which is described as “a call to young people, particularly those from vulnerable communities threatened by climate change, to save themselves and one another” via “a meditative collection of essays, speeches, and poems.” The author, Julian Aguon, describes his writing as “the work of bearing witness, wrestling with the questions of one’s day, telling children the truth.” That’s good work for any storyteller, ask me.
Thank you for sharing your experience and opening all of our minds here at WU. You are appreciated!