Every good dystopian novel or movie starts with a scientist being ignored so my dystopian novel would too.
Scientists would notice the raising temperatures and CO2 and start looking for reasons other than humans causing it. They find lots of other interesting cycles but the more they look the more evidence they find that it is indeed human caused and the projections are dire. They warn the United Nations and for a while it looks as if governments are going to take action.
But then the fossil fuel companies, despite their own scientists and research confirming these results decide that instead of switching their companies to renewables, that they will extract as much profit as possible. They put lots of money into spreading disinformation to make it look as if the science isn't settled, they donate millions of dollars to political parties and form powerful lobby groups to slow down any change. The problem is framed as being a problem for individuals to solve, not government regulation.
People campaign but they can't win against the sheer amount of money and power that is on the fossil fuel company side. People in western worlds continue to go about their daily lives because they lack the imagination and connection to nature to see that this will hurt them (and besides it is all in the distant future).
And so forty years is lost. Forty years when electricity could have gradually been shifted to renewables, car fleets changed over to electric vehicles, houses and buildings made more energy efficient and public transport could have been extended. Forty years in which the changes would have hardly have hurt and natural ecosystems could have been preserved and extended and international cooperation to help poorer countries handle the transition could have occurred. Forty years in which we could have moved people out of the danger zones instead of letting more people move there.
Then, as the scientists predicted, the effects of raising temperatures, increasing frequency and severity of "natural" disasters and the changes rainfall start hitting. The poorer countries at first. But the people in the western countries can ignore that because: it is not hurting them; it is a long way away; their inherent racism means that brown lives matter less; and their failure to realise the interconnectedness of the world.
Then it starts hitting the rich western nations: drought, extreme bushfires, extreme heatwaves, extreme floods and cyclones. This is the moment when the governments could still have become heroes. Belated heroes, but still provided leadership out of the crisis. But they had been telling people for so many years that there wasn't a problem and they were so dependent on political donations from the fossil fuel companies they continued to say it wasn't real. This was a moment when the media could have been heroes. Belated heroes, but still they could have connected the dots for the public. Instead of reporting on the drought, bushfires, heatwaves, flooding and storms as separate events they could have explained how it all fitted together with the climate science. But they didn't, because they were so dependent on government funding or owned by Rupert Murdoch and by now the science was seen as political rather than facts. The people could have been heroes, but they didn't because they didn't realise that their food and water depended on the environment rather than taps and shops, they were busy struggling with casualised work, welfare that hadn't been raised in 25 years and large mortgages.
It was left to mostly teenage girls to raise the alarm and demand action.
So instead of acting to reduce emissions governments started reducing civil rights and banning protests. And as the poor in the rich countries started to suffer from the effects of climate change they were told that their suffering was caused by immigrants, people on welfare, Greenies, people wanting increased regulation and the United Nations. Anyone except the fossil fuel companies, the politicians and lobby groups they paid for and the billionaires.
People started to disbelieve scientists because if they did the truth was too awful to contemplate.
Meanwhile fundamentalistic religions began to flourish as people sought to bargain their way out of the climate emergency. "If I believe God will save me", "the people suffering must have offended God", "God will not let anything destroy the world" but of course the natural disasters did not differentiate between people who understood the science and those that didn't. Big companies began to buy up water the most essential thing to life other than air. China bought agricultural land in other countries to ensure its food supply in the future. Politics became more and more right wing as blaming other people for the price rises and higher costs of living was easier to accept than the truth and trying to change all of society.
Meanwhile the food costs kept going up putting more and more people into food insecurity, the bushfires burnt more and more land, the sea level rise eroded more and more coast each storm, people had to walk off farms and the droughts continued. Life expectancy dropped due to suicide, and lung and heart deaths increased due to the air pollution caused by the bushfires and dust storms. In each of the increasing natural disasters to was mostly the vulnerable, the poor, the elderly, the young and the chronically ill who died.
Food and water became more and more expensive until there were riots that the army was brought in to quell. Property values in relatively safe areas sky rocketed until only the very rich could buy there. people couldn't sell properties in the areas without water, on the coastline or suffering drought and heatwaves and had to walk off.
Petrol prices skyrocketed due the instability in the Middle East and food could not be transported and people were forced to eat only what was locally available. Roving gangs of starving people looted the properties of people who had been prepping for climate change. Towns fortified.
The death rate increased as people died from starvation and from diseases their malnutrition made them vulnerable to.
The rich had been buying up land in Tasmania and retreated there into what was effectively a gated community once the ferry service was scrapped.
The good thing was that once capital cities started going under water the world carbon emissions plummeted but it was already too late.
This dystopia novel doesn't have a happy ending and while there was many, many heroes their stories are not recorded.
Scientists would notice the raising temperatures and CO2 and start looking for reasons other than humans causing it. They find lots of other interesting cycles but the more they look the more evidence they find that it is indeed human caused and the projections are dire. They warn the United Nations and for a while it looks as if governments are going to take action.
But then the fossil fuel companies, despite their own scientists and research confirming these results decide that instead of switching their companies to renewables, that they will extract as much profit as possible. They put lots of money into spreading disinformation to make it look as if the science isn't settled, they donate millions of dollars to political parties and form powerful lobby groups to slow down any change. The problem is framed as being a problem for individuals to solve, not government regulation.
People campaign but they can't win against the sheer amount of money and power that is on the fossil fuel company side. People in western worlds continue to go about their daily lives because they lack the imagination and connection to nature to see that this will hurt them (and besides it is all in the distant future).
And so forty years is lost. Forty years when electricity could have gradually been shifted to renewables, car fleets changed over to electric vehicles, houses and buildings made more energy efficient and public transport could have been extended. Forty years in which the changes would have hardly have hurt and natural ecosystems could have been preserved and extended and international cooperation to help poorer countries handle the transition could have occurred. Forty years in which we could have moved people out of the danger zones instead of letting more people move there.
Then, as the scientists predicted, the effects of raising temperatures, increasing frequency and severity of "natural" disasters and the changes rainfall start hitting. The poorer countries at first. But the people in the western countries can ignore that because: it is not hurting them; it is a long way away; their inherent racism means that brown lives matter less; and their failure to realise the interconnectedness of the world.
Then it starts hitting the rich western nations: drought, extreme bushfires, extreme heatwaves, extreme floods and cyclones. This is the moment when the governments could still have become heroes. Belated heroes, but still provided leadership out of the crisis. But they had been telling people for so many years that there wasn't a problem and they were so dependent on political donations from the fossil fuel companies they continued to say it wasn't real. This was a moment when the media could have been heroes. Belated heroes, but still they could have connected the dots for the public. Instead of reporting on the drought, bushfires, heatwaves, flooding and storms as separate events they could have explained how it all fitted together with the climate science. But they didn't, because they were so dependent on government funding or owned by Rupert Murdoch and by now the science was seen as political rather than facts. The people could have been heroes, but they didn't because they didn't realise that their food and water depended on the environment rather than taps and shops, they were busy struggling with casualised work, welfare that hadn't been raised in 25 years and large mortgages.
It was left to mostly teenage girls to raise the alarm and demand action.
So instead of acting to reduce emissions governments started reducing civil rights and banning protests. And as the poor in the rich countries started to suffer from the effects of climate change they were told that their suffering was caused by immigrants, people on welfare, Greenies, people wanting increased regulation and the United Nations. Anyone except the fossil fuel companies, the politicians and lobby groups they paid for and the billionaires.
People started to disbelieve scientists because if they did the truth was too awful to contemplate.
Meanwhile fundamentalistic religions began to flourish as people sought to bargain their way out of the climate emergency. "If I believe God will save me", "the people suffering must have offended God", "God will not let anything destroy the world" but of course the natural disasters did not differentiate between people who understood the science and those that didn't. Big companies began to buy up water the most essential thing to life other than air. China bought agricultural land in other countries to ensure its food supply in the future. Politics became more and more right wing as blaming other people for the price rises and higher costs of living was easier to accept than the truth and trying to change all of society.
Meanwhile the food costs kept going up putting more and more people into food insecurity, the bushfires burnt more and more land, the sea level rise eroded more and more coast each storm, people had to walk off farms and the droughts continued. Life expectancy dropped due to suicide, and lung and heart deaths increased due to the air pollution caused by the bushfires and dust storms. In each of the increasing natural disasters to was mostly the vulnerable, the poor, the elderly, the young and the chronically ill who died.
Food and water became more and more expensive until there were riots that the army was brought in to quell. Property values in relatively safe areas sky rocketed until only the very rich could buy there. people couldn't sell properties in the areas without water, on the coastline or suffering drought and heatwaves and had to walk off.
Petrol prices skyrocketed due the instability in the Middle East and food could not be transported and people were forced to eat only what was locally available. Roving gangs of starving people looted the properties of people who had been prepping for climate change. Towns fortified.
The death rate increased as people died from starvation and from diseases their malnutrition made them vulnerable to.
The rich had been buying up land in Tasmania and retreated there into what was effectively a gated community once the ferry service was scrapped.
The good thing was that once capital cities started going under water the world carbon emissions plummeted but it was already too late.
This dystopia novel doesn't have a happy ending and while there was many, many heroes their stories are not recorded.
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