On the darkest day, reading dystopian fiction as an act of defiance

To dark for growing, I put the Christmas lights in the window greenhouse

Winter is coming, or should already have been here in Sweden. Today is winter solstice, the shortest day of the year and on a normal winter most of the country would be well below freezing temperature and covered with snow. But this year is not normal in any respect, weather and climate being just one of them. From a rather hopeful start, following the climate agreement at COP21 in Paris, things started to go downhill. It was soon clear that 2016 would displace 2015 as the globally warmest year ever. And also in many other aspects, things have been going down a slippery slope. A few examples:

Brexit was the first real electoral shock where it was clear that “common sense” and reasoning from experts did not stand a chance against focused and aggressive populism backed by a hysterical campaign in both social and traditional media. It even cost the life of one of Britains most promising young politicians, Jo Cox, who was attacked by a man inspired by the vile rightwing rhetoric (i.e. he was a terrorist). Brexit was also a very bad omen for the US presidential campaign, which indeed turned out in the worst possible manner with Trump now being the president (s)elect. There have been loads of different analyses on the background to this result, including my own. Today, it is still unclear how big a role the Russian meddling played in the election result, be it directly or indirectly. However it seems increasingly clear that at best an erratic crony capitalist has been elected and at worst a Russian poodle with kleptocratic and power hungry ambitions.

The last year has also been a year of shame for the international community with the paralysis regarding Syria, aided by Chinese-Russian blocking of the UN security council. This has allowed the Assad regime to continue the war on its own population, most recently with the horrendous bombardments of Aleppo. Last years hardening attitudes towards refugees fleeing to Europe from these and other atrocities lead to a Faustian deal with Turkey, whom the EU payed to close the borders to mainly Syrian refugees. The botched coup in Turkey followed, leading to a brutal crackdown on opposition in general and Kurdish people in particular has made our reliance on Erdogan and his thugs even more unpalatable, as politicians all over Europe have bought domestic tranquility by closing our borders.

The brutal terror attack in Nice and just the other day in Berlin again shows how vulnerable an open society is to those who feel  threatened by a liberal and inclusive society. But if the response is to turn away from openness and freedom to a protected but illiberal society, we are lost. The more we build walls around us, the more we build walls between us, just the way that both oppressive right wing groups and militants in the name of Islam wants us to do.

Close to home, the continued Russian military aggressiveness and buildup of arms including nuclear capacity in the Baltic area is an increasing threat to primarily the Baltic states. However, any conflict in the area is likely to involve also Sweden. Considering what we have learned about potential Russian involvement in the US election and the Russian willingness and capacity to brutal involvement in Syria, increased spending on Swedish defence seems to be a sad necessity.

In the real physical world, temperatures kept rising, causing an unprecedented bleaching of corals killing large parts of the Great Barrier Reef outside Australia. Dead reefs are home to no fish, thus this is a direct threat to a main protein source for people living in the tropics but of course also a long term biodiversity catastrophe. At the top and bottom of the world, the collapse of both Arctic and Antarctic sea ice continued, taking us into completely unknown territory. For Christmas, the forecast for the North Pole in the midst of the polar winter is an astonishing +25°C above normal! What this will mean for both weather patterns and rapid sea level rise I guess we will soon realise.

An animated GIF showin this years collapse of polar sea ice

All concluded 2016 leaves a bad legacy and not much reason for a turning to the better in the short term, nor at present a good prognosis in the long run.

So what to do in these dark times on this dark day? Reading dystopian fiction may sound as a way of rubbing salt in ones wounds but it may actually be a way of understanding where we do NOT want to go. Fiction is sometimes a better way to envision the future than facts and figures, both in negative and positive ways.

There are a number of classic examples of dark future fiction, such as George Orwells “1948”, Aldous Huxleys "Brave New World” and in Sweden, Karin Boyes “Kallocain”. Common to them are the subduction of the individual to state and corporate power, using a combination of force and other means of subduction. While it is clear that these books were written as warning signs, there is a risk that we see fiction, both literature and movies, as portraying an inevitability of events. However, we can use them for backcasting - if this is not where we want to go what do we have to do? Which are the roads we need to not take, what are the societal tipping points we must avoid.

To me, two recent short books serves this case well: "The Collapse of Western Civilisation - A View from the Future" by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway and “Splinterlands" by John Feffer. “Collapse” is written as a scholar essay by a Chinese academic on the 300th anniversary of the Great Collapse, describing how the children of the Enlightenment―the political and economic elites of the so-called advanced industrial societies―failed to act on climate change, and so brought about the collapse of Western civilisation.

“Splinterlands” tells a story of a world in 2050, where the EU has broken apart and great powers like Russia and China have shrivelled. America's global military footprint has virtually disappeared and the United States remains united in name only. Nationalism has proven the century's most enduring force as ever-rising global temperatures have supercharged each-against-all competition.

So what can we learn from these stories? If we change the climate the climate will change us beyond recognition and it is far from sure that we who live in the developed western world will come out on top. The people who advocate the armed life boat strategy have not understood the scale of what will hit us from changing climate. When food gets scarce and land flooded, people will not stay put. No walls will in the long run protect us if Antarctica melts.

After reading this you might ask where is the hope? But hope is not a given, it is also something we can create by our actions. I have long said that I am dystopian but with positive attitude. To convey what we need to do, we will need storytelling and good examples. I have previously written about Ernst Shackleton and his find solutions / never give up attitude and I still consider him a good example . But we also wisely need to choose the battles we engage in.

To me, we have three important tasks ahead. The first is that we must strive to very rapidly transit to a carbon neutral, solar and wind powered energy system! This is absolutely necessary to combat climate change but it also has a huge political impacts. A major factor that links Putins Russia and the coming Trump regime is the dependancy on fossil fuels, as clearly shown by the proposed Secretary of State being a CEO of a Big Oil company. Transitioning away from coal, oil and gas will wrestle away power, wealth and influence from Putin and Trump as well as the oppressive regimes in the Middle East. You can’t buy stocks in the sun! But we as consumers and professionals as well as citizens can and must push this transition, at home, at work and by pressuring our politicians. Getting of fossil fuels is an act of both decency and a political statement.

The second task is to shore up our defences in forthcoming elections. This applies to coming elections in Germany, to the 2018 election in Sweden and to the mid term elections in USA. As to the latter, Nevada is a good example showing that political ground work can pay off. Today in a podcast with @summerbrennan (LINK) I also heard about Brand New Congress a plan to bypass the traditional parties and undo the gridlock congress. In Sweden, we must find ways to avoid falling into the populist and nationalist trap, showing that the solution that the “Sweden democrats” put forward are just illusions of little value. More on that topic later.

The last task is more personal. 2016 was a year when we also lost a lot of great artists, such as David Bowie, Prince and Leonard Cohen, to name just a few. However, the songs they have written are still with us. We can use them for the third important task, to be more listening, open and caring to near and dear as well as more distant relations. That attitude is a true threat to the dark forces that wants to sweep us away. Not being religious, I still think that is a message that resonates well with Christmas time.