The Great Betrayal

On October 24th, this year, many thousands of people across the globe performed an action or campaign to publicize the number 350 and to put pressure on their governments to come up with a binding climate treaty in Copenhagen in December.  The number 350 ppm is the highest amount of carbon dioxide that scientists think the Earth’s climate can tolerate, above which we are looking at catastrophic warming scenarios reminiscent of apocalyptic science fiction.  There were over 5000 events in a coordinated global movement spearheaded by 350.org. 

The response of world leaders?  They agreed not to come up with a binding treaty in Copenhagen. 

In other words they are going to go there, talk, probably play golf, and go home.  In the meantime the world is warming faster than our science can explain and the window of time before irreversible feedback loops begin (some have already started) is getting narrower and narrower, from 4 years (estimated by an IPCC report in 2007) to two years and shrinking.  And the carbon dioxide continues to go up — currently we are close to 390 ppm and rising.

There is a very interesting interview with Kim Stanley Robinson in which he makes it quite clear that what we are up against is capitalism itself — he pits science versus capitalism (which is likely an oversimplification given what capitalists do with science) in the context of global warming. 

Given all this, and assuming that the destruction of the biosphere is not an option, and recognizing that there will be ecological deterioration for decades or centuries even if we do what needs to be done — in other words the choice is between reversible hell and irreversible worse-than-hell — given all this, what is to be done?

Let me repeat that: if we assume that destruction of the biosphere is not an option, what would it take to slow and ultimately stop global warming?

What would we have to do if we cannot depend on governments?

What would we have to do despite the campaigns of corporations and climate change deniers?

Currently sites like 350.org and organizations like Greenpeace have been directing their action toward putting pressure on government leaders.  This is fine and necessary, but is it enough?  Should these groups focus their attention on different strategies?  If so, what would these strategies be?

And lastly, where is the science fiction that deals with the current crisis?  In other words, who are the writers, after Robinson and his Science in the Capitol series, who are taking this up?

The Beast with Nine Billion Feet

As Anil Menon mentions in his interview over at SF Signal, his first book, a YA novel called The Beast with Nine Billion Feet, is out from Zubaan in India.  It is a great and complex yarn, unafraid of such things as Big Ideas, politics, Sanskrit poetry, Swedish exclamations, German jokes and family relationships.  Not to mention wild, cool future-tech.  (Full disclosure: I blurbed it, but you should read it anyway). 

Anil’s not sure about a sequel, which means people have to read the book and badger him until he writes one. 

In the meantime I asked him a couple of questions.

 The book’s had a longish birthing process and is finally, truly, out in the bookstores in India now.  How do you feel? 

Now that the book is out, there’s this feeling I haven’t totally wasted my life. Whether my readers love it or feed it to their goats, it’s a real, tangible something that they will love or hate. Now I can plan all sorts of fun adventures: exiles, deluges, virgin births, covenants, revelations… I think I’ll rest for a day.

Why did you decide to publish the book in India? 

There was never any doubt that the Beast would be an Indian book. I’m hoping the book will circumnavigate the world of course– there’s stuff in it Germans will love– but I wanted the road-trip to begin in India. I was confident I could find a publisher in the States and that the book would be marketed in India, sooner or later. But a novel from another land is always a traveler’s tale, and I didn’t want my book to be a traveler’s tale in India. I grew up on traveler’s tales, and desi kids still do, so yeah.

Yeah!  Time for a sequel, yaar. 

Dispatches from Oinkfluland

As I battle what my doctor thinks is almost definitely the swine flu (alias H1N1) I make various rude gestures to factory farms in general and the one in Perote, Mexico, where the sickness first began, in particular.  Apparently this possible connection between factory farming and the swine flu was not widely reported in the US media (surprise!) with some exceptions but as I play reluctant host to the virus I can’t help but think (in my less-exhausted moments) about human greed and stupidity and how this greed an stupidity seems to bite us back, again and again.  I feel a visceral sympathy for the pigs who go through hell in those factory farms (and for the intelligent, emotional animals they are, it must truly be hell) and the humans who are the victims of this sickness. 

In the meantime various things accumulate, as they do when one is not much good for anything but being horizontal and wishing one had another head, preferably a pain-free one.  Apart from responsibilities to the household there are papers piled up for correction, an interview, responses to comments on my blog, and a bunch of iou’s in walks and treats to the dog, who really can’t understand why I’m being such a bore. 

In the rare moments of relative clarity and energy (induced mostly by masala tea and Tylenol) I’ve managed to read Terry Pratchett’s new book, Unseen Academicals, although I think I may have imagined parts of it that he didn’t write when I was particularly feverish — my recollection of it has a weirdly four-dimensional feel — and am now reading a Himalayan travelogue by Ruskin Bond, called All Roads Lead to Ganga.  It is bringing back memories of Garhwal, 1980, so many years ago.

One thing that I am very pleased about is that the International Day of Climate Action, which was this Saturday, October 24, was a great success, with over 5000 events in 181 countries.  The slide show on the 350 site is inspiring.  There was an event in my town but for obvious reasons I couldn’t be there. 

And now it’s time for more tea.

Racism in SF: Two Articles

The first article is a great interview over at WorldSF: Charles Tan interviews the provocative Ashok Banker who had the gall (bless the man) to turn down a NYT interview on matters of principle.  Ashok says a lot of interesting things that need to be said, without pulling any punches whatsoever.  I don’t agree with him on everything but the man’s experience is different from mine, and who am I to deny his experience?  For instance he accuses big publishers in SF of pretty overt racism.  If that’s his experience, that is not to be denied.  I’ve had a pretty mixed experience of bias (mostly of the subtle kind) but I’ve also had the good fortune of coming across fellow writers and editors here in the US who are genuinely interested in listening to what I have to say through my stories.  But I have no doubt that a sort of institutionalized racism does exist here in America and therefore in the SF world, which, without its vocal POC critics, probably wouldn’t spend too much time in self-examination.

The other article I’d like to point to is one by Anil Menon about Simpson’s Paradox in the Slush Pile, as he so elegantly states it.  This is the sort of article I love because it shows us how careful we have to be in a) backing what we have to say with data and b) interpreting it correctly.  I do have a response to it below, which will make sense after you read the article.

Snippets

I’ve lately been so busy and exhausted that I feel as though I’ve been run over by a succession of trucks — but of course, that is just Life. Since I have neither the brain power nor the energy at the moment to write a properly thought-out and coherent blog post, I’m going to, instead, commit a few disjointed paragraphs to the screen. They mostly have to do with the thoughts jostling about in my head and are by construction somewhat random. For which I ask the forgiveness of discerning readers.

Some Links

While I’m embroiled in other things, not least of which is getting ready for the fall semester and not being at Worldcon (boo hoo), here are some links.

First, Anil Menon, co-conspirator, has two very interesting posts on the SF Workshop at IIT-Kanpur.  Read Part 1 and Part 2.

 Second, here is an account of a protest in India against a coal-fired power plant — the largest such protest — what I hope is the tip of the iceberg of the Indian climate movement.

Third, when I was in Delhi recently there was a song going around that got into my head and shows no signs of getting out.  It was being sung over radio stations, by (as far as I could tell) taxi drivers and roadside loafers as well as folks in the family including my 3.5-year-old niece.  It’s from the movie Delhi 6 and is obviously folk-song-derived and has a great beat.  It’s called Genda Phool and I’ve been singing it around the house like there’s no tomorrow.  Here’s the youtube trailer of the song.  Enjoy! 

I’ll add more links as I come across/remember them.

More on the SF Workshop at IIT – Kanpur

Being late and hurriedly written, this account is somewhat incoherent.  Re-writing it would take too long in my current state of time-zone zombied-ness.  My apologies.

For the first part of the report on the workshop, see here.

The workshop students continued to produce some wonderful work during my week.  Perhaps the best short, in-class writing exercises came from our discussion of SF and the Other, in particular the Animal Other.  We reviewed and discussed the science on animal emotions (which is to say, surprise, surprise, animals like mammals and birds and possibly others, have emotions!), and shared personal anecdotes about our own experience with animals.   The exercise was to write from the point of view of an animal.  We got some great responses, and I was interested to note how many people had picked insects.  No cutesy disneyfications — very cool stuff.

Indigenous Amazonians confront Fossil Fools

This is inspiring:

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-a-fight-for-the-amazon-that-should-inspire-the-world-1715927.html

But it also brings forth the question as to why Climate Change isn’t at the top of the coverage of our news media. 

I’m horribly jet-lagged but among the random thoughts jostling in my brain is this one: where is the science fiction about regular/ indigenous/ traditionally downpressed people in the world fighting climate change?  Because they are.  Maybe we SF writers should come out of little blinkered existences and take note of that.

More soon on the IIT workshop, etc.

P.S.  After posting this the first time I realized I meant to add this reference to an anthology of environmental SF.  Thanks to Bodhisattva (my student at IIT-K, whose knowledge of SF is impressive) for this reference:

Dream’s Edge, edited by Terry Carr, published in 1982.  The excerpt from the introduction, quoted on the amazon site, is well worth reading.

Being the Change: Badlaav 2009

Quick Note: I’m preparing Part II of my impressions of the Kanpur Workshop but may not have time to post it until after I return (I leave tonight for the US).  The same goes for comments folks have posted, to which I promise a reply when I’m back.  But I HAD to shout this out from my rooftop:

Badlaav 2009!  Check it out! 

Journey to Kanpur: Days One and Two of SF Workshop at IIT

 Note: I wrote this piece a few days ago and have only now gotten a chance to post it.  I’m back in the Delhi area.  More updates later.

On Sunday, June 28^th,  my brother and brother-in-law took me to New Delhi Railway Station to catch the train to Kanpur.  The station was as crowded, messy and noisy as I remembered it (a web of intersecting human, machine and animal dramas), except that there were more platforms and many of the trains were blue.  The train was nearly two hours late so we stood on the platform in the early morning and talked or simply observed.  Kid picking trash up off the railway lines, village woman on the other side leaning her kid over so he could go potty over the tracks.  People sitting on their luggage, bored, waiting.  A man behind me, asleep on some grimy sheets of cardboard.  The day promising to repeat the white-hot temperatures of the past several days.  Crows looking ironical.