You may notice I’ve included the venerable (and venerated) sci-fi classic Dune by Frank Herbert on my Reading list. That’s because this environmental tale has a lot of resonance when compared with various climate change scenarios. The universe revolves around a substance called Spice (oil) that comes out of the ground in the desert. Spice is the only thing that makes space travel possible and without it civilization will fall back into medieval ways.

The mythology and names (Bashar) are Arabic and the Fremen are nomads like the Bedouin. They control the oil, …err I mean spice.

A finely balanced environment creates the climate for spice production. Global powers seek to unbalance that environment to pursue their own agendas. A war breaks out over control of the spice, throwing the entire system into chaos.

The message is familiar: Our addiction to oil has led us to the potential destruction of our planet as a place friendly to human life, yet we continue to burn it and fight over it. And our political leaders don’t have the will to take any action.

Edit: I completely skipped over the response to environmental disaster that underlies the story. Arrakis, the desert planet, has no surface water. It is implied that it once was different. The native people have had to adapt drastically to survive this ancient cataclysm: moisture-reclaiming suits, a society that prizes toughness over any other consideration, the ability to live on very limited resources. Think about what a ten degree increase worldwide would mean to us. These fictional issues wouldn’t seem too draconian in a world where most major cities would be underwater, diseases run rampant and weather is violent and unpredictable.