Science Fiction as Critical Thinking

It should be obvious from a quick glance at the style and mood of my blog that there is a good chance that my personal thoughts and views on sustainability and the environment have been influenced in some part by science fiction.  Well if there was any doubt before let me put that doubt to rest:

It is.

In fact, I would say that having grown up being an avid reader of science fiction has contributed greatly to my love of our planet and my adoption of a relatively long term and big picture perspective towards Earth and the human race that populates it.  Good science fiction (the kind that tries to have scientific explanations for why thing are the way they are in the book's universe) is well thought out and researched.  Often times it is even written by well respected scientists (Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, Stephen Baxter, and Arthur C. Clarke to name a few) so a reader can't help but absorb some of the ideas put forth by authors of "hard science fiction," because they often make a lot of sense.

Now science fiction writers cover pretty much every topic, philosophy and idea under the sun (or whatever other star applies), but for this blog entry I wanted to highlight a couple books that explore ideas of closed system environments (such as the "spaceship" that I reference in the introduction to my blog) and the impact of being aware of that closed system and acting to take care of it, or not.

The first book I'd like to recommend is Ark by Stephen Baxter.  This is actually the second book of a two part (so far) series and tells the story of a large spaceship (the Ark) that is sent in search of what is believed to be a habitable planet very far away.  This is done in response to the continued catastrophic rise of the oceans of Earth to the point that no dry land remains.

While the response of the people remaining on Earth to the flooding is interesting in itself, it's the story of those chosen to take the Ark on its long (many generations long) trip to the newly discovered planet that really lends itself to considerations of sustainability.  In the closed, and fairly close, quarters of the Ark a society develops where eventually there is no actual memory of Earth.  Generations are born, grow up and die, all on the ship.  This is one of the simplest and most direct examples of how everyone must ultimately act in the best interest of their ship and themselves.  When even a small contingent of people stop believing in the importance of the ship as what is ensuring their survival, it has major ramifications on everyone on the ship.  In this scenario, those ramifications happen much more quickly than they do on our real life Earth, but the analogy is appropriate and provokes the reader to thinks about how we must ultimately view our environment.

Stephen King is a fairly prolific writer; to the point that most people are at least familiar with his name even if they have never read one of his books.  King generally doesn't write science fiction and the science fiction that he does write doesn't generally use a great deal of "hard science" because he is not as intimately familiar with science and scientific thinking as the other authors I've mentioned.  But his recent book Under The Dome still paints an interesting, and unfortunately bleak, picture of how wanton destruction and disregard of a closed system environment can make that environment far worse and essentially poisonous for those within it.

The focus of this story is more about the people involved, as that is King's specialty, but it is played out on a backdrop of a town that suddenly becomes encased in an essentially impermeable dome.  The dome effectively cuts the town off from the rest of the world, creating a tiny microcosm made up of just the town.  It is interesting to see how the environment within this bubble, of unknown origins, changes over time, given that it's no longer capable of having new resources, air or water available. 

I am glad that some science fiction excerpts were used as readings in the Sustainable Urban Development Reader and I think that they provide another useful tool for providing perspective on these issues.  Some science fiction, especially those stories that emphasize the application of science, do an excellent job of distilling specific ideas regarding issues that are facing humanity now.  They provide unique and important "what if" scenarios that can often leave a strong impression on the minds of readers about how we should be treating our world and each other.

At least they have for me.

Behind the Mask of Sustainability

Whenever I hear about a city that's moving forward with some large "green" or "sustainable" initiative, it is inevitably about some new "green" technology: solar installations, or xeriscaping,  or some innovative recycling or composting service in a particular neighborhood.  Most of the time, the stories that seem to get the most attention are about greening efforts within relatively upper-middle class or high-income neighborhood areas or corporate spaces.  And if you think about this it sort of makes sense that the nicer areas seem to be the ones getting this attention.  From a "come visit our city" perspective, it makes a lot more sense to advertise your city's green efforts by showing pictures of neighborhoods and homes that use the latest and greatest high tech sustainability solutions.

 

Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs (click to enlarge)

(click to enlarge)

The other side of the same coin is that people who live in these more well off areas typically have more money to invest in green solutions and, as a result of their socioeconomic position, have generally made it to a higher point on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.  As a result I would suggest that they have more freedom to concern themselves with bigger picture issues like sustainability and protecting the environment, if they are so inclined, because their more basic needs are easier to obtain and sustain.  So it follows that they would have more opportunity and a higher likelihood to lie more toward the upper right area of the Human Perspectives chart (as detailed in Limits to Growth), where they can see a bigger picture perspective, because they are more secure and stable when it comes to more immediate closer to home concerns.

Based on this, it's not really much of a leap of logic to see the path towards environmental injustice.  Those who are less well off, don't have the luxury of caring about "the greater good" and "future generations" when they don't even have the security of knowing that the basic needs of them and their family will be met from day to day.  For the same reason the less fortunate end up living in cancer cluster or highly polluted areas because it is cheaper and affords them the ability to spend more of their money on a greater number of other life necessities than if they lived in more sustainable, green, and often more expensive communities.

Now I'm not saying that new, innovative and expensive technology is bad; far from it.  But if we only "green" areas of our global community that can afford to pay for the latest and greatest technological innovations, all we're going to end up with is a few model communities that look great and try to adhere to an ideal philosophy but are just small islands of environmental and sustainable progressiveness in a huge sea of rising temperatures, pollution and environmental injustice.

Phoenix, AZ is a great example of a community that is suffering from this.  While there is plenty of public talk on it becoming a green community, it still suffers from this problem of environmental injustice for lower-income areas of the the city.  "The Dark Side of The 'Green' City," an Op-ed piece by the New York Times is an interesting read and speaks to the situation in Phoenix a bit more.

So what's my point?  Well I guess it is that obviously all socioeconomic strata needs to begin a move towards sustainability, and that it needs to happen in a way that doesn't push disproportionate hardship down to lower-income levels where the population is least resilient to it.  Grassroots movements that push for this are great, but as Robert Bullard talked about in "People-of-Color Environmentalism" from Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class and Environmental Quality, everyone doesn't have the time, money or interest to participate in grassroots initiatives.  This change needs to be policed and promoted by the powers that be: those people who are in a position to see the big picture, have the power and influence to do something about it, and are frequently tasked, as part of their professional position, to be the ones who create the policies that further that goal.  Referring again the above charts, those at the top of both charts are relatively few, but in a lot of cases they are the same people with the best means to make the largest difference for the multitudes still at the lower areas of the chart.

People and companies with money seldom have difficulty being heard.  An effective government is one that should represent the interests of all of its peoples, in all issues, sustainability and environmental justice included.  We have one world and all breath the same air, eventually.  It's unfortunate that doing what's best for the entire world and everyone in it isn't just a foregone conclusion.  If it were, we'd be much further down the road to a sustainable (in every way) Earth.