Climate change is so dire we need a new kind of science fiction to make sense of it | Claire L Evans

Star Trek was one way of dealing with the social anxieties of the 1960s. Since sci-fi mirrors the present, ecological collapse requires a new dystopian fiction

Build an imaginary world in your mind, hanging in space. Spin it around a bit; kick the tires. Now change one thing about that world. Throw a bug of your choice into the machine. What if the oceans reclaim your coastal cities? What if you can't support life? What if the life you bear can't support you?

Ponder the answer, and you'll create what the critic Robert Scholes has called "radical discontinuity," the cognitive dissonance that allows science fiction to explore the most pressing concerns of its age. For our age - the Anthropocene, the proposed geologic epoch defined by human impact - the discontinuities are clear. The question is not if we will change the planet but when, and how existing changes will render it unrecognizable.