So, right now, I have a pretty good idea for my final project for this class. I’m gonna propose my story idea by writing the first chapter of a possible cli-fi novel. Hopefully there isn’t too much of a limit to what I can write. I still need to do the close-reading analysis for the actual chapter. However, I could use some help with some details for the plot and how to weave certain elements of the story together. That is why I am asking for help from my fellow classmates.
In this climate change story, I want to deviate a bit from the climate change themes that I have sometimes seen in the stories that we have read so far in class. From what I’ve seen, the climate change trend is a future where most of the land has turned into harsh, dry deserts with little water to go around. I quote an example from “Time Capsule Found on the Dead Planet”;
“In the fourth age we created deserts. Our deserts were of several kinds, but they had one thing in common: nothing grew there. Some were made of cement, some were made of various poisons, some of baked earth.”
My idea for a possible future is coincidentally similar to that seen in the story “IDP: 2043”. Basically, it’s a future where the polar ice caps have melted, causing the coastal areas of the world to flood. Humanity adjusts to the new environment around them and restart their lives. Only, instead of abandoning the low-lying cities and going for higher ground, they rebuild the cities to make them more suited for a more aquatic environment.
The setting is Tokyo City during the 22nd century. The city has been rebuilt into a modernish Venice-style city after it was flooded around 2050. Japan has split itself into multiple city-states, with Tokyo being one of the more prominent ones. The city itself, however, has a large rich-to-poor gap, and the government itself has become quite corrupt. And, to top it all off, there are three Yakuza clans that control large portions of the city.
The story mainly revolves around a young man who is a runner/smuggler for one of the clans. He has a laid-back, blase’ attitude to him, yet he has a strong moral code when it counts. His plans are to survive whatever madness Tokyo throws at him and maybe make enough money to live a life of comfort.
Anyway, I need some help with some parts in order to concisely put this story together. What kind of underground market would be present in a post-apocalyptic flooded city? What would constitute as luxury goods for the wealthy in this setting? How would Neo-Tokyo interact with the rest of the world if all of the low coastal areas are mainly underwater? How much of the world before the flood (monuments, culture, etc.) would still be around? These are some of the questions that I have for making this story, and I’m thinking that some outside sources would be very helpful.
So, if you would be so kind, please comment with your ideas for some of the questions that I have. Also if you have any questions about my story or if you want to pitch your own ideas, that would be awesome too. Thank you very much for your help!
C.J. — this sounds like a fascinating work of cli-fi, and you raise some interesting questions that you will need to answer as you continue to develop your ideas for this project. You may want to do some research about sea level rise and when a city like Tokyo would be flooded given current climate change trends. Our course textbook (the Introduction to Climate Change book) might be a good place to start, or also do a Google search for sites that help visualize such future sea level rise (for example: http://sealevel.climatecentral.org/). I like your focus on class differences and an increase in economic inequality, and I think that is an element of the story that you could develop further. Perhaps luxury goods in this future world could be things that we think of today as basic necessities: like food and water?