clifi-journal-blog

[clifi-journal-blog]

Maddaddam

A look into the last installation of Margaret Atwood’s trilogy

General commentaries:

What I enjoyed about Maddaddam is that for a concluding novel, it shows a lot of insight into the origin. Not only does Atwood unite the characters and story lines of the first two books, she also sheds a lot of “genesis” stories that highlight how the stories that we tell dictate and manipulate our course of origin. The backward/forward looking actions of the text is more pronounced than in Oryx and Crake, which is mostly Jimmy/the Snowman recollecting the past. Despite the violence and trauma contained in the novel, Atwood also presents momentary pictures of beauty, of simple happiness, of “pink cloud filaments [floating] above the eastern horizon” (220). There are moments of direct preaching, warning for the present citizens of the Earth to be more careful of their environment, but for most of it, Atwood relays these messages quite well. 

Quotes to look at:

“What is blue dicks?...What is fucking touch?” (16)-- so much of our understanding of the world is influenced by what we are taught by others. Knowledge isn’t innate-- it is learned, stories that we tell ourselves about the world

“There’s the story, then there’s the real story, then there’s the story of how the story came to be told...which is part of the story too.”(56)-- tbt to Doctor Who and we are all stories in the end

“Toby remembers coming here with the God’s Gardeners to peddle their recycled soap... back when there had still been buying and people to buy things, selling and people to sell them.” (95)-- re-imagination of society without the existence of markets. Is that Eden? A place where global economies don’t exist? A lot of works we’ve read talks about the harm of trade and consumerism to the environment. Is this the ideal?

“The Church of PetrOleum was high-tech enabled....with the debit accounts.” (117) Fossil fuel and this petroleum-dependent society has replaced religion. Capitalism as another form of religion; putting blind faith in a system which you think is indestructible, utterly superior.

“She ought to write such things down...if there is anyone in the future, that is; and if they’ll be able to read; which, come to thing of it, are two big ifs...religious cult?” (135)-- existence of reading and written narrative transmission in post-apocalyptic societies (think Farenheit 451); will stories of the past matter for the future? To learn from their mistakes? What is the point of collecting all these data, if one day, they will go to waste when the apocalypse (the waterless flood) comes 

“Maybe acting as if she believes in such a future will help create it” (136)-- fake it til you make it; self-fulfilling prophecy

“Don’t hope too much...Hope can ruin you.” (160)-- versus the previous statement. Is hope a good thing or a bad thing? Is it a survival tool or will it fool us from actually taking action?

“We like to think [women are] wild animals...underneath the decorations” (171) is this why Gardener’s are all about simplicity? A return to the primal? Clothes, learning, morals--are these all decorations? Relate to exoticization and fetishization of the strong, independent woman trope

“What comes next?...Have I ruined them?” (204)-- recurring concept that somehow learning is harmful, is a means of ruining the perfect human. The stories that we tell-- are they harmful buffers to the reality, think Climate Changed and “the fiction of our reality” or do they keep us--the idea of civilisation alive? Is it fair to sacrifice nature to keep civilisation intact?

“Toby has dreamt all night: piglet dreams...All of them happy, non of them dead.” (261)-- Pigoons and how the notion of gene splicing desecrates the original creation; criticizes just how much humans intervene so much in the lives of these animals, how much damage we cause them. We domesticate them; we feed them for slaughter, for experimentation, for entertainment. Even when we take care of animals, we do it for our benefit.

[Pigoons about eating their own young] “No-holds barred recycling. Even Adam and the Gardeners never went that far” (271)-- Pigs being portrayed as more advanced, more well-adapted to the new environment. To us, eating the young is cannibalism, but for them it’s efficient. [Think: morals, values-- these are what make us think this practice is wrong. Without this knowledge, without these values-- would we practice cannibalism?]

“And the Egg wasn’t the real Egg...They way we know, from the stories” (360)-- stories and the way they allow us to exist past death, not just us, in general, but us in a certain moment in time. Think Shakespeare and the beautiful young man--literature as a means of preserving, of keeping the essence of something that may one day be extinct. 

“I am writing the story...And that is a happy thing, isn’t it?” (374)--writing and manipulation of reality (e.g. making a tragic reality a happy one, through words)

[clifi-journal-blog]

The Balancing Act:

Evaluating the Stability of Law during Periods of Necessity in Climate Fiction

Abstract:

My research paper aims to look at the effects of diminishing resources and environmental cataclysm in legislative decisions; and the ability of the law to appropriate the distribution of these materials within society. I will be looking at how different forms of climate fiction address these issues: The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future (cli-fi essay); We Stand on Guard (graphic novel); and The Water Knife (novel). How do these forward-looking texts imagine the degree and success of government control in a world that is devastated by climate catastrophe? Do human rights prevail in periods of strict government control? Does environmental protection entail armed enforcement? What happens to local and international relations during periods of resource scarcity? I would also be looking at application of economic concepts—Game Theory, Coase Theorem, and Cost-Benefit Analysis— in these texts to understand the effects of punishment and liability on environmental consciousness.

Review of Related Literature:

Alfred Endres (2004) examines the role of game theory in establishing global environmental policies and argues that equal provision of environmental responsibility is difficult because individual governments will always have the incentive to free ride the efforts of another. Decentralized governments that promote democracy are most susceptible to resistance when it comes to pollution abatement, as parties pursue dominant strategies that benefit their own self-interest. The success of environmental policies relies on the government’s ability to unify societal goals on climate control and impose strict laws that work towards those goals. Similarly, Oreskes and Conway’s The Collapse of Western Civilization (2014) predicts that China’s authoritarian government will alleviate the effects of climate change by providing subsidies that promote renewable technology. Oreskes and Conway add that democratic governments were inefficient in dealing with the environmental crisis because they lacked the “organizational ability to quarantine and relocate people” (51). As Endres suggests, punishments (through legal enforcement) and government regulation are necessary for cooperation during periods of necessity. Individual parties would, otherwise, have no impetus to stop polluting.  

Environmental policies also entail the dilemma on resource allocation as supplies continue to dwindle. The diamond-water paradox, initially posed by Adam Smith, focuses on the labour theory of value, such that the relative abundance of water and the ease with which we collect them, make them cheap. Diamond, although not a necessity like water, is harder to acquire. Therefore, today, it is much more expensive than water (Ragan, 2014). Basic economics of supply and demand suggests that a decrease in supply of a good—holding everything else constant—increases the price of said good. As water becomes more scarce, its market price increases and water is distributed to those who can afford it. The distribution of water resources, therefore, reflect the income inequality amongst states and individuals.

Marko Salvaggio, Robert Futrell, Christie D. Batson, & Barbara G. Brents (2014) argue that urban development in America’s desert cities like Las Vegas necessitates strict water conservation policies that target both the supply and demand aspects of water scarcity. These policies include limiting individual and corporate water consumption; and the diversion of aquifers from one city to another. Paolo Bacigalupi picks up on these already-existing realities and increases the severity of scarcity, illustrating the possible shifts in the laxness of current environmental policies. Bacigalupi’s The Water Knife (2016) extends his critique of government authority to the allocation of property rights—specifically water rights—amongst the elite. Bacigalupi personalizes the consequences of market failure and inefficient resource allocation outlined in The Collapse of Western Civilization. He explores various water economies—from the state governments that develop policies on access to the Colorado river, to localized governments (Vet and his mercenaries) that impose taxes on water collection. These water economies function through a series of transaction costs and liability rules explored in what is commonly referred to as Coase Theorem. Coase Theorem states that when transaction costs are high—when negotiations are costly—property rules must be defined and liability upheld; when transaction costs are low—efficient solutions are reached without the need for strict property rules (Grafton, 2012). Defining property rights during increasingly competitive periods of scarcity prevents the tragedy of the commons phenomenon in which one party’s overconsumption of a public good harms the consumption opportunities of another.

Christina Binder states that “stability versus change is one of the fundamental debates of the law of treaties” (Binder, 909). Periods of crisis challenge the state’s responsibility to uphold treaty obligations in the face of changing circumstances. This is exemplified in Vaughan’s We Stand on Guard (2016) which visualizes the international disputes for resources between Canada and America—allies in today’s socio-political economy. Vaughan’s graphic novel reflects the brutality of military warfare that may arise from increasingly oppressive government control over diminishing resources. It reimagines the extent to which currently existing laws on human rights can be trampled by the demand for land, water, or other resources. Vaughan juxtaposes the U.S.’s cost of resource accumulation (through violence and warfare against Canadian militia) to the expected benefits of government intervention. He challenges whether the brutal, inhumane actions of the U.S. government are justified under the grounds of necessity and scarcity.

 RESOURCES

Bacigalupi, Paolo. The Water Knife. New York, Vintage Books, 2016.      

Binder, Christina. "Stability and Change in Times of Fragmentation: The Limits of Pacta Sunt

Servanda Revisited." Leiden Journal of International Law, vol. 25, no. 4, 2012, pp. 909.

Endres, Alfred. "Game Theory and Global Environmental Policy." Poiesis & Praxis, vol. 3, no.

1, 2004, pp. 123-139.

Grafton, R. Q., and Ebooks Corporation. A Dictionary of Climate Change and the Environment:

Economics, Science and Policy. Edward Elgar, Northampton, MA; Cheltenham, UK;, 2012.

Oreskes, Naomi, and Erik M. Conway. The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the

Future. New York, Columbia University Press, 2014.

Ragan, Christopher T. S. Microeconomics. 14th Canadian ed., Toronto, Pearson Canada, 2014.

Salvaggio, Marko, et al. "Water Scarcity in the Desert Metropolis: How Environmental Values,

Knowledge and Concern Affect Las Vegas Residents’ Support for Water Conservation

Policy." Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, vol. 57, no. 4, 2014, pp. 588-611.

Vaughan, Brian K. We Stand on Guard. Berkeley, Image Comics, 2016.

[clifi-journal-blog]

The Year of the Flood

Looking at Margaret Atwood’s novel 

General Commentaries/Thoughts:

I really enjoyed the poem in the beginning of the book; it sets up the mood/themes that pervade the narrative. I also like how it sheds a light on the other classes that experienced the events of Crake’s catastrophe. Same world, different interpretation. Toby and Ren are REALLY living the hard life, also lowkey reminds me of The Water Knife with the whole view of low-income reality (prostitution, poverty, actual survival) and puts into perspective how lucky Jimmy had it in Oryx and Crake. 

I also like Atwood’s integration of poems in random intervals, because although it’s seemingly out of context, it really highlights the role of religion, of faith and mythology in upholding some semblance of civilization (goes against Crake’s assumption in Oryx and Crake). Book is definitely hella more religious than Oryx and Crake and puts a lotta emphasis on Genesis/Adam/Creation.

Quotes to Look at:

“How much have we lost...How much have we wilfully destroyed! How much do we need to restore, within ourselves!” (13) -- idea of playing God, of trying to be above nature (also kinda what caused Adam and Eve’s fall)

“Now let us turn to our Devotion for the Festival of Arks. On this day we mourn, but also rejoice.” (89) -- looks at extinction as a form of cleansing (cleansing of sin, a second chance at setting things right. 

“Corporation pills are the food of the dead, my dear. Not our kind of dead, the bad kind. The dead who are still alive.” (105)-- that quote about how some people die at 25 but don’t get buried until after several decades later. Corporate greed kills the soul

“One day...when you’re an Eve, you’ll understand more” (105)--reclaiming the Garden, the “promised land” before the fall, due to greed/gluttony, etc.

“You’ve never seen a desert, you’ve never been in a famine! When the Waterless Flood hits, even if you personally last it out you’ll starve.” (150)--privilige (some things come natural for people because that is already part of their day to day struggles, their reality. Adaptation in periods of extreme scarcity-- given everyone has equal access to everything--would be hardest amongst groups who haven’t experienced a lotta hardships in their life

“...But nothing felt right...The toenails looked like claws.” (209) How much of our humanity is manicured? Fictitious? Description of being hairy, of having claws-- being one of the Gardeners= going Native?= return to primal/origin 

“If there’s a penalty, they want a penalizer. They dislike senseless catastrophe.” (241) -- always gotta have someone to blame, someone to enforce the rules, someone to set out what’s right and wrong-- mistakes cannot be born out of entropy, must take responsibility

“That was the short answer: people didn’t want the taste of blood in their Happicupas” (266)-- sort of like the whole organic movement, where some people buy it to appease themselves of the moral guilt of having to buy products that are a result of poor labour conditions and GMOs

“Is that what the pigs want her to do?...a pig-out” (320)-- pigs smarter than humans, TBT to Gulliver’s Travels and horses being smarter than primitive humans “savages” Animals better adapted to survive in apocalypse-ravaged society than humans?

“But Science is merely one way of describing the world...where would any of us be without Love.” (359)-- critique of science as the only source of knowledge. what about love? stories? myth-making? What about humanities?

“The Adams and the Eves used to say, We are what we eat, but I prefer to say, We are what we wish. Because if you can’t wish, why bother?” --TBT to Oryx and Crake and the discussion about whether hope is man’s greatest feat or its greatest error

[clifi-journal-blog]

Oryx and Crake

A look at Margaret Atwood’s Novel

General Commentaries:

It’s a weird sensation reading this again. Last time I read it was in Grade 11 and I find that reading this for a Pre-AP English Lit class is quite different than reading it as a climate fiction novel. To the best of my knowledge, my focus on reading this in grade 11 was 1) the marketing of bliss/happiness-- exaggeration of instant gratification and 2) the “adult content” underlying the novel and its effect as a public high school read. We were studying a lot of dystopian literature then so there was also the bigger concept of government control and the looming figure of Crake as “Big Brother” and Jimmy/Snowman as the average (but last man standing) hero. 

Reading it now, with a focus on climate fiction and some background in economics, I find that the story focuses on the concept the war of attrition-- or the concept of survival. There is a plethora of deaths that surround the story, from small-scale individual family deaths (Jimmy’s mother, Crake’s father, Uncle Pete, Crake, Oryx) and there are massive plagues that wipe out large unnamed figures. And while the global-scale death proposed this looming, scary possibility-- it is the individual deaths that trigger human responses. They’re the ones that are shrouded by intrigue, by grief. 

Rereading Oryx and Crake felt like Robinson Crusoe meets The Day Everything Changed (from Loosed Upon the World) meets biological warfare. Since a lot of deaths in history are a result of diseases, it is important to look at the relationship between environment, diseases, and how to sustain the population once it’s reached carrying capacity.

Quotes to look at:

“It is the strict adherence to daily routine that tends towards the maintenance of good morale and the preservation of sanity” (4)--time is relative; it’s a concept. Stability vs. change; how do you separate fiction from reality? Is there really any difference?

“Strange to think of the endless labour, the digging, the hammering, the carving....and now the endless crumbling that must be going on everywhere. Sandcastles in the wind.” (45)-- collapse, all this hardwork for nothing-- man’s greed quote; that thing about materialism not following you in your grave

“...with prizes of hard-to-come-by foods. It was amazing what people would do for a couple of lamb chops or a chunk of genuine brie.” (85)-- luxury, competition-- the length people would go to just to experience a semblance of good life

“You can’t couple a minimum access to food with an expanding population indefinitely (119-120)-- SUPPLY AND DEMAND YAAAAS

“Human beings hope they can stick their souls....But we’re doomed without hope as well.” (120)--hope is a necessary survival tool because it keeps you motivated, it urges you to move forward, to keep going in he face of adversity and complete devastation

“When civilization is dust and ashes...art is all that’s left over. Images, words, music. Imaginative structures. Meaning-- human meaning, that is-- defined by them.” (167)-- TBT to Scranton and myth-making at the core of civilization; why the humanities and Arts are important

“Nature is to zoos as God is to churches...I don’t believe in Nature either...Or not with a capital N” (206)-- Nature with the Capital N, as in manufactured nature, fake nature, see CC

“The best diseases, from a business point of view...it’s a fine calculation” (211)-- economics, “efficient standard of care”-- can’t have the perfect solution because demand will cease and aggregate producer surplus depletes

“Human society, they claimed, was sort of monster, its main by-products being corpses and rubble....trading short term gain for long-term pain” (243)-- sustainability vs. economic gain, the question that pervades these works.

“Fewer people, therefore more to go around.” p. 295- D & S 

“Change can be accommodated by any system depending on its rate” (341)-- see stability and change article for research paper; law is destablized in periods of abrupt and unforeseen changes; in Canadian Law, see Frustration Act

“The fear, the suffering the wholesale death-- did not really touch him...reduce that number to two.” (343)-- a million deaths is a statistic, a single death is a tragedy-- the irony; also see CC

“Can a single ant be said to be alive, in any meaningful sense of the word, or does it only have relevance in terms of its anthill?” (371)-- think In Our Time and one of the stories in I’m with the Bears, if a tree falls and no media is there to document it, did it really even happen?

[clifi-journal-blog]

The Water Knife

Looking at Paolo Bacigalupi’s Novel

General Commentaries:

I really like this book, although that seems to stem from my fascination with violence and gore in literature (and also the econ/legal side of the book). Featured a lot more R-rated content than other books read so far in this course, lot of TW needed for violence, torture, abuse, etc. But what struck me most about this book is the importance of property rights. Maybe this is because it’s what we’re talking about in our law and economics class but the book focuses on the allocation of resources in a world deprived of basic needs. 

TBT to First Year Econ and the Water-Diamond paradox, talking about how the only reason water is cheap and diamonds are rare right now is because water is relatively abundant, and diamonds are more (although pretty useless). This world begs the question, what happens when water becomes a scarce resource? Who gets to choose who gets what? Who owns what? How are rights determined, distributed, and upheld?

Quotes to consider (for complete list, see book, underlined pink.)

“If we can’t describe our reality accurately, we can’t see it...Our own words make up blind.” (59)-TBT to Scranton and illusion of safety, self-made delusions that we are safe, that climate change is far from us. How do we mitigate the effects if we don’t even acknowledge the problem?

“Water does flow toward money” (61)- Coase Theorem, give rights to those who “value” it the most, although in this case, value is not simply a personal measure, but monetary (see also “It’s all about moving water to where people value it” (180))

“This is just a natural cycle. It’ll get wet again. Ten thousand ears ago it was a jungle here.” (101)-- see, TDW, return to the past. The Earth adapts, survives, rebuilds itself-- the humans are the only ones that aren’t certain.

“Slow death didn’t attract attention. A record mass murder on the other hand” (111)-- See CC, and how individual effects of climate change are unnoticed because they are so small scale the media doesn’t care about them

“Running up against denial was always a dangerous business” (155)-- see CWC and how we all knew it was coming; the warning signs were all there but we chose to ignore it and look at what it’s cost us

“She was going to end up...just another body. Just another enticement for click-thru on some voyeuristic news site” (211) -- recurring portrayal of death as masturbatory material; literally calling it collapse pornography, “cheap death” and cheap stories? Dehumanising them, literally empty carcasses of human life 

“Maybe that’s why we never had kids ourselves. It was easier not to risk failing.” (251)-- think about future investment, discount rates-- why do we care about what’s gonna happen to the earth? For our children, for future, unborn generations that are somehow linked to us-- ownership? 

“What was a city’s survival worth? Or a whole state’s?” (262)-- value of human life, individual or social-- how do you determine? economic analysis of “value” of worth-- subjective. 

[Subject of Stanford Prison Experiment, doing what you’re told to do, pawns, etc.] “It was a view of the world that anticipated evil from people because people always delivered.” (283)--philosophical question of, in a state of non-governance, is man naturally good or evil? Basis of economics, decision-making and who should hold the power

“Everyone dies. We’re all dead in the end, no matter what we do. There was nothing to fear. Nothing to regret....It was all the same in the end” (291)-- daily dose of nihilism from your favourite journo, Lucy Monroe. But also TBT to L2DIE, and acceptance of death makes you not fear it almost? Also see Hamilton. These people have been living lives such that they are ready to die anytime, and some days, death itself is a better alternative than living. Is fighting futile at this point? Is it even worth a shot?

“Everybody breaks...You find the right weak spot, everybody breaks” (324)-- see Stanford Experiment, see tortures, choices alternatives and consequences of choices-- economic decisions

“Nobody survives on their own” (329)-- encourages community, unity-- if we want to mitigate the effects of climate change, if we want to have the tiniest chance of survival, we have to work together, rather than against each other. Prisoner’s dilemma, if everyone chooses their dominant strategy, everyone ends up worse off

“I trust that everyone is out for themselves these days.” (339)-- self-interest, is it always for the benefit of society? Not necessarily. See above for, market failure caused by self-serving interests

“Someone will adapt. They’ll make some kind of new culture that knows how to---”(349)-- hope? Can’t fix this world, we can only adapt, resort to living underground, moving to space-- all we know is that life cannot be sustained with current way of life. 

“We’re just little gears in a big machine. I get it. Sometimes we just got to spin because that’s how the machine’s built.” (367)- THG, we’re all pawns in a game, CC and the big machine figure, we are pawns of the fictions we create about our modern world

[clifi-journal-blog]

Flight Behaviour

Looking at Barbara Kingfisher’s Novel

General Commentaries

Not really my style of cli-fi-- too slow, too much focus on the personal; too local and too Southern for my liking. Although, if you wanna look at it another way, the locality of the story highly individualises and personalises the effects of climate change, makes it more small scale.

Refreshing, though, to have a main character that would normally not take a lead role in cli-fi (or at least from those that we’ve read in class before), from Tennessee wife/mother. Although the story is backed up by scientific characters like Ovid Byron and his post-grad crew, the focus is on the dynamics of the Turnbow family and Dellarobia’s reactions to the logging threat.

 Religion and Nature. Sign from God? Honey, no. It’s mother nature telling you there are some things that need fixing.

Quotes that got to me (see rest of annotations on book)

“Trees turned to fire, a burning bush. Moses came to mind, and Ezekiel, words from Scripture” (14)--importance of burning/fire in religious context and also how i began with this story. 

“The burning trees were put here to save her” (16)-- reciprocal salvation. She saves the burning trees (butterfly population, she finds out later)-- and it kinda saves her, motivates her to take flight and seek a life far better than what she has now.

“These people had everything. Education, good looks, boots whose price tag equalled her her husband’s last paycheck. Now the butterflies were theirs too.” (149) --ownership of “phenomena”, taming nature, why do we have to control something, make it our property for us to take care of it? responsibility, ownership and the taming of the wild

“People wrecked their worlds for less.” (175)-- cost of environmental destruction, economics vs. environment

“A life was a life. She’d been orphaned at an age to internalise death as a poor material for a joke. And likewise, salvation.” (267) -- gotta take the consequences of environmental action more seriously. Affective events are not only news-worthy for sensationalism or comic material. 

[Butterflies] “Some would crash. And some would fly.” (285)-- just like life, see A Farewell to Arms, “ The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.”

“This system of local and universal genetics makes a kind of super-insect. The population can fluctuate fivefold in a year. It’s an insurance policy against environmental surprises.” (318)-- natural selection and survival of the fittest, but how is it natural selection if it’s not natural (i.e. mediated by humans/scientific advances)

“They believe a monarch is the soul of a baby that’s died?” (359)--and she had a miscarriage, full circle

“Survival wasn’t possible, he said, given the mortality under that snow.” (421)-- Think The Wasteland,  “ Winter kept us warm, covering /Earth in forgetful snow, feeding”

[clifi-journal-blog]

Lest We Forget:

Setting the Standards for Environmental Responsibility in Sean McCullen’s “The Precedent”

Sean McMullen’s “The Precedent” illustrates a possible form of government in a world past the point of environmental salvation. The short story alternates between summary and scene and follows a condensed linear progression of events: a character (Jason Hall) is put in a situation where he repeatedly opposes antagonistic forces (The Retributor and the World Audit panel) to achieve a goal (to become the precedent for future tipping judgments), ultimately leading to a climax, then a resolution. McMullen’s use of the linear short story structure allows him to focus on a specific concept: the efficient standards of environmental sustainability. The utility of the short story mode lies in the message precision, in narrowing down the focus of a large-scale phenomenon such as climate change to a particular situation and expanding the possible repercussions of our present attitudes towards climate change.

The short story structure alternates between the use summaries and scenes. McMullen utilizes summaries to succinctly relay the proceedings of the audit wherein “there were nine circles of tippers. Nine circles of hell” (179).  The descriptions often alluded to biblical depictions of hell, which evokes a Christian sense of fear and punishment. Tippers were likened to sinners that worked their way to redemption, seeking atonement for their environmental crimes and ultimately facing judgment from an authoritative figure.  The equivocation of environmental negligence to crime is amplified by its alignment to sin. That is, eco-crimes are portrayed as assaults to both the church and the state—aggravating the laws of this world and beyond.

While these summaries create a generalized sense of fear, McMullen’s use of scenes create discussions between tippers regarding what constitutes ecological crimes—what are the limits of human consumption and what counts as environmental exploitation. Mitigating climate crisis requires an awareness of its determinants. For example, in Jason’s conversation with Chaz and Olivia, she acknowledges that a “slob living on Coke” (177) can be considered squandering natural resources and contributing to the global climate catastrophe. The repetitive trial scenes reinforce the countless ways in which mundane human activities can have detrimental effects in the long-run. The conflation of fear tactics and climate discussions help generate fear-induced epiphanies about the unfavourable lifestyle possibilities for future human generations.

The short story begins by establishing the conditions of the post-apocalyptic environment: “Even when the climate crime is so serious that death is not punishment enough, one still gets an audit” (172).  McMullen immediately situates us in a world where environmental damages are considered a crime and the audit is a standardized mode of living. The introductory paragraphs lay out a grisly setting, with bodies “flayed open and left to dry in the sun” (172). It is a world of brute punishment, heat, and unending thirst— a post-apocalyptic hell for those who have sinned against the environment. McMullen structures his exposition to strike fear as a form of persuasion. Fear motivates the readers to act against the threat of this possible reality, to review the consequences of their actions towards nature and to mitigate the potential harm.

Fear as a motivation works best when the threat is sustained. “The Precedent” illustrates how climate mitigation is not a one-time battle. The rising action is comprised of Jason’s hearings, each time setting a new record for audit duration. Jason’s repeated struggles to prove himself against the Retributor’s claims show that the fight for environmental conservation is a perpetual struggle.  Furthermore, McMullen’s structural use of repetition reinforces the idea that storytelling and repetition are primary tools of survival. Jason Hall notes that “forgetting what the tippers did to the Earth means forgetting the lessons they left us [...] We need to remember what not to do, or it could happen again” (201). Storytelling is a method of information transmission. The precedent is—in himself—a legacy that carries the stories of tippers, of the consumerist society that existed before the establishment of the World Audit and the overturning of political structures. The precedent’s role, as a frequently cited standard, is to remind society that one need not sacrifice nature to survive.

Contemporary perceptions of climate change are relatively passive; it is often dismissed as a separate reality with no real consequences. For Jason Hall, and all the other tippers, getting through the World Audit is a matter of life and death. The climax takes place when Chaz tries to convince Jason to escape and he declines; Chaz’s attempt to escape the camp resulted in his death. The climax reflects the human tendency to flee from the conflict, to seek more comfortable alternatives or realities. Chaz’s unsuccessful attempt, however, implies that these solutions are temporary and futile. Climate change will eventually catch on and we will be faced with the inevitable destruction of our locale; what seems to be problems of another country, will eventually find their ways to our immediate society.

“The Precedent” emphasizes the possibility of evolution—of environmental and societal rehabilitation. Short stories often conclude, but they do not end; they leave room for continuation. Death reassures Jason Hall that it is “not the end of the world, but [his] world” (178), emphasizing the unsustainability of consumerism in a world with ever-depleting natural resources. McMullen introduces the story with grim images of dying tippers “[pulling] wagons that were loaded with… water and food” (172), inflicting a sense of fear into the readers. Ultimately, Jason Hall’s success in establishing precedent—and to some extent, his appointment as Auditor—ignites a sense of hope. It evokes hope in that it gives human beings the fighting chance to survive in a world ravished by climate change. As Jason points out, the events that led them to this situation “was not a palatable one” (201)—however, remembering them is necessary. The survival of civilization depends on our ability to confront the reality of climate change instead of denying it. Furthermore, it relies on our initiative to set precedent for future generations in terms of environmental restoration and maintenance.

[clifi-journal-blog]

I’m With the Bears

(selected *interesting* passages; for ALL annotations--> see Book)

Introduction, Bill McKibben

“The truth is larger than usually makes for good fiction” (1) – truth/fiction interrelation, what we have now is larger in scale to what is usually covered in fiction

“The fossil fuel industry has won every single battle…doing anything about climate change will cause short-term economic pain” (3)—economics vs. environment debate, “community to replace consumption”, how do we go back, how do we fight against capitalistic tendencies

The Siskiyou, July 1989, T.C. Boyle

TL;DR: group of people try to stop the loggers from cutting down the forest, protest/march

“…wouldn’t call it a road. He’d call it a scar, a gash, an open wound in the body corporal of the forest” (7)-aligning language of military warfare to climate catastrophe, we’re at war with the environment or to save the environment?

“knows the woods are being raped and the world stripped right on down to the last twig” (12)—again, violence, elicits violation (nature as typically gendered, female entity)

“this man…is not the enemy. He’s just earning his paycheck…His bosses are.” (26) individual who works for corporation isn’t necessarily evil; it’s those who stand for, who establish, and command these corporations that are the root of all eco evil.

“This is one sick game” (31) pitting humans against each other, livelihood vs. beliefs

“For all they went through…there wasn’t a single reporter on hand to bear witness…If a protest falls in the woods and there’s no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?” (33) –importance of communication, of witnessing and storytelling in transmitting messages of outcries, we must “bear witness” to struggles for it to make an impact to count; see CC, WSOG

Zoogoing, Lydie Millet

TL;DR: just wanna be one with the animals and chill at the zoo™

“Every so often a bear was found dead atop a power pole…You’re throwing garbage at a bear? For a picture” (36)—illustrates adverse effects of trying to contain, to domesticate, to make entertainment nature’s wildlife.

“Mind your business.” “It is my business” (37)—nature is everywhere; nature vs. zoo not 2 different things; what you do to one specie affects the survival and/or state of another

“The wildness [the zoo] contained…But he knew their position as he knew his own: they were at the forefront of aloneness” (39)—aligning himself with the animals; counterintuitive to what he’s saying about not domesticating the animals since he’s anthromorphizing

“Animals were self-contained and people seemed to hold this against them—possibly because most of them come to believe that animals should be like servants or children” (42)—see ^, domesticating

“He had wanted the old wolf…As though other animals should not only submit to people but behave like them, comport themselves with civility” (43)—realized he’s being a hypocrite; he, just like everyone else, wanted to command the animals (not necessarily equals. DUDE. Everyone has a separate niche; stop being so extra!)

“The animals were very busy with dying” (44) – pondering on extinction. Survival of the fittest question.

“The quiet mass disappearance, the inversion of the Ark, was passing unnoticed” (44)—gotta throw a Bible reference in there!

“Waiting is a position of dependency” (52)—waiting to act and climate change, we’re being dependent on other people—creates series of dependencies vs. taking initiative

“And yet a particular way of existence is gone, a whole volume in the library of being” (53)—see LUTW and preservation of creatures for archival purposes rather than respect

Sacred Space, Kim Stanley Robinson

TL;DR: Group hike, look at all this beauty. Look at all that you’ll lose, this sacred space. And it’s already beginning to be lost.

“Mountain time; slow down. Pay attention to the rock.”  (69)—experience the sublime, lowkey flaneur

“Place so sublime…as if re-entering a miracle. Every time it felt this way, it was the California that could never be taken away. Except it could.” (74)—see CC, advertising OHHHH look at all this nice nature, look at what YOU’LL LOSE. Care for it more!!!

“It was dead…every plant on this south-facing slope had died…One of the loveliest landscapes on the planet, dead before their eyes…It had never occurred to Charlie that any of it could ever go away. And yet here it was, dead.” (88-9)—reality check, everything isn’t as okay as we’d like to think it is.

“A dead meadow—image of a black crisp on a bed” (89)—meadow like son, gotta save.

Hermie, Nathaniel Rich

TL;DR: talking hermit crab from past haunts him on his bathroom break to giving important scientific climate speech

“What about the rest of the old gang?” “They’re dead. Long dead. Every last one of them. Clammy and all her daughters too.” (96)—it’s like WW soldiers, last of his kind, veteran to the Turtle Beach poisoning by humans. More kiddie, but has the same pull @ the heartstrings

[clifi-journal-blog]

We Stand on Guard

Looking at a graphic novel by Vaughan, Skroce, Hollingsworth, Fonografiks

SUPER Canadian (O Canada reference, Tim Hortons, Flannel—it’s like the Nova Scotians in modern day Toronto damn)—S/O also inverses the stereotypes of Canadians being so pacifist, polite, passive

American conflict (always been a thing Canada vs. US, which one is more problematic—sharing border/NA, share resources too? One polluting the other?)—over water (of course) is discussed through the language of dun dun dun---DC universe !! (high key shout out to “fiction” being a medium through which we discuss subjects such as environmental change and social justice) – comic to comic, celebrates the graphic novel form (relatable, everyone loves it)

Chick works at Canadian Tire beforehand: the ordinary being transformed into extraordinary (see CC, see Captain America, really inflating the role of the civilian)

Rearranging history “White House bombed 300 years ago (in 2112)”

Aesthetics: modern/rosy/seems like the future in a year 1990s-2000s movie about the future vs. Northwest Territories (2124)—white, nature, minimalistic (minimalism & nature; congestion & modernity)

Baddest Freedom Fighters of the Great White North: Avengers meets the Night’s Watch meets Canada (some sort of diversity—assumption that Canada is multicultural; got those representation: Syrian refugee, whites, French Canadian, Aboriginal)

Theatre of War: war perceived to be theatrics, show performativity

References to real events, real problems in contemporary Canada: oil sands of Alberta (pipeline issues, relevant. Exaggeration of Kinder-Morgan project and how the US market is trying to invade Canadian land through capitalist infrastructure, i.e. pipeline)

Hologram & Questioning lady: emphasizes the role of technology, almost like an invisible hand—(have total control but are they really real?)  à pictures of different landscapes (cities, cold glaciers, water, greenery, suburbs and how different people value different things; unequal distribution/allocation of power= return to economic power about power distribution. Diminishing resources caused by climate change is triggering all these violent events)

Breeding of the coy-wolf: happens b/c of environmental fluctuations (not only on people but also on animals, species interaction)

Very progressive squad: big, buff, burly dude is actually gay (Canada and LGBTQ*) ALL-INCLUSIVE, self-promo

I’M ALREADY DEAD page, super bad-ass: won’t go down without a fight, walking to a death trap—very superhero going against an army moment. S/O to learning to die in the Anthropocene, only way to carry on is to accept that we are already dead, especially in such a situation (better to die fighting than to live a puppet)à people walking into war knowing they’re already dead, no matter what the outcome is, they’re doomed, but still wanna give other people some sort of fighting chance, some semblance of hope (stall)

Back and forth, distant past and presentà shows that events are interconnected (see LUTW, CC, etc.)

Vs. CWC where when trouble arises, US & Canada combine; this is the other end of the spectrum, where when trouble arises, close up borders, tensions ensue, etc.

The map’s only getting redderà TBT, rise of communism/Nazi Germany (red: evil, passion, danger)

“I kill soldiers to defend my homeland. You murder civilians to irrigate what you turned into a dust bowl.” – see Conspiracy theory about 9/11 and the Middle East. One done for survival, the other for greed, where do you draw the line that separates necessary and unnecessary demand

Concept of VIRTUAL REALITY—focuses on real/not real, “climate change is only a story; it’s not really happening”. Whether or not virtual reality or not, the pain is the same. Consequences are different, but you are mentally and emotionally traumatized just the same.

HOMELAND: What is home vs. what is land? Geography and belonging—is it a place? A concept? What defines home? Our responsibility to it? Our ownership? “It’s not our planet if it’s happening elsewhere!!” *WRONG* it’s everyone’s problem because ONE EARTH. Scale of what is considered the homeland.

 “We’re a nation of immigrants” -- @ Trump and the immigration ban, OKAY. Built on diversity vs. uniformity. Finding unity in diversity? Also an issue of who has the right to what? Do the First Nations have the right to land because they were here first? How do you allocate property rights? If it’s a matter of first come, first serve basis, then why are the animals, the trees—why are they the one who gets the least say? Why are they being marginalized? (Is that why we seemingly show no sense of ownership? Because we are transient members of the community?)

Problem of demand not only between Canada and USA, but also within USA.

“Or we’ll have no choice but to kill your comrade.” “And your little dog, too.” “Jefferson, don’t be a dick”-->i.e. it’s chill to kill humans in mass scales, but god forbid you hurt the dog. I mean, yes, of course we should value other animals (dogs, cats, pets), but shows how little sympathy is given to man in comparison (YT)

Interesting: considered “extremist” and last part of suicide mission is attaching a bomb to herself. HMMMM.

“Cause you know what really happens when you blow up a kid’s parents? You don’t get some noble defender of justice. You get me.” Vs. Batman who, after being orphaned, becomes this superhero, defender of justice figure. She admits her faults, but also shows she’s not afraid of death. It’s like that scene from earlier, walking into the line of fire. She grew up ready to die.

Capture that—capture resistance, see THG, see the LUTW story about capturing stories to inspire rebellion, participation, or at least some level of acknowledgement. Stories inspire hope.

End: return to beginning (We’re all right here) – even though they’ve won, land is ruined, people are death. Rebirth but not quite, bringing back a resurrected zombie (TDW)

[clifi-journal-blog]

Loosed Upon The World 2

(selected *interesting* passages; for ALL annotations--> see Book)

TRUTH AND CONSEQUENCES, Kim Stanley Robinson: tbh not really feeling this one—PASS.

“I’ve gotta call home.” Several people said this at once, Charlie among them. (245)—first thing to do when disaster strikes. Affinity to affect.

In a world so vast, could anything humans do make a difference (255)—yes, see CLIMATE CHANGE as a result of collective human action

It was a case of mutually assured destruction…Everyone had to agree on the need to act, or it wouldn’t work for them (260)—see GAME THEORY, prisoner’s dilemma, free-rider problem, tragedy of commons

(***FAVE) ENTANGLEMENT, Vandana Singh

WHY I LIKE IT: Format/narrative follows the sequence of a butterfly effect, just how one story affects the other. Emphasis on interconnectedness of actions. LOVES IT!!! Also, multiculturalism and women in STEM= big mood™

QUOTES THAT GOT TO ME:

“Wild animals aren’t cute house pets” (277)—see that LUTW story with the owl and our need to make things controllable, domesticated. SELF-CENTERED HUBRIS

“People and their lives were so tightly connected across the world that it would take a million efforts around the globe to make a difference” (279)—see CC, collective action, not just individual

“Perhaps healing the forest would heal him, too.” (287)—sign me up! Advertising rejuvenating power of Nature™

“Maybe the way the rich people of the world live is like a sickness where they can’t make themselves stop” (295)—capitalism as an illness vs. Precedent as a concentration camp. Choice or nah?

“When you have very little, everything you have becomes more precious.” (299)- Supply & demand, water-diamond paradox

“You-nitarian You-niversalist” (306)—emerging humanism??

“He used to tell me how impractical it was to worry about the environment…And what’s more impractical than that?” (310-11)—economics vs. environment, the age old debate of which one matters more to society, profit or conservation?

“The old had to bear responsibility for ruining the earth, but they also, by the same logic bore the responsibility for setting things right.” (311)—see The Precedent and Tippers

“The Story Begins Or does it end here?” (312)—see CC

“true peace is dynamic, not static, and rests on a thousand quarrels” (313)—change doesn’t come easy. Sacrifices are to be made.

“What good will it do you to take upon yourself the misery o the world? Do you fancy yourself a Buddha, or a Jesus?” (318)-- @eco-activists, will it really change anything?

STAYING AFLOAT, Angela Penrose

TL;DR: giant weaving basket, thanks grandpa

QUOTES THAT GOT TO ME:

“compromise between utility and economics” (325)—AGAIN, consumerism!!!

“Her abuelo was the opposite of a specialist” (330)—see CWC and how specializing so much actually restricted knowledge transmission more than it helped

“Large problems always have large answers” (338)—stuff like global warming require a huge amount of work and sacrifice to overcome

EIGHTH WONDER, Chris Bachelder

Comment: tbh didn’t understand this at all.

“roared with-decreation” (341)- that us. Instead of growth and improvement, we were all gearing ourselves towards destruction—a sort of regression.

“What are the rights of humans” (357)—who created these rights? What makes them “right”? Why are we entitled to things that other creatures are not? What makes us so special?

“The water’s warm. Like it is in the Gulf. Like it was.” (359)—present being consumed, becoming past

[clifi-journal-blog]

Watch the World Collapse:

Marketing Climate Change Awareness in Philippe Squarzoni’s Climate Changed

Philippe Squarzoni’s Climate Changed: A Personal Journey Through the Science (2012) is a graphic novel that endorses the fight against consumerism in an attempt to mitigate the effects of climate change. Squarzoni uses marketing ploys such as action sequences, image repetition, and expert testimony to communicate the reality of the climate crisis in a compact and engaging manner. The graphic novel format compels the audience to engage with both textual arguments and visual representations that link global warming, consumerism, and societal indifference. The use of visuals evokes a sense of urgency as the readers are faced with observable representations of their present and future climate conditions.

The graphics manipulate the way the readers interpret the words; they act as complimentary visuals that shape the reading of the text. Squarzoni presents us with the faceless figure of consumption (217)—a silhouette of a muscular man composed of various consumer goods that threaten environmental wellness. The figure is designed as the sum of “fictions” (215) that justify our need for material prosperity—from food, to transportation, to energy. It reflects the modern individual whose reality is consumed by their dependence on consumer goods. Squarzoni argues that our distorted perception of reality is a result of our affinity to a way of life that sacrifices environmental protection for temporary gratification. He initially illustrates the consumer goods in parts (215-6)—creating a separate frame for things like lightbulb, the heater, the car. He creates a visual blazon that focuses on the various aspects of the consumer body, exposing the individual factors of pollution. The formation of the figure from these images highlight how “our way of life and CO2 emissions are inextricably linked” (216). The consumer figure exists through a combination of these items and our dependency on each product—the production of which contributes to increasing greenhouse gas emissions. The amalgamation of these pollutants into a singular antagonistic figure externalizes the problems of consumption into one cohesive enemy—something that can be fought and even defeated. The use of the superhero versus villain trope—when Squarzoni and his partner fight symbols of consumerism such as the faceless figure and Santa Claus—markets the battle for climate change as a contemporary trend. Pollution abatement is in style. The narrative likens the role of eco-activists to powerful superheroes, fully inclined to combat the antagonistic forces of consumerism.

Image repetition helps reinforce ideas and create connections amongst different subjects. Marketing strategies use image repetition to condition the reader to expect patterns and make associations between concepts. Squarzoni uses the images of a silhouetted crowd standing in front of a multitude of TV screens, unaware of the drought-stricken (251) or flooded (294) ground on which they stand, to compare the roles that media play in manipulating our emotions towards climate change and consumerism. Both images are overlaid with the text “We don’t notice a thing”, emphasizing society’s indifference towards the effects and evidences of climate change. In page 251, the crowd watches the initial effects of the climate crisis: images of drought, floods, famine, and mass migration fill the monitors. The separation between the screen and the audience illuminates the illusion that the threat of climate crisis is distant—that global warming exists elsewhere and that we, in the West, are immune to calamity of climate change. However, the foreground depiction of the dry, arid ground implies that the threat is closer than we assume. Squarzoni argues that the impact of global warming seems relatively small because they are often scattered, undocumented by media; they aren’t large-scale or local threats “that would catch our attention” (250). Squarzoni, hence, bombards his audience with a plethora of images that portrays the realities we overlook, uniting them unto the screens in page 251. Meanwhile, the crowd in page 294 is attuned to the fabled joys of consumerism. These items promise happiness and perpetuates the idea that resources are inexhaustible. Squarzoni uses the TV screens to display the role of media in shaping human desires. The audience’s attentivity towards these images distracts them from the real problems—these false promises take attention away from the real adverse effects of consumerism: global warming. The juxtaposing images highlight the role of media in shaping our perception of reality—in creating “fictions” about the world’s current climate status.

     Marketing climate change awareness to an audience that persists on denying its existence requires fact gathering and testimonials. Climate Changed oscillates between Squarzoni’s own empirical research and testimonials from climatologists like Jean Louzel and economists like Stéphane Hallegate. Squarzoni’s use of factual evidence and expert scientific testimony aims to counter the fabled perception of reality by debunking climate change myths with numbers and figures directly from the experts. The graphic novel format aids the transmission of these dense scientific constructs and statistical numbers through pictures that simplify complex information to more observable forms. Squarzoni intersperses the interview panels with images that reflect the interviewee’s claims. These images help visualize the scale of destruction climate crisis can inflict on humanity: the population displacement that arises from the rise of sea level (238-9), the catastrophic drought caused by increasing temperatures (276), and chaos of increasing “social and economic disparities” (273). These images act as lenses through which the audience can humanize and personalize the data that Squarzoni presents us with.

Climate Changed battles fiction with fiction. That is, Squarzoni’s book uses fiction as a platform to speak against the fictions of consumerism—to challenge our perception of reality that has been so severely manipulated by mediated representations of nature and consumption. The graphic novel format communicates dense, factual arguments from socioeconomic and climate experts into visual representations that are more accessible to the public. Each panel tells a story—the tale of a population displaced by environmental catastrophes, the pastoral account of Squarzoni’s childhood, the superhero epic battle against Santa—that urges the audience to empathize, to pay attention, and to take action.

[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?

[clifi-journal-blog]

The Drowned World

Looking at J.G. Ballard’s Novel

GENERAL COMMENTARIES

Shoutout @ Cli-fi: Fictional divination will always be hopelessly haphazard (9) -lacking cohesion, because although it stems from true concern, it’s very speculative fiction; see CC: how do you write about the environmental struggle which has no clear beginning, middle, or end?

“We know all the news for the next three million years” (25)- there isn’t any changing the system overnight, takes a long time to repair something institutionalized (consumption, etc.)

Chain of command, white master, “Negro” crew lowkey racist= could also be critiquing this racial hierarchy is a REGRESSION, is an absurdity, a return to our unknowledgeable form?

WHITE DEVIL STRANGMAN “like a blind painter forever retouching…otherwise he will forget it completely” (105)- story’s theme on compulsion to immortalize, to remember, to regain a semblance of some past life, never moving on. = aesthetics grandiose past artifacts (see p. 110-111); they’re like bones (112)—remnants of past life

TROPES: damsel in distress, “it’s over Spiderman, you LOSE” villain speech with Strangman (175), deux machina Colonel Riggs coming in and rescuing them from getting killed, reunion with old friend (Hardman)

retribution.

INTERTEXTUALITY: References and Comparisons

BEATRICE: reminds me of Paradisio, of Dante’s Beatrice, the muse that he’s trying to return to, to be reunited with. Themes of reunion with the original/natural state of things; themes of a “lost paradise” embodied in Beatrice. 

Tbh I hate how seemingly dry and annoying they made her character. It isn’t enough that she’s the only woman in the team, she also is given the role of a stubborn damsel in distress, always to herself and isolated, selfish

See: CC, and the woman representing nature, the primal. Maybe that’s why she wants to head South, to refill the lagoons, because draining the lagoon is another man-made action, another unnatural solution to the way things are. Is she the representation of NATURE?

Also, lowkey EVE: “Remember….you’re the only woman [here]. Nothing is more essential than a basis for comparison” (40)

“a second Adam and Eve found themselves alone in a new Eden” (35)- return to Genesis (bible, but also, THE BEGINNING, pre-fallen state; common theme in cli-fi. Is the pre-fall, unknowledgeable better than industrial, greedy human? Always return to religion/biblical

“private haven” “private sanctuary (36-7)

“a second Adam searching for the forgotten paradises of the reborn sun” (198) – BIBLICAL REFERENCE, Genesis revisited; failed attempt at it

“Nothing endures for so long as fear” (55)- see CC/L2DIE, “nothing endures but memory”; role of fear in shaping behaviour and manipulating emotions towards climate change.

“His unconscious….ego against id” – PARANOIA, fear, that’s what the story feeds on; interrelated to primal nature? FOCUS on science and psychology in world building and mind-mapping?

“He was still obeying reason…a worker bee about to return to the home” (90)- see L2DIE & hive mentality

“World within world, each man an island unto himself” – see L2DIE, Ulysses

“phantasmagoric forest” (192) see Circe/Ulysses= in journey to find oneself

SET THE SCENE: Cycles and Paradigms

“Once again they [the reptiles] were the dominant form of life” (30)- coming full circle, circularity of karma and the chain of power= depends on environment

“The streets and shops had been preserved almost intact, like a reflection in a lake that has somehow lost its original” (30)– theme of replacement, of originality vs. artificiality; why must post-apocalyptic world still bear semblance of this society? SEE AYLI, books and trees

“Promenades at Nice, Rio and Miami he had read about…former libraries and museums…not that they contain anything other than his memories” (32) – world building and rebuilding only done through stories; that’s how we pass on history, through narratives and storytelling—IMPACT, s/o

THE UTERUS “Ancient organic memory millions of years old” (89): RETURN TO TRIASSIC PERIOD; image of the future is ironically a regression to the past—cyclical time?

“Perhaps these sunken lagoons simply remind me of the drowned world of my uterine childhood” (40)- Good? Bad? b/c innocent but also not conscious; drowned world= primal, basic, Eden, “home before home”      

“womb-like image of the chamber…deep cradle…immense placenta…uterine night….within the deepest recesses of his mind” (126-127)= connection of the uterus, to the beginning= GENDERED, maybe why Beatrice is so important to shaping the story and his motives??

“Phantoms slid imperceptibly… Auschwitz, Golgotha and Gomorrah” (89) S/O @ history, the monsters aren’t under the bed but in us.

“[womb]’s place taken by the gateway to sewer”(147) live action BIRTHING to new world?

PSYCHOLOGY

“Submerged levels below his consciousness…time and space ceased to exist” (100) – ICEBERG, id and superego stuff

“Was the drowned world…the ultimate neuronic synthesis of the archeopyschic zero?” (130)—DOES HE WANNA KILL HIMSELF and use this noble quest to bring back the drowned world his excuse to do so?

[clifi-journal-blog]

Climate Changed: A Personal Journey Through the Science

Looking at Philippe Squarzoni’s Graphic Novel

USE OF PICTURES/VISUAL: 

controlled picture of what to expect rather than you imagining it; found it a quicker read than most other forms because you don’t have any other way of seeing things, that task is taken away from you; PIE CHART ~196: acting like subheadings, introducing different contributing factors= translation from literary to visual

Makes the interviews more interesting, less condensed-feeling. Frame to frame shifts in subject, situation reminds me of MOVIE REELS, which he thematically uses throughout the book.

META AF: aims to be a book that concludes but doesn’t end (endures)—see Shakespeare, Beckett, Joyce

Multiple stories, messages, hyperfictionalizing the author’s world and the whole saving the world concept v. movie-like. A lot more engaging, I find. The author inserts himself, inserts the process of writing= makes the readers very aware that THIS IS THE MESSAGE. THERE IS A CLEAR MESSAGE. STOP IGNORING THE MESSAGE.

MEMORY MAKING:

 P.25 “This place is a part of me. All that’s over now. And yet it endures.”

P. 304 “The old world won’t come back. That story is over” – FILM REEL, MOVIE—distancing? Idea that we are “watching” all these things unfold, with a sense of distance.

ENVIRONMENTAL vs. PUBLIC GOOD

 P.29 “The government was stuck in a choke hold” --> reiterating the dependability of a “democratic government” on the people’s will and the people’s will is always self-interested (and mostly neglects environmental concerns)

 P.250 TL;DR: Individual deaths don’t matter; the world won’t notice until there’s a large number of deaths (ironically even so, these deaths just become statistics, especially in history “1 million is a statistic, one is a story”)

P.257 “Sure, it’s true, we make our small gestures to ‘save the planet…give up a trip overseas?” – see L2die and CWC where we can make all these small acts of green living but that doesn’t really absolve us from succumbing to the routines imbued to us by our capitalist society and lifestyle.

P.259 “Changing all by yourself does nothing” –need societal changing, massive haul. Can’t heal the flu by just fixing the nose, gotta fix immune system and all that too. Individual change.

INDIFFERENCE

p.205 “The problem isn’t the reductions we can easily make. The problem is everything we close our eyes to.” --> you can actively participate in green projects to make you feel better about yourself but as long as you help fuel the demand for these larger infrastructures that keep the machine alive, the environmental war will be lost.

p. 215-17 “We live in a world of fictions. A fable, disconnected from reality…What do we cut out first?” à combination of stories, essays, interviews all in one graphic novel. FICTION. FICTION. FICTION. Similarly, the picture of these dangerous products of conspicuous consumption forms the image of the modern day man. BUFF TOO, as if it gets its strength from our increasing demand for them

P.248-9 “And then…well, time passed…As we have seen it takes a huge shock or major catastrophe to make us take action” –LMAO nature’s basically like, “only know you love her when you let her go” except, only know you screwed up when it’s too late and the world is on the verge of collapse and there’s nothing else you can do about it.

p.264-5: “our lifestyle in the developed world is like one of those Christmas stories…a false representation of reality. But it fits our desires. So we stick to it.” – live by delusion because it assures us, because it makes us able to live with ourselves. Fiction as a product of desire? The use of storytelling to fictionalizing the problem to distance it, to make it non-existent.

CONTRADICTIONS/ the dilemma is...

p.242 “We’re caught in so many contradictions. Page left: we know we’re heading for a wall. Page right: we go on living in fantasyland…where there’s no contradiction between our material desires and preserving the planet.” à role of fiction in reconciling contradictions, hence the use of “pages” only in these pages, and in our minds, are those realities possibility. Realistically, such a lifestyle is not sustainable.

p. 243 “and the worst thing is…it feels pretty good” à frame shifts from author’s thinking to ad of santa claus with a Pall Mall package, perversion of  Christmas, but at the same time, isn’t Christmas the capitalist holiday dream, when the world feeds on the gift-giving craze and uses the holiday as an excuse to splurge and empower the MACHINE?

p. 278 TL;DR: rich countries benefit from global warming, poor get poorer= GLOBAL INEQUALITY, that’s so unfair!!!

p. 251/294 AESTHETICS: Drought vs. Flood, and yet our eyes are elsewhere. “WATCHING. WAITING.”

P.184 “the problem is how our society is structured” – Bee hive and L2die

[clifi-journal-blog]

The Collapse of Western Civilization

Looking at Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway’s Cli-fi Essay

KUHN AND PARADIGMS: “new knowledge would replace ignorance rather than replace knowledge of another and incompatible sort”

For more than one hundred years before its fall…the remains of the United Kingdom can be found in present-day Cambria…(2): former structure that permits reimagination

Nothing is invented out of whole cloth. (66)

Studying the limits of planetary sinks: SEE ECON 335, migration, and the earth’s carrying capacity; economics is the study of allocation of goods, with limited resources to satisfy unlimited human needs

ECON RELATED STUFF: 

basically talking about inability to continue with capitalistic thinking and environmental concern. PARETO OPTIMALITY, “you can’t make someone better off without making someone else worse off”

“Free market was not really free; interventions were everywhere” (47)= HIGHLIGHTS THE IMPORTANCE OF MEDIA, mediums, mediations. All information is mediated; no pure knowledge? Just as this essay is mediated for the activist purposes and environmental focus, the need to act against climate change, etc.

EFFICIENCY vs. EQUITY (Econ 367)

Crash-course in historical economics, with a focus on neoliberalism. See: ADAM SMITH (TL;DR: competition lads to allocative efficiency; individual ambitions serves the common good, selfishness leads to best society, etc.) THOMAS HOBBES (TL;DR: anarchy sucks, need order; therefore, social contract= introduction of government, in this case, authoritarian government trumps democratic government in getting things going) 

MAPS: Extent of storytelling becomes visual (to a degree), not just textual representation

RELEVANT TO TODAY/HISTORY-MAKING:

“Panic ensued, with food riots in virtually every major city.” (25) –salt riots, Vancouver 2017 (limited resources to help with inconveniences brought by the weather leads to high demands leads to competition leads to violence)

“In terms of anthropogenic climate change…precautions against warming that might or might not happen in the future.” (75)= See: Bernie Sander’s FB post about 12 mile crack/line in Arctic ice increasing 

“What will future historians say about us?” (64) 

“The victims knew what was happening and why” – Book focuses on awareness and passive ignorance

FICTION WRITING:

Lexicon and Archaic Terms: creates another dimension of fictionalising and interpreting the world around us in a semi-objective manner?

“Fiction gives you more latitude, and here we try to use that latitude in interesting and thought-provoking ways.” (66)

[clifi-journal-blog]

Learning to Die in the Anthropocene

Looking at Roy Scantron’s Cli-Fi Manifesto

 Intersection of mythology and reality, in more ways than one: 1) fictional climate manifesto 2) integration of Epic of Gigamesh into the narrative à shows the interconnectivity between fiction and non-fiction and how they constantly shape each other

SYMBOLS/ ETYMOLOGIES: “Anywhere humans live, we make meaning” à mind-mapping, introduction of cartography/map making as a function of acclimatizing

Interpretation of “civilization” and how we must prepare to die in the Anthropocene is portrayed as a backwards-looking action wherein Scranton revisits ancient symbols and etymologies--> connect to Kuhn

Practicing…Learning Death -->performative, unnatural, doing something artificial to the natural

Weather PORN

 THINKING TWICE: QUOTES THAT GOT ME SHOOK and WHY

The People’s Climate March was little more than an orgy of democratic emotion, an activist themed street fair, a real world analogue to Twitter hashtag campaigns: something that says you belong in a certain group, and is completely divorced from actual legislation and governance. (62)

A sword is a sword, whichever way it cuts. (75)

The enemy isn’t out somewhere—the enemy is ourselves. Not as individuals, but as a collective. A system. A hive. How do we stop ourselves from fulfilling our fates as suicidally productive drones in a carbon-addictive hive, destroying ourselves in some kind of psychopathic colony collapse disorder? (85-6)

 Death begins as soon as we are born. (89) à something my physics teacher once told me: “the first step to dying is being born”

The practice of learning to die is the practice of learning to let go (92)

The human being is this Night, this empty nothing which contains everything in its simplicity—a wealth of infinitely many representations, images, none of which occur to it directly, and none of which are not present...mortality... It’s the face we all see sooner or later, because it’s our own face—our own consciousness, our own death mask. It waits for us in the mirror. (93) à see Ulysses, “We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love. But always meeting ourselves.”

We are humanity. We are the dead. (94)

 INTERTEXTUAL REFERENCES:

“A bleak ritual of stalemate, as if the world’s leaders had been cast in a business-class version of Samuel Beckett’s Endgame” (63) à a play about pauses; reference indicates the text’s existential crisis and Scranton’s focus on the inability to do/be something : reflection on mortality and immortality, on negation and death

Venetus A manuscript: importance of history, orality. Despite variations in themes, stories, text, stories reflect human life

ECONOMICS: coming from an economic background a couple of things to point out:

“Violence has solved many conflicts…Violence was central to the successes of the labour movement.”  (74)à although through that violence aided the conflict resolution, statistically, countries with higher rates of violence tend to do poorly because the allocation of resources and income generated within the country is imbalanced and heavily relies on the conflict resolution.