Ben Shread-Hewitt

Our civilizational pathway is always inseparable from the fate of the wider planet, but neither does it walk in lockstep. Climate fiction novels can help us see the way we are going, and help us question — knowing the world that lies ahead — if this is the right road to embark upon.

This is what the Great Unraveling will look like as it continues to emerge, unrelated phenomena synchronising to exacerbate each other.

At a minimum, we must align the signifiers of economic success with known ecological indicators — and this is just the first step on a long, complex realignment. If we fail to undertake this journey, we will be stuck paying for our own apocalypse.

We may not end up like Venus, but we are already at the brink of a hot, unstable world well beyond our ability to cope as a civilization.

Whatever climate emerges over the coming decades and centuries, it will bear little relation to our past. If we are to survive, the same must be true of us.

Amidst endless overlapping climate shocks, it is clear Europe’s entire civilization is optimised for an ecological baseline it is rapidly departing from.