Loosed Upon the World

"For Grace,who I hope will inherit a better world than the ones depicted here." 

"A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world"  

Albert Camus

After the reading the Popes call to act on climate change, I figured I would read what Sci-Fi authors thought the future would look like if we didn't. Climate fiction is a wonderful genre, looking at events that are extremely close to home, at causes that are effecting us now. Loosed Upon the World is a wonderful anthology featuring authors from Paolo Bacigalupi (The Water Knife, The Windup Girl) and Kim Sanley Robinson(2312, Red Mars), to Margaret Atwood (The Handmaids Tale, Maddadam) and Durango's own Sarah K. Castle.

This collection was wonderful. The stories were diverse, showing many different possibilities from many different angles. There are stories of Mad Max justice systems and mass loss, to companies and tech firms looking for different ways to deal with the problems in a world that does not want to stop consuming. Stories that were set in a myriad of different locations, from the Amazon to Holland, the American Southwest to China. Stories that looked at how the overall trends may effect the world, and how the outliers still mattered; at the over all warming that may come with an increase in floods and how just because a person can create a snowball does not mean things are normal.

I loved this collection. The writing was amazing. I particularly liked Paulo Bacigalupi's two stories dealing with the absence of water in the west, something that the west has always dealt with, and the way that those problems might manifest in the future. I loved Sarah K. Castles story Mutant Stag at Horn Creek which deals with the adaptions of animals and possible long term effects of old mines in the Grand Canyon (lots of uranium in the Southwest, perfect fuel for sci-fi stories), which is still on the brain in Durango after the Gold King Mine incident. Everyone is thinking of ways to mitigate the risks.

This theme of risk mitigation was extremely prevalent in many of the stories, as was the idea of short vs. long term solutions, and small sacrifices of the general public vs. waiting for the possibility of the big technological fix. More efficiently built houses and water management pitted against the consumerism we have now and swimming pools in Las Vegas. Whether or not it is better to lessen our effects now or hope that technology (cloud seeding, plankton stimulation, large hydroelectric projects) will help us in the future without making things worse. 

One thing that I have been thinking about often, and was touched on in the book, is what we will loose. Our wild spaces, many species, snow; these are things that my children, or great grandchildren, may never get to see. And it will be because we, as a species, were unwilling to see our effects and do anything about them until it was too late. I try to be optimistic about the future. But, some times, it is hard.

The sense of optimism that this collection contained was amazing. While some of the stories were harsh, almost all of them conveyed a sense that we will get through these trials, and maybe we can mitigate the damage we have done, and maybe we can find a way to leave a better tomorrow for those who will come after us. 

I loved this collection. I think everyone should read it.

"The one created the other; either we pulled together as a collective or got swept away as individuals"
-Jim Shepard  The Netherlands Lives with Water