A Future I'd like to Avoid: The White Horse Trick

Lately, I cant help but feel super guilty over this whole climate change thing. Every time I buy something new, use something, or drive anywhere, I second guess myself. I think twice about what I am doing. Reduce, reuse, recycle isn't enough anymore. I’ve become hyper-aware of myself and my actions and how they impact my footprint that I leave on the Earth. And while yeah, it’s great that I am conscious and sort of trying to do something about the impact I have, its kind of for a selfish reason. I really don't want to experience the “climate changed” planet that has been written about. Even though most of the pieces that I've read that project some type of crazy climate centered apocalypse have been fiction, they still scare me. I don't want to have to experience the future that these pieces portray. Is that selfish of me?

Northern Ireland

The White Horse Trick by Kate Thompson is no different with regards to the futuristic ruined world as a result of climate change. I’ll start off by saying that I read this book on a particularly wet and gloomy day, and that this book was set in Northern Ireland which is also typically wet and gloomy so I really got sucked into the overall feeling of the book. The premise of the story is based around a world that has been ruined by climate change. As discussed by The Union of Concerned Scientists, as the climate changes, storms become more frequent and stronger. Torrential rains, thunderstorms, and hurricanes are the norm now. In the particular area focused in on the book, the continuous rainfall has made it nearly impossible to grow anything. Storms wash away the topsoil and leave the soil with little nutrients left to grow anything. I found this particular problem associated with climate change to be quite interesting. We seem to focus on droughts and the obvious problems that they cause in crop yield, but I was surprised to see that there was an opposite alternative that can be just as fatal. Not only to growing, but also because of the mudslides, flooding, and clogged and polluted waterways.

As climate change effects Ireland in The White Horse Trick, it seems as though the people have reverted to the middle ages. Warlords rule the land. People are captured and become servants when they can no longer pay their taxes (of food) to the Warlords. The book focuses on a specific area of Northern Ireland ruled by Commander in Chief Aidan Liddy. Liddy rules the area as he was prepared for this climate change disaster and stock piled tons and tons of food and supplies. He lives a life of luxury accompanied by things of the past like scotch, DVD's, and fat. The people on the other hand are starving, nothing left but skin and bones. It's becoming harder and harder to live. Earth is becoming uninhabitable. There's nothing to do that they can do to save themselves, other than magic.

T'ir na n'Og

T'ir na n'Og, the land of eternal youth, a mythical land, the otherworld ends up being the answer. The people of Northern Ireland take refuge in T'ir na n'Og where the time never changes while climate change has its way with the Earth. Over millions of years desertification is followed by glaciers which then retreat and make way for new landmasses and continents. In the end, the god of this Earth with connections to T'ir na n'Og, gets a do-over. He recreates the world greater than it was before. With fruit that tastes like cinnamon rolls and the best types of apples. With beautiful beasts and birds of every color. However, there is something missing. Humans.

In the end, humans are eventually given the chance to start over in this new world, however there are limitations. Only a few are allowed in and It seems as though this is what we need now. A chance to do it over, a chance to get it right, a chance to ruin the Earth less. Except we do not have a magical land to escape to (at least not that I know of). We just have to live with the consequences of climate change, which we can only hope are not like the ones portrayed in the cli-fi that we have read.