#LUTW1

[clifi-journal-blog]

Loosed Upon the World I

Looking at the Saga Anthology of Climate Fiction

Introduction:

TL;DR: We think it’s not gonna happen to us. We thought wrong. Here’s our attempt at making fiction make things seem more real. Humanize the threat.

Key Quotes and what’s up:

“Welcome to the end of the world, already in progress” (xi)—focus on already in progress, see CC. There’s no clear beginning or end, but for sure we are amidst massive climate upheaval.

“Fiction is a powerful tool for helping us contextualize the world around us.” – s/o at fiction for being able to help us understand what’s up.

Foreword:

TL;DR: Lust for techno-fix—instant gratification, instant solution. Oh, how fucking human. We keep avoiding the real problem and thinking oh yeah we’ll just go to Mars or something sci-fi like that. Multiple fantasies exists; there are stories that warn you about the dangers of climate change and then there are those that will defo tell you it isn’t real.

Key Quotes and what’s up:

“If you were to live in that world…that might make an impact” (XIII) well, you think it means nothing b/c it’s not happening to you. INDIFFERENCE.

“It’s interesting that by creating a made-up world, you can show the real world more sharply and clearly” (XIV)—fiction is how we make sense of the world, ironically, forces us to empathize. A million is a statistic, one is a tragedy.

[About “feel-good technology” advertised to combat climate change] “They are, in fact, fiction, or if you really want to stick the knife in—fantasy” (XV)—less realistic than the possibilities embodied in the stories is the idea that one device can fix all these damages that we have done to the environment.

Shooting the Apocalypse, Paolo Bacigalupi

TL;DR: Timo and Lucy find trying to get some good scoop, comes across the reality of what happens when water becomes scarce. Sacrifices, fights, treason, all that BS, all about the Central Arizona Project. These people were getting ready to go to war, an army against the apocalypse—the end of the world, without water, a basic necessity.

Key Quotes and what’s up:

“All anyone wants to do is tell their story, Timo. They need to know they matter.” – the power of storytelling in community and world-building (of how we interpret the world around us)

The Myth of the Rain, Seanan McGuire

TL;DR: Climate change’s effect on the local fauna (ft. migration, tourism, and the rich getting everything at the expense of the poor, of the marginalize who suffer the most even though they didn’t do as much damage as the rich people did). God Complex, manicured nature, “the great outdoors” and by doing our job, we pat ourselves in the back and say, well done.

Key Quotes and what’s up:

“Forget the poor. Forget the disenfranchised. They were the ones who had done the least to destroy the world as we’d known it for so long, and now they were the ones being left behind.” – see CC, CWC, why are those countries that contributed the least amount of pollution the ones suffering the most? Unfair.

“When the world catches fire, something has to burn” – s/o at THG series, see: very dystopian society, see: role of government intervention, and how someone has to take the consequences of it all.

“Humanity was the architect of its own destruction” (34)—we did this to ourselves. Architect= design, artificiality, we designed our own end.

“Was it mercy or arrogance…Did we have the right?” (36)—God Complex, roots back to Adam and Eve and control of environment.

OUTER RIMS, Toiya Kristen Finley

TL;DR: Mother helps this dude who’s sick, ends up getting infected. Everyone in family dies in hospital with the rest of the others.

Key Quotes and what’s up: “No one regretted last chances unless they weren’t taken” (39)—BIG MOOD, mother nature @ us, “only know you love her when you let her go”

KHELDYU, Karl Schroeder

TL;DR: Bro and sis fight about how to save the world, b/c one lowkey doing it for his own good and sis is like wtf?? And sis’s friend works for the bro and it’s all complicated af, but in the end, basically try to contain the damages of the bro’s plan.

Key Quotes and what’s up:

“industrial logic. About what happened when the natural world became an abstraction, and the only reality was the system you were building” (71)—see Foreword and world building through fictions and the stories we tell, also see L2DIE and system mentality.

THE SNOWS OF YESTERYEAR, Jean-Louis Trudel

TL;DR: Making a business out of saving the word; rescuing the old professor. Sins of before come to haunt us now, but sorta happy ending= we aren’t as doomed after all= ISOLATED events, guy from Ontario love story lol

Key Quotes and what’s up:

“Saving the world would have to yield dividends to catch this group’s attention” (71) profitability of green tech otherwise it’s useless, no one cares if you can’t make money off it.

“The world beyond the small tent…drowned cities, burning forests, shifting sand dunes…He’d stopped loving the snow when he’d realized it was an illusion” (103) effects of yesterday not so far from us but we feel distant, safe, cut-off= ILLUSION.

THE RAINY SEASON, Tobias S. Buckell

TL;DR: Acid rain, literally. Run offs and hallucinations and coming back “home”.

Key Quotes and what’s up:“The place wasn’t the same. The place you lived no longer existed.” (112)- see CC and the ending of the pastoral, nostalgic past.

A HUNDRED HUNDRED DAISIES, Nancy Kress

TL;DR: pipelines and water supply shortage, mutiny, and the loss of dreams, of “daisies”, have to make up a new, pretend one—kinda to give hope to the younger sis. PAPER DAISIES= not authentic, but an idea. Power of what’s on paper

Key Quotes and what’s up:

“I’m not a child, and this is my future, too” (129)—affects everyone, all ages, not just the oldies. Gotta take part of changing the system.

“It will be a war, won’t it, Danny? Like in history” (140)—shortages in anything triggers violence, everyone needs water=FIGHT FOR IT

“Even our small town…has a black market” (140)—making money out of the shortage of water, still people profiting from it

THE NETHERLANDS LIVES WITH WATER, Jim Shepard

TL;DR: In Netherlands, we cope with the rising water; life built around water. Public/Private interests—who wins?

Key Quotes and what’s up:

“Henk’s class is viewing a presentation at the Climate Campus—Water: the Precious Resource and Deadly Companion” (153) 1)they actually have a campus dedicated to climate studies? Explain. 2) precious resource and deadly companion—you can say that again, the necessity of water is exactly want makes it dangerous, see previous story.

(***FAVE)THE PRECEDENT, Sean McCullen

TL;DR: law, climatologist setting the precedent in this post-apocalyptic kinda war camp, being visited by figure of death all the time. Realizing it’ll be a lot harder for him because now he’s set up these high expectations of how to live. Lots of Holocaust and Nazi references, and law & econ so BAE AF.

Key Quotes and what’s up:

“Economic growth was considered about as healthy as cancer” (177)—consumerism vs. environmental struggle.

“The world will go on, but your world has been unsustainable for a long time” (178)—see L2DIE and EOSC lectures about how it’s us dying, as humanity that scares us.

“Most were fools, not monsters.” “The fool kills just as dead as the monster” (186)—it doesn’t matter what the intentions are. Dead is dead. SHOOK.

“everyone born before 2000 is an eco-Nazi, guilty of climate crimes” (186)- ECO NAZI! WOWZA

“You look like me,” (@ Death) (196)—see L2DIE, death is a reflection of our own mortality.

“Without you (death), I will not be human” (201)—part of living, of being human is accepting death, see again L2DIE.

HOT SKY, Robert Silverberg

TL;DR: Delivering ice berg, ship encounters another ship, awks dilemma about mutiny and take these men who have gone crazy. Screen, a.k.a. sunscreen and going heat crazy. Question of conscience vs. survival. Helping others vs. helping yourself.

Key Quotes and what’s up:

“Who had asked for any of this…Not us. Our great-great-grandparents had, maybe, but not us. Only they’re not here to know what it’s like, and we are” (219)—lowkey guilt tripping this generation through voices of future possible grandchildren.

“No sense looking back. You look back, all you do is hurt your eyes.” (228)—survival of the fittest, that’s how it’s always gonna go.

THAT CREEPING SENSATION, Alan Dean Foster.

TL;DR: Super size me, NATURE edition.

Key Quotes and what’s up: “Humanity was adapting to changed climate…her only fear was that something else just might be adapting a little faster.” (239)—who will win?