When we think about Climate Change -- temperature forecasts, shifting rainfall patterns, ice caps melting -- it's both too big and too far away to imagine vividly, as if it were happening to us, to the people we know and care about. Clarke Owens has written a gripping crime thriller, set in 2051 in Wooster, Ohio, that fully imagines a world in which climate trends have simply continued to unfold as scientists predict.
The result is an America on the brink. In 600 ppm, wildfires have burnt the west; droughts have baked the south; the east coast is drowning as sea levels rise, and Ohio, the heartland, has relentless rainfall and thunderstorms. Jeff Claymarker, 26, the protagonist, recalls that a few times in his life he's seen blue in the sky, in patches. "It blows my mind when it's blue," he says.
I interviewed Owens to find out why he wrote this gripping tale:
Question: What was your inspiration of this chilling vision of America at mid-century?
Clarke: I only began to become very concerned about carbon emissions and climate after reading Bill McKibben's 2010 book, Eaarth. I've since come to believe that this issue dwarfs all others in importance, because the end game is extinction. Most Americans rate it very low on their scale of concern, according to polling data, however.
Question: 600 ppm -- what does this title mean?
Clarke: 600 ppm is the atmospheric carbon dioxide measurement in the fictional year of 2051; that is, 600 parts per million. We are just about at 400 ppm now, and estimates are that we will be between 600 and 1000 ppm by the end of the century. You can check the current ppm at any time by going to www.co2now.org. According to McKibben and others, 350ppm was the highest "safe" level. It had been between 180 and 280 for the previous 650,000 years according to ice core data.
Question: Why did you decide to write this vision of the future as a crime novel?
Clarke: I've long been interested in the way the U.S. government and its assets in the major news media lie about crimes such as the JFK assassination. Currently, a majority of the U.S. Congress pretends that anthropogenic climate change doesn't exist, despite the fact that 193 international science organizations around the world beg to differ. I thought it would be interesting to put these concerns together into a plot demonstrating how powerful interests control history and news.
Question: The way you describe climate refugees and "Tent City" is gripping. Are we starting to see this happen already in 2015?
Clarke: There was a news story a few months back about a farm worker in California who had decided to move to Denver because his boss had told him the water taps would be dry in a month. I thought, "There's the first refugee," but actually, the first American carbon climate refugees were probably the residents of New Orleans after Katrina. The vast majority of hurricane damage in this country has occurred since 2000. Scientists say the intensity of hurricanes is affected by warmer air, which holds more moisture. The rate of global temperature increase over the past century or so has been consistent and unabated. As for "Tent City," there actually is a Tent City in my town of Wooster (a future, fictional version of which appears in the novel), but it's a hangout for homeless people, poor people, not climate refugees. I put the ideas together in my novel, remembering what Poe said about poetic creativity; it's an act of painstaking combination.
Question: What do you think the effect will be on your readers as they absorb this story? What feedback do you have so far?
Clarke: At this point, I'm still urging people to read the book. I wouldn't make any firm predictions about its effect yet, if any. Maybe this would be a good opportunity to say that I don't necessarily think the world in thirty-five years will look exactly like it does in the book. I don't know if the sky will be as dark as the story paints it, for example. I think of that detail as more of a metaphor. But I do hope that people will begin to ask themselves questions about what their children's and grandchildren's lives will really be like if the carbon dioxide levels keep going up and up; and I do believe that one day the attitude toward this phenomenon will be like the attitude about the connection between cigarette smoking and cancer; i.e., we will stop denying it. And I hope folks will no longer accept denial from their representatives in Congress; and that they'll know where the lobbying effort is coming from to hush up and distort the science, namely the incredibly powerful oil/gas/coal lobbies.
Question: Do you think your work could have an impact on US climate policy? If so, who in the US would you really like to have read this novel?
Clarke: Powerful people don't read novels, I would guess. Novels are read by mothers, schoolgirls, college students, literature professors -- sensitive, intelligent people. The grass roots. But those people can influence the others, over time. Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of time on the climate issue.
Question: To me, one of the most remarkable things about the book is that some of you characters - Tom, Jeff, Nola - are genuinely decent people living in horrible circumstances. to me, this makes the novel ultimately a hopeful book. If that was your intention, please say more about why you made this creative choice.
Clarke: I was surprised when my sister read the book and said, "I liked the happy ending." I thought, "Is she kidding? What's happy about the world coming to an end?" But there is that hopeful element in the personal lives of the characters. That's the nature of human beings. My subject is bleak, but I want people to identify and/or sympathize with the characters, because that makes a good reading experience. And I think it's true to life, too. I think people who lived in that world would carry on with their lives, would try to make the best of things, would love their spouses and children, and try to do what's best for them, despite the tough hand they'd been dealt.
Clarke Owens has written in a number of genres for many years. His poems have appeared in a wide variety of literary journals, and he's also published short fiction. He studied creative writing at the University of California, Davis, and has three degrees in English and a law degree. He is a member of the Academy of American Poets, and works as a criminal defense attorney in rural Ohio.
Find his book on amazon.com
Visit his web site at www.clarkewowens.com