Re-Post: The Creatures We Don’t See: Thoughts on the Animal Other

Note: Back in 2008, the incredible Jeff VanderMeer invited me to guest-post on his blog.  Recently I had occasion to re-read this post, and I decided to post it here on Antariksh Yatra, minimally edited.  Unfortunately the post isn’t complete without the discussions in the comments, so here’s the original link.  

 

When I was around ten years old my family moved from New Delhi to the town of Patna, in Bihar, for two years.  Patna was a small, untidy, sprawling little town (relative to Delhi) and the area where we lived consisted of large, old-fashioned houses set among enormous gardens.  We stayed with my grandparents, and a little way from their house you could see fields.  Sometimes my brother and I would wake very early and go on a trek through the fields, pausing to watch a farmer and his bullock drawing water from a well, or looking at pond life in a ditch filled with rainwater.  In the evenings there would be kids playing cricket in the big maidan in front of the house, and my brother and I would be there too (it was in those days that I developed my now-lost skill as a fairly fearsome spin bowler).  Some of the pariah dogs that lived in packs in our neighbourhood would join in, especially if we were playing football (soccer).  Pariah dogs are descended from the earliest domesticated dogs — they are a tribe unto themselves, and live parallel lives with humans in towns and cities in India.  They are also beautiful, intelligent animals — you can see some really nice pictures here. 

 

One of these pariah dogs was a brown and white dog of noble bearing whom we called Moti (the word sounds like “more-thee” without the ‘r’, and means “pearl”).  As he was a regular on the football field, we became friends.  He would come over to our house if he wanted a meal.  Sometimes he would walk me home if I was late returning from a friend’s house.  There was a boy who lived next door who was friendly with Moti too, but he wanted Moti as a house-dog.  So he trapped the dog for three days in his house, spoiling him, feeding him delicacies and playing with him.  But at the first opportunity, Moti escaped.

Why KSR’s 2312 is a Fail on Many Counts

First I want to say that this is not a review, but my personal feelings about some aspects of the novel 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson.  I’m not going to discuss plot points and language and story arc except where they speak to the points I do want to make.  And there are spoilers galore.  STOP HERE if you want to read the book first.  

Vegetative Musings

Contrary to what non-academics think, those of the professorial persuasion rarely have the summers off in any but the most mundane sense of the term.  Being off from teaching generally means that this is your one chance to a) recover from semester burn-out, b) breathe, c) do research or other scholarly work so that you can keep your brain alive and keep your job, d) read about and think about interesting stuff.  The 9-to-5-ers of the world may not understand that those of my ilk cannot draw a clear boundary between work and non-work. 

So I’ve been reading, among other things.  What I’m reading could affect what and how I teach next semester, the essays and other non-fiction I write, and of course my fiction.  No real distinction between work and play for me.  Not being one of those whose life can be divided into neat, waterproof compartments, I rejoice in leaping over divisions, boundaries and walls.

Apparently, so do plants.

Peering Out at the World: Quick Notes & Links

I am peering out from behind a huge pile of undergraduate papers to see if the world is still there.  Looks like it is, for now.  So I’d like to take a few minutes to post some links.

This past week the American Association of University Women came out with a report called Why So Few?  http://www.aauw.org/research/whysofew.cfm

“Why So Few? Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics presents in-depth yet accessible profiles of eight key research findings that point to environmental and social barriers – including stereotypes, gender bias and the climate of science and engineering departments in colleges and universities – that continue to block women’s participation and progress in science, technology, engineering, and math. The report also includes up to date statistics on girls’ and women’s achievement and participation in these areas and offers new ideas for what each of us can do to more fully open scientific and engineering fields to girls and women.”

When pondering this question, which is close to my heart, I’ve always felt that we not only need to change how society views girls in relation to science and science careers but we have to address the internal culture of science in research labs and universities and colleges.   This internal culture seems to be to be oriented toward certain personality types while putting others at a disadvantage — at its extreme there can be cutthroat competition, a confrontational style of dealing not only with people but with Nature, and a narrow, blind, disconnected approach to the problem at hand.  Not everyone thrives under such conditions.  I’ll have a lot more to say about all this in a future post.

And in news from our favourite satellite, it appears that the Moon might have more water than we thought.  600 million metric tons distributed over 40 craters near the lunar north pole.  What this makes possible is: stations on the moon, and a place from which to launch space exploration vehicles — a stepping stone to Mars and beyond!  Water means life resource and rocket fuel.

Somebody needs to write a poem about this.  I mean, all that water on the moon!

All of our spacely adventures can only happen if we have the sense to save the planet by slowing and reversing global warming.  Tomorrow, Saturday March 27, is Earth Hour, the annual momentum-building, consciousness-raising event that is growing hugely every year.  I plan to be one of the millions around the globe participating by turning of my lights for an hour, 8:30 to 9:30 pm.  Last year’s participation was around a billion people and hundreds of cities, organizations and institutions.

This reminds me that I started this blog about a year ago, so this is an anniversary of sorts.  I’ve posted only sparsely but have somehow managed to maintain the pace, however slow, of inflicting my thoughts upon the world.

In personal news, I am surprised and pleased to note that one of my novellas, Distances, published by the good and brave folks at Aqueduct Press, is a Tiptree honor book for 2009, as announced here.  Congratulations to the Tiptree winners (Hi Greer!) and honor list authors, and to L. Timmel Duchamp (Hi Timmi!) who gets special recognition for her tremendous Marq’ssan Cycle.

Also, I have a story coming out soon in Strange Horizons.  It is vaguely related to the first story I published there a long time ago, one called Three Tales from Sky River.  When I first wrote that story, years ago, I imagined a woman who went from planet to planet in a far future starfaring age collecting stories like the three tales of the title.  I wanted to write a story about her, but when I finally managed to write it last year, it turned out that it wasn’t just about her, and she needed a teller as well, and somehow events in 11th century C.E. India became important.  In short, it got complicated, hopefully in a good way.

A Real Life “Avatar” Drama in Orissa, India

(Note: Post updated/corrected below)

The plotline of James Cameron’s movie Avatar is not new.  The question I want to ask of the world is: what do you do when it happens in real life?  For the people of a certain part of Orissa state in India, it is happening now.

Here’s the big, hungry corporation, the Korean steel giant, POSCO:

(Photo from this wikipedia site)

And here’s the opposition.

May 10, 2007: Rally Against POSCO – 6  Photo by Clea Chakraverty

(From the petitions page of the group AID)

James Cameron could probably buy POSCO with his spare change and avert this socio-ecological disaster in the making, but in real life (unlike Hollywood) there are few white knights coming in to rescue the natives.  The story of the natives thus becomes the story to tell.

Hot Stuff in Copenhagen

Today one of the most important meetings in the world is going on in Copenhagen: the Climate Conference, where world leaders are supposed to come up with some sort of deal to prevent a heat death of the biosphere. 

Despite drowning in tons of papers to correct, I’ve been following the news and it is not good.  At last reading there is a stand-off between the rich countries, who are responsible for 80% of greenhouse gas emissions, and the poor countries, who are going to suffer the most from global warming.  Bill McKibben has an impassioned piece about this on www.350.org.  Read it: it is a great piece of writing.

Now it turns out that a top secret UN document was leaked in Copenhagen that predicts that with the deals that are now on the table, carbon dioxide levels will rise to 550 ppm, a truly unsustainable level that will cause a temperature rise of 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees F).  For reference the safe upper limit is estimated to be at 350 ppm and we are currently at 387 ppm and rising.  Read about the leaked document.    Bill McKibben comments on this: “In one sense this is no secret—we’ve been saying it for months. But it is powerful to have the UN confirming its own insincerity.”

So what to do?  There seems to be some evidence that public pressure works — so I’ve signed appeals from Avaaz and 350.org and Greenpeace India.  I’m hoping world leaders will stretch their brains a bit beyond the ends of their noses and take the action that needs to be taken. Otherwise — you know what?  The survival of the biosphere is not negotiable.  As the protest banners have said, we don’t have a Planet B.  So if the so-called leaders don’t come forth we’d better have a Plan B.  We are living in a science fiction novel that is turning into an apocalyptic horror story.  Time to brainstorm.

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?

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.

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.

“The most unrealistic person in the world is the cynic, not the dreamer”

I’ve been too busy lately to write anything of substance on this blog, but thanks to Kurt Kremer this remarkable speech — the 2009 commencement address at the University of Portland by Paul Hawken — came my way. 

Excerpts:

When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand the data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world.

And also:

What do we know about life? In the words of biologist Janine Benyus, life creates the conditions that are conducive to life. I can think of no better motto for a future economy. We have tens of thousands of abandoned homes without people and tens of thousands of abandoned people without homes. We have failed bankers advising failed regulators on how to save failed assets. We are the only species on the planet without full employment. Brilliant. We have an economy that tells us that it is cheaper to destroy earth in real time rather than renew, restore, and sustain it. You can print money to bail out a bank but you can’t print life to bail out a planet. At present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it gross domestic product. We can just as easily have an economy that is based on healing the future instead of stealing it. We can either create assets for the future or take the assets of the future. One is called restoration and the other exploitation. And whenever we exploit the earth we exploit people and cause untold suffering. Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way to be rich.

This is also of relevance to an essay I wrote last October as a guest blogger at Jeff VanderMeer’s site, called Science Fiction and the End of the World. 

Here’s to hope.

Vandana