THE ECONOMIC SCIENCE FICTION OF CLIMATE CHANGE: A FREE-MARKET PERSPECTIVE ON THE STERN REVIEW AND THE IPCC

2008 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 42-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graham Dawson
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Economic Science ◽  
Stern Review ◽  
Market Perspective

Perdre la mesure… Or, The Ecologics of Extinction

CounterText ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-30
Author(s):  
Stefan Herbrechter
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Solar System ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Current Level ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Human Race ◽  
World Picture ◽  
Adequate Measurement ◽  
Ecological Catastrophe

The article takes its cue from Olivier Rey's recent book Une question de taille (a question of size) and develops the idea of humanity ‘losing its measure, or scale’ in the context of contemporary ecological catastrophe. It seems true that the current level of global threats, from climate change to asteroids, has produced a culture of ambient ‘species angst’ living in more or less constant fear about the survival of the ‘human race’, biodiversity, the planet, the solar system. This indeed means that the idea of a cosmos and a cosmology may no longer be an adequate ‘measurement’ for scaling the so far inconceivable, namely a thoroughly postanthropocentric world picture. The question of scale is thus shown to be connected to the necessity of developing a new sense of proportion, an eco-logic that would do justice to both, things human and nonhuman. Through a reading of the recent science fiction film Interstellar, this article aims to illustrate the dilemma and the resulting stalemate between two contemporary ‘alternatives’ that inform the film: does humanity's future lie in self-abandoning or in self-surpassing, in investing in conservation or in exoplanets? The article puts forward a critique of both of these ‘ecologics’ and instead shows how they depend on a dubious attempt by humans to ‘argue themselves out of the picture’, while leaving their anthropocentric premises more or less intact.

scholarly journals Staying Alive: Science Fiction in the Age of the Anthropocene — Philip K. Dick’s Pessimistic Humanism

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tallulah Harvey
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Environmental Politics ◽  
Public Awareness ◽  
Human Species ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Scientific Advancement ◽  
Negative Impacts ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Impacts Of Climate Change

In recent years, literary studies have become increasingly invested in environmentalism. As science reveals the negative impacts of climate change, and demonstrates a growing concern for humanity’s contribution, literature operates as a form of cultural documentation. It details public awareness and anxieties, and acts as a conduit for change by urging empathetic responses and rendering ecological controversy accessible.To explore the relationship between literature and environmental politics, this paper will focus on the work of science fiction writer Philip K. Dick, and his dystopian visions. In his particular brand of sci-fi, there is no future for humanity. Science and technology fail to pave the way for a better and fairer society, but rather towards, as far as Dick is concerned, extinction. He argues that scientific advancement distances us from reality and from a sense of “humanness”. His pessimistic futures are nihilistic but tender; nurturing a love for humanity even in, what he considers to be, its final hours.Unlike the work of other prominent sci-fi writers, Dick’s fiction does not look towards the stars, but is in many ways a return to earth. The barren landscapes of Mars and other planets offer no comfort, and the evolution of the human into cyborgs, androids and post human species is depicted as dangerous and regressive. Dick’s apocalyptic visions ground his readers in the reality around them, acting in the present for the sake of the earth and humanity’s survival. His humanism is critical of grand enlightenment ideas of “progressivism”, and instead celebrates ordinariness. In the shadow of corporate capitalism and violent dictatorial governments, Dick prefers the little man, the ordinary everyday domestic hero for his narratives. His fiction urges us to take responsibility for our actions, and prepares us for the future through scepticism and pessimism, and a relentless fondness for the human.

scholarly journals Økonomisk science fiction og kritisk anti-utopi

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (82) ◽  
pp. 111-126
Author(s):  
Martin Karlsson Pedersen
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Common Interest ◽  
Economic Science ◽  
Economic Approach ◽  
Short Introduction ◽  
Economic Exploitation ◽  
Dave Eggers

The article gives a short introduction to the new field of “economic science fictions” and discusses an economic approach to science fiction focusing on the class aspect of utopian and anti-utopian science fiction. By tracing a common interest in the new regimes of accumulation and exploitation of cognitive labor between Cognitive Capitalism and Dave Eggers’ anti-utopian novel The Circle, the article highlights the dangerous dynamic between class-specific utopian desire and new forms of technologically driven economic exploitation.

scholarly journals Consideraciones acerca de la implementación de las acciones sobre el cambio climático y los acuerdos internacionales para la cooperación bajo la perspectiva del Informe Stern

LEX ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (21) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Karina Obeso Cuadra ◽  
María Isabel Medrano Sánchez ◽  
Geraldo Morón Paredes ◽  
José Luis Masías Vidal ◽  
Wendy Lidia Moreano Márquez ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Stern Review

El Informe Stern sobre la Economía del Cambio Climático (Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change) es un documento redactado por el economista Sir Nicholas Stern, antiguo miembro del Banco Mundial por encargo del Tesoro Británico, sobre el impacto del cambio climático y el calentamiento global sobre la economía mundial al afirmar que se necesita de una inversión equivalente al 1% del PIB mundial para mitigar los efectos del cambio climático; caso contrario, el universo estaría expuesto a una recesión que podría alcanzar al 20 % del PIB. Se trata de un informe político riguroso que logró conseguir la atención de la opinión pública sobre las implicancias y consecuencias del cambio climático, dejándonos conclusiones claras y contundentes sobre una pronta actuación. Su discusión trata sobre cómo mitigar el cambio climático y si estamos preparados para este proceso desde el enfoque económico. El informe presenta un análisis sobre la economía del cambio climático, utilizando resultados de estudios científicos publicados y evaluados. Se encuentra estructurado en 6 partes que contienen 27 capítulos. La parte VI International Collective Action, que abarca desde el capítulo 21 al 27, trata, entre otros temas, de la coordinación de la acción colectiva internacional frente al cambio climático, que supone la existencia de un planificador central preocupado por el bienestar mundial y de la conveniencia de frenar la deforestación. Las consideraciones de este artículo se basan en la Acción Internacional Cooperativa, desarrollada en el Capítulo VI del Informe Stern, orientada a la implementación de las acciones necesarias para atenuar los efectos del cambio climático. Las acciones para afrontar los efectos adversos del cambio climático consisten en una amplia gama de actividades de distintos niveles y dimensiones para las cuales se requiere de un único marco de referencia internacional para reducir de manera efectiva la emisión de gases de efecto invernadero. Es así que los acuerdos internacionales para el cambio climático son la base fundamental para la cooperación; no obstante, existen retos inherentes en este aspecto debido a la naturaleza de la problemática, como son la provisión de un bien público como el clima y la atmósfera, el costo de la implementación de las acciones para el cambio climático, la transición de la economía global del carbono hacia una economía global limpia y la difusión pública de la importancia de participar en este proceso. La inversión, investigación e implementación de tecnologías para afrontar el cambio climático requieren de una planificación estratégica gubernamental adecuada que incluya reglas del juego firmes y que promuevan la adopción privada de acciones que reduzcan las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero.

Human Destinies

2018 ◽  
pp. 73-92
Author(s):  
Gary Westfahl
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
New Species ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Human Development ◽  
Interstellar Space ◽  
Fiction Writers ◽  
The City ◽  
A New Species

Unlike other science fiction writers, this chapter explains, Clarke rarely envisions humanity colonizing interstellar space and forging a galactic empire, anticipating limitations on human development. Though unconcerned about nuclear wars or alien invasions, Clarke regularly predicts humanity’s extinction, due to climate change or competing new species, or long periods of decadence. If humans avoid these fates, evolution may transform them into a new species, unlike present-day humans. Such scenarios unfold in Clarke’s major novels about humanity’s destiny: in Against the Fall of Night (1953), revised as The City and the Stars (1956), residents of an unchanging future city rediscover their ambitions but still face eventual demise; and in Childhood’s End (1953) humans guided by alien Overlords become a group intelligence to join a transcendent Overmind.

Conclusion

2021 ◽  
pp. 199-202
Author(s):  
Philip Jenkins
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
The Political ◽  
Climate History ◽  
Accurate Knowledge ◽  
The World ◽  
Religious Dimensions ◽  
Better Than

My own interest in the topics of this book dates back a good many years. In fact, it predates the emergence of the modern field of climate history, or the identification of global warming as an incipient menace. In saying that, I am claiming no status as a prodigy, still less a prophet. Rather, in my teenage years, I read a great deal of speculative fiction, science fiction, in which themes of climate change and cataclysm have long percolated, at least since the latter years of the nineteenth century. We can debate how accurate the scientific analyses or predictions were in many of these works—in many cases, the level of accurate knowledge was minimal—but those works had the inordinate advantage of thinking through the human and cultural consequences of catastrophe, commonly speculating about religious dimensions. Obviously, some works succeeded better than others in that regard, but the essential project was critically important. If we are foretelling that the world will be assailed by lethal menaces, then we cannot fail to go on to imagine what the political or cultural consequences would or should be....

When did We Start to Change Things?

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas N. Sherratt ◽  
David M. Wilkinson
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Early Summer ◽  
Current Evidence ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Worst Case ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
James Lovelock

As we wrote the first draft of this chapter (during early summer 2007), the potential dangers of ‘global warming’ had moved up the news agenda to a point where most major politicians were starting to take the problem seriously. Our opening quotation comes from a book published in early 2006, which seemed to coincide with the growth of this wider concern with global warming. Lovelock was not alone in trying to raise awareness of the problem; around the same time another book on climate change by the zoologist and palaeontologist Tim Flannery also attracted global attention to this issue, as did the lecture tours (and Oscar-winning film) of Al Gore—the former US presidential candidate and campaigner on the dangers of climate change. Indeed, in his role as a climate campaigner Gore won a share in the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. It is possible that future historians will see the period 2005–2007 as the start of a crucial wider engagement with these problems. Things may not be as bad as James Lovelock suggests—in his book he deliberately emphasized the most worrying scenarios coming from computer models, and other evidence, in an attempt to draw attention to the critical nature of the problem. However, all these worst case scenarios were drawn from within the range of results that most climate scientists believed could plausibly happen—not extreme cases with little current evidence to support them. That one of the major environmental scientists of the second half of the twentieth century could write such prose as science—rather than science fiction—is clearly a case for concern about future climate change. It also raises another important question, relating to the history of human influence on our planet: when in our history did we start to have major environmental impacts on Earth as a whole? This is clearly an important issue from a historical perspective, but the answers may also have implications for some of our attempts to rectify the damage. Our discussion of this question comes with various caveats. Many of the arguments we consider in this chapter are still the subject of academic disagreement.

Staying Mobile in Postapocalyptic Cli-Fi

2020 ◽  
pp. 159-188
Author(s):  
Jeremy Withers
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
First Century ◽  
Fiction Writers ◽  
Twenty First Century

This chapter examines how the rising popularity since the 1990s of works of postapocalyptic cli-fi (i.e. climate change fiction) has provided science fiction writers a convenient opportunity to explore issues of mobility and transportation. After first examining an early postapocalyptic cli-fi work from the 1990s by Octavia E. Butler, the chapter then advances this book’s chronological analysis to some twenty-first century works of science fiction. In its discussion of a novel by Paolo Bacigalupi and one by Benjamin Parzybok, this chapter shows how more restrained modes of transport play a vital role during times of apocalypse in keeping a society functioning and keeping us as individuals from slipping into disempowerment.

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