In a near future, water has become a scarce resource in most parts of the world. Sweden and Finland have emerged as new global superpowers after to have managed to turn the gulf of Bothnia to the world’s largest sötvattensreservoar. Here in the north we notice the climate change, mainly through the dramatic köldras. But climate refugees from the parched lands of the south must look to the north. This will be accepted on sufferance, as second-class citizens, at the same time as flooding and storms to make a further million people homeless in Asia.
A dystopia?
” No, I’m pretty shocked at how the first part was received, precisely from the aspect. I had wanted to write a dystopia, it had looked like in a different way. After the summer of 2018, it feels rather as I have described an almost idyllic scenario where it really has gone well, ” says Mats Söderlund.
in the Mats Söderlunds klimattrilogi ”the Descendants”, the second part of ”the Fight” has just been published, proceed as usual. But the technology is up to date and the behavioural patterns have changed. The computer in the home controlled with your voice and projecting the social medieflödet on the wall above the breakfast table, where you like post by flashing two times between mouthfuls of tofusmörgåsen. Private vehicles and flygsemestrar are historical curiosities, and the people transporting themselves through the collective, driverless pods.
IN the UN is going on at the same time, tough negotiations on how the world’s scarce resources should be allocated. But society has far from collapsed, and in ”the Descendants”-the trilogy is trying to Mats Söderlund also show possibilities to deal with the climate crisis.
” My goal was really to write a hopeful book. I have tried to give a realistic and optimistic picture of how it might look on the a number of years. There are no world wars and no mass starvation, no riots. Looking at how the worst case scenarios look like from the UN and the scientific community so it is much, much worse than what I have taken height in this series, ” says Mats Söderlund.
from October, was described as a skräckrapport. It showed how disastrous the future of drought, tropical storms and floods will be if the global warming stops at 2 degrees instead of 1.5 degrees. The problem, which, among other klimatjournalisten David Wallace-Wells pointed out, is that 2 degrees is a best-scenario. With the current way of life, society, and the associated increases in emissions are 2 degrees an unattainable dream. 4 degrees at the end of the 2000s is the expected business-as-usual forecast.
Double the horror, in other words.
So, how does human life out in a world that is 2, 3 or 4 degrees warmer? How scary the scientific klimatrapporterna than appears is the abstract and say, not so much on a warmer life. Perhaps that is why they are fictional stories about a klimatförändrad world starting to be so many that they now have their own genrebeteckning: clifi. The term was first coined over ten years ago, but got the attention when Margaret Atwood, who among other things wrote clifi novel ”the Flood years”, published a tweet in 2012: ”This is a new term: Cli-Fi = SF about climate change.”
of scifi-literature focuses clifi, however, more on the threats and hardships of the than discoveries and inventions. The technology is not the main protagonist.
the Year 2041 in Maja Lundes klimatroman ”Blue”, the technology is old and crumbling, rather than green, and revolutionary. Large parts of southern Europe become uninhabitable because of drought and water scarcity, just as in the Mats Söderlunds current trilogy. Drinking water is produced in large desalination plants, but production is energy-intensive and expensive. The plants have begun to strike, the spare parts are difficult to get hold of and as soon as it’s unreliable power grid is down, is the water still.
nor Maja Lunde sees her novel as a dystopia. Because the fiction and the portrayal of the characters has been given control of the writing, she sees ”Blue” as a novel. But she did a lot of climate – and environment-related research for the writing and believes that her dark scenario is hardly any unthinkable, or even distant, future.
– in Addition to several interviews with a hydrologist dropped, I have read many reports with statistics and scenarios of how things can be with a uneven heating. The femårstorka as I depict in ”the Blue” is a very realistic scenario if we are not able to put a stop to global warming, ” she says on the phone from Oslo.
if our unwillingness to act against global warming. In his book ”Scenes from the heart,” says Malena Ernman and Stefan Thunberg to handlingsförlamningen bottoms in a kunskapsproblem rather than a human defects of character: ”the moment we realize the extent of the acute phase of the sustainability crisis we will change our habits and take a few steps back,” they write.
Maja Lunde believe that literature and art can help with the depth of understanding that is the difference between knowing the climate crisis and to understand its importance.
” Art awakens other feelings in us than an article in a journal, a scientific report or a speech from a politician. When I wrote, I really felt how my protagonist David hungered while he walked through the parched landscape. Readers tell that the text gives them the same feeling. Art, empathy, and requires something of us, empathy and presence in the lives of other people and in a different world than our own, ” says Maja Lunde.
klimatfiktioner portrayed a bleak post-apocalyptic fight for survival, as Cormac Mccarthy’s ”the Road”, there is today an increased movement towards realism, albeit in the future. At the same time, you will hear a darker tone in the alarms from climate scientists and politicians.
”I will no longer be silent. I’m not longer underdriva the existential threat to humanity we face right now,” wrote, for example, Isabella Lövin (MP) in a much-publicized article in the ETC for the election. She said that the Green party’s previous strategy has been to underdriva the threat to the climate for that not to appear as indulging in alarmism domedagsprofeter. Now she has thought about.
But how much darkness can withstand we? To subscribe for a future scenario that people are prepared to take on board is, according to the psykologiforskaren Kirsti Jylhä a difficult balancing act between the darkness and the light.
– If you only focus on strong, creepy scenarios with severe consequences, there is a risk that it creates hopelessness and a cynical view of humans as controlled by the short-term interests. Strong sensations of concern and anxiety without possible solutions can get many to distance themselves from the issue altogether, ” says Kirsti Jylhä, who works at the Institute for future studies and has written a thesis on the klimatförändringsförnekelse.
to most, regardless of ideological background has been easier to take an optimistic message. That climate change can be stopped while maintaining economic growth, or societal engagement in climate action would be better for the economy, according to Kirsti Jylhä typical examples of easily digestible visions.
– But the problem with the overly optimistic message is that people also may find it difficult to realize how serious the situation is. Then maybe you are thinking that you do not need to do some tough things: ”I might just reduce my flying a bit and so will the politicians and scientists to fix the rest.” A moderately large concern for climate change creates a willingness to learn more about the issue and provide motivation to act, ” says Kirsti Jylhä, who, after the end of the year is launching a research project on the psychological effects of different climate message.
in recent years, throwing the climate crisis is still a much smaller shadow over the literature than it does over the world. This is the view of the indian novelist, Amitav Ghosh in the book ”The great derangement”, where he sees a risk in that klimattemat turns into a genrelitterärt reserve.
” the Thing with climate change is that they are happening now, everywhere around us. There are storms, floods and migrants. There are people who are struggling to adapt to a world that is rent at every level, of culture, of technology, of material desires. As a writer, I think it is important to take into climate change in an ordinary, realistic, samtidsroman than to write a genreroman as people can easily dismiss as an apocalyptic speculation about the future, ” says Amitav Ghosh on the phone from New York.
When it comes to the balance between darkness and light in klimatkommunikationen he has a simple solution:
– The most important thing you can do against climate change is to just talk about them. To admit that they are there and that they are changing all of our lives. And frankly, if we are going to talk about climate change so we can do it in a thousand possible ways.
Read more: review of ”the Threat: the Descendants part 1” by Mats Söderlund
Read more: review of ”Blue” by Maja Lunde
Read more: Why do we choose not to save the earth?
