Climate change: fiction or reality?

Carlos Soto Campos
Physicistfrom the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM); Master and PhD in Physics from the IPN.

For science fiction lovers, this genre opens up a wide range of possibilities to approach very diverse topics from an incredibly rich perspective. Examples such as Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, Solaris by Stanislaw Lem or the classic I Robot by Isaac Asimov, offer the opportunity to study, from a political, social or psychological perspective, the great questions that arise from time to time among human beings.

In the well-known science fiction novel Dunes, by Frank Herbert, the author tells the story of an advanced civilization on a desert planet - Arrakis - whose economy depends on a product that supplies a group of planets, a precious substance that has remarkable nutritional and geriatric properties: spice. Arrakis is a desert, very similar to the planet Mars in our solar system.

Image taken from https://bleedingcool.com/movies/dune-will-cover-approximately-half-first-novel-brian-herbert-says/

A film version of the novel was released in October 2021 with a cast that included Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Charlotte Rampling and Javier Bardem. The event was a box office success. Curiously, the first film version of the book -filmed in 1984- under the direction of filmmaker David Linch, did not have the same luck as Herbert's novel. Considered a bad adaptation, the film was harshly criticized by various sectors that did not share the filmmaker's approach. It was brought to the screen with a very varied cast, which included, from musician Sting, to the well-known British actor Sir Patrick Stewart, who played the famous Professor Xavier from the X-men saga.

Arrakis is a planet with a reduced flora and a sui generis fauna. The only members of a technologically advanced species inhabiting the planet -which has also managed to colonize other planets- have settled down to form the Fremen, a nomadic people who have managed to get used to the inhospitable ecosystem represented by a planet where sandstorms can last for several weeks, wiping out any building or life form in their path. The Fremen have managed to adapt to the arid environment and the recent emergence of a leader who manages to unify the different tribes, puts in check the empire constituted by a federation of planets that controls the distribution of the precious spice, and that has kept under an iron military control the planet Arrakis.

Herbert began writing Dunes in 1959, when he was about 40 years old, thanks to the fact that he was given the task of writing an article for a magazine about the sand dunes of the Oregon Dune Reserve, in the state of Oregon, in the United States. The article was apparently never finished, but instead served to enable Herbert to publish his famous book. It took him about six years to finish the entire novel. During that period the author conducted a deep research on the desert ecosystem.

This novel won the prestigious Hugo Award in 1966 for science fiction novels. Herbert used fiction to study the deep connections between politics, religion and psychology. Another of the topics addressed in the work is the eventual emergence of charismatic leaders who are able to use their influence to lead social movements that can change the course of history.

Image taken from https://kawa-news.com/en/middle-east-shot-movie-dunes-trailer-is-finally-out/

Environmental issues have attracted the interest of many researchers. Physicist Carl Sagan studied the effects of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere of the planet Venus in his doctoral thesis. This planet could have harbored life if things had not gone so terribly wrong. Due to the internal composition of Venus, a large amount of greenhouse gases accumulated in its atmosphere as a result of major volcanic activity. The accumulation of these gases triggered a dramatic increase in the planet's global temperature. The Venera probes, sent to the planet between 1961 and 1984, were able to measure surface temperatures of more than 400 degrees Celsius even during the night, as well as extraordinarily high amounts of carbon dioxide (more than 95% of the atmospheric composition). Venus is a clear example of how bad things can get if the deteriorating environmental conditions are not reversed.

In the early 1980s, Sagan wrote, together with Richard Turco, an interesting book entitled "Nuclear Winter, an Unexpected Effect", which explored the possibility that, as a side effect of a nuclear conflict, what they called Nuclear Winter could occur. This effect, which has already been proven (on a small scale) after the explosion of the Krakatoa volcano near the islands of Java and Sumatra in 1883, produced, long after the explosion, a significant drop in temperature in some regions of Europe, even modifying the rainfall in the state of California, in the United States, several years after the explosion.

Image taken from https://www.xataka.com/otros/invierno-nuclear-30-anos-despues-de-carl-sagan-a-mad-max

In the 1980s, computational capacity was quite limited, which meant that the results of the numerical simulations of Sagan and Turco's work took a long time. However, Sagan's enormous prestige as the leader of several NASA missions and as a former presidential advisor led to a review of the former Soviet Union's arsenals, as well as those of the United States. This is an example of what can be achieved when a group of scientists committed to social causes do their work well.

After many years of polluting the atmosphere and after suffering the administration of a mythomaniac, racist and egocentric, the United States is now competing for the first place as the most polluting nation in the world. Donald Trump's systematic denial of the phenomenon of global warming has put the ecological balance of the entire planet at risk.

For all of the above, Frank Herbert's legacy seems particularly noteworthy. The problems addressed by the author in his novel are those that have been present throughout time: corrupt and powerful leaders who want to gain advantages for themselves and a small group that supports them, at the cost of plundering the resources of an entire planet. And they may seem like the themes of a fictional novel, but today, more than ever, they constitute a topical issue that demands the attention of society as a whole. Of course, the academic community has much to contribute to solutions to this difficult problem.

Image taken from https://www.eldesconcierto.cl/tendencias/2017/05/14/imagenes-paganas-20-invierno-nuclear.html

Today, groups of researchers from various universities are conducting important studies on the issue of global warming and the production of greenhouse gases by industrialized nations. It is a professional and ethical obligation to make a call to the entire population of the enormous risks involved in remaining inactive in the face of this phenomenon.

In this case, the resemblance to reality turns out to be no coincidence. However, there is a possibility that, on this occasion, fiction may raise awareness of the terrible climate changes we could face if we do not reverse the current situation. The solution is in our hands. Remaining inactive will only accelerate an outcome we already expect.

Ref1. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1160419/?ref_=vp_back
Ref2. http://www.librosmaravillosos.com/elinviernonuclear/index.html