Science Fiction...or the Future?

by Kim, March 30, 2009 at 12:38pm

Do we have a science-fiction future to look forward to?



We all know there is a finite supply of fossil fuels. Perhaps many of us think that they will run out in the next generation's lifetime, or the generation after that, and thus will not see the way a post-petroleum humanity conducts itself.



The Crunchy Chicken does venture to imagine what this might be like, how it will affect transportation, food, goods and services,health care, and education.



The vision she paints is a thought-provoking one; for a long time I've wondered at how our advanced modern medicine seems completely dependent upon mountains of disposable plastics, and what that means for a more sustainable/renewable economy.

What struck me, also, was that we don't hear that much about daily life in the future, and how it will be affected by the "macro" level predictions scientists offer about climate change. Sure, the UN warned about the loss of biodiversity causing famine, about water becoming increasingly scarce, but often these visions give the impression that people in hotter climates or with less-developed economies are at risk. Sometimes you hear that New York City or California may be submerged by rising sea levels, or that the desert states may run out of water, but how will that change people's daily lives?



Science fiction writers are always a good source for imaginative views of the future. Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower is one such vision. She depicts North American society, post-climate change, when water is very scarce and Canada has become a prime destination with a temperate climate.



Philip K. Dick, another science fiction writer who has come into vogue, wrote a short story that has always stuck with me. It's about a Biltong, an alien capable of replicating anything. Human society forgets how to make its own goods, existing off copies of TV dinners and television sets, until at last the Biltongs go extinct and they are faced with the prospect of surviving by making things.



I don't really think that a bunch of aliens are going to come down and start making stuff for us, nor am I sure that Octavia Butler's version of the future will come true.  I do think it helps to remember that the future is not so far away; it might lend a greater urgency to our debates about consumption and the environment.