Climate change in mid- to near-term future America as imagined through short fiction
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Date
2021-05
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The Ohio State University
Abstract
Climate change does not loom over America in 2020: we are already inside of it. As the twenty-first century continues, the challenges posed to America and global society at large by climate change will only mount, from slipping standards of living to mass displacement to economic collapse. The sheer size of the interlinked problems posed by climate change may make it emotionally difficult or distressing to contemplate in the abstract. This, I believe, makes it a fit subject to be explored creatively. With this project, I would like to examine how climate change might impact a fictional American city both on the eve of a climate change-linked natural disaster and through its long aftermath. Characters from a cross-section of society, including service industry workers, law enforcement personnel, and academics, would find themselves struggling to assert their places in--and have a hand in shaping--a society going through tectonic changes. My goal is not to write post-apocalyptic science fiction or disaster stories but instead to try and depict how our society might change within our lifetimes in response to changing realities, ideally for the better. One story, for example, might follow an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer charged with guarding a camp in which migrants are imprisoned. He agrees with protestors outside the camp's gates who find the treatment of migrants abhorrent, but he hopes to create change from within the agency's hierarchy. As a hurricane threatens to wipe the camp away and endangers the lives of everyone imprisoned there, will he stay loyal to his employers or to his ideals? Stories like this, examining specific conflicts in American society brought into sharp relief by the urgency of climate change, are what I hope to explore with this project.
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Climate change, American politics, short fiction, literary fiction