Writing the End
“Novelists may be powerless to change this terrifying new world, but they can make a greater effort to understand how it is changing us. Isn’t this, after all, why we read novels — to see ourselves more clearly? A great novel holds a mirror to our secret desires and fears; it allows us to confront our long-term crises. It helps us to understand how the vast, complex problems of our time connect with our private inner lives. Novelists therefore have an obligation to pose the intimate questions: How does all this bad news affect our relationships with our loved ones, our hopes for the future, the way we go about our daily lives? Do we ignore it, turn cynical, or become overwhelmed by dread? What is all this information doing to our minds? What is it doing to our hearts?”
Rich mentions earlier in the essay how non-fiction writers are "better equipped" to write about a subject like climate change, but I think this is a question all writers can consider. Not all non-fiction (mine included) is actively dealing with the future and the condition of the planet, but especially in non-fiction, the world we are talking about is the world we live on and that world is changing. Climate change is affecting things like the price of food, the clothes we wear, and the physical shape of the land we live on.
Happy Earth Day
Exit Glacier, 2007 - from a viewing station which was made obsolete by the glacier retreating, which it does at around 13 meters a year.
