Climate and scarcity
Water, heat, crowding and repair: the fiction that tries to live inside the climate decades.
5 pieces on Nearfi: 5 reviews. Across their 20 tracked predictions, 7 have arrived, 7 are arriving, 5 are near, 0 are far off and 1 went another way. The average P(n) is 69%. Closest to now: The Water Knife at 81%. Furthest: Parable of the Sower at 51%.
- ARRIVED The world's population reaches about seven billion by 2010. Stand on Zanzibar · 2011
- ARRIVING Climate-driven drought and wildfire push Southern California into a lasting breakdown of public order, with water and security failing together. Parable of the Sower
- ARRIVING Workers in one place remotely operate or guide robots that do physical work somewhere else. Sleep Dealer
- ARRIVING Senior tribal water rights become the decisive asset in the fight over Arizona's water, and governments pay to control how they are used. The Water Knife
- ARRIVED The most powerful computers belong to a private corporation and sit at the centre of its business and its dealings with governments, as General Technics' Shalmaneser does. Stand on Zanzibar · 2024
- ARRIVING A fortified wall effectively closes the US–Mexico border to unauthorised crossing. Sleep Dealer · est. 2032
- ARRIVING Households that can afford it live behind walls and private guards, as private security grows beside a public police force. Parable of the Sower · est. 2035
- ARRIVING A single actor, acting without international agreement, starts injecting aerosols into the stratosphere to dim the sun. The Ministry for the Future · est. 2035
- ARRIVING Central banks use monetary policy to pay for decarbonisation, up to a carbon-backed currency that rewards every tonne of CO2 kept out of the air. The Ministry for the Future · est. 2040
- NEAR A single heatwave in India pushes humid heat past the limit of human survival and kills millions of people within days. The Ministry for the Future · est. 2045
The guide: Climate Fiction: 4 Novels and Films About Heat, Drought and Scarcity →
Scroll Down to Zanzibar
John Brunner's 1968 doorstop is famous for guessing the headcount, the shootings and the man called Obomi, but its sharpest prediction is the way it makes you read.
The Wall Is Not the Plan
Octavia Butler gave her novel a start date of 2024 and a California on fire. The date has passed, and the fire and the private guards have turned up, though the collapse has not.
The Labour Crosses, the Body Stays
Alex Rivera's low-budget Sundance film is clumsy as drama and almost frighteningly sharp as economics, and its central idea, labour that crosses the border without the worker, is starting to come true.
Any Other Business
Kim Stanley Robinson wrote the climate novel that policymakers actually read, which tells you both why it matters and why it so often feels like a meeting.
First in Time, First to Drink
Paolo Bacigalupi's Colorado River thriller reads more like reporting every summer, which is a shame, because the thriller is the weakest thing in it.
More themes: AI and machine minds · Surveillance and scoring · Space · Pandemics and collapse · Borders and migration · Clones and genetics · Grief and technology · Memory · Work