A Dream of a Low Carbon Future: New Graphic Novel for 2016

View of York's streets in 2150

In 2013, I wrote a post about the graphic novel project 'Dreams of a Low Carbon Future', coordinated by James McKay, a comic artist and manager of the doctoral training centre for low carbon technologies at the University of Leeds. The launch of the novel was accompanied by an exhibition at the Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery, featuring selected items from Leeds University Library's Science Fiction Collection in Special Collections. Following the success of the first novel, James is now working on a second novel, to be launched at the Thought Bubble Comic Art Festival on the 5-6 November 2016.

Rather than multiple visions, this second novel focuses on one dream of a low carbon future, viewed through the eyes of a young girl in the year 2150. The story unfolds in the form of a history lesson, which goes through the changes to the environment that have taken place in the last 100 or so years, particularly in the northern region of England. For example, the caption for one frame (see above) reads:

Lazing in the sun, the port of York straddles the estuary of the River Ouse where it opens out into the saltmarshes of the Bay of York. Once Caer Ebrauc to the Celts, Eboracum to the Romans, Eoforwik to the Saxons, Jorvik to the Vikings, and finally York, its days are numbered, with scientists predicting it will be fully under water within a century. Already, although a thriving port with floating leisure complexes, large numbers of residents have had to evacuate, to be replaced by Da Hai You Min (Sea King) settlers in kychys (floating communities), gaining a living in the ocean of reeds that line the bay.

The inevitable submersion of York under water (by 2250) is not portrayed negatively here. James's thinking is that our current challenge is to attempt to imagine environmental change positively, in contrast to the dystopian tropes that pervade disaster movies.

While coming up with solutions to the environmental problems humanity faces is no easy task, the novel explores such possibilities, drawing from the contributions of school children, students, sustainability researchers and professional artists. The emphasis is primarily on low-carbon technologies but also on changes to the way people live, and is less a plan or roadmap to the future than an imaginative response to future eventualities. Difficult as it is to think of ourselves living and being otherwise, the project shows how stories and SF narratives can help us to try.