Around 120 world leaders and Heads of States, as well as about 25,000 delegates, are meeting at the 26th UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow from November 1 to 12, 2021. COP26 is humanity's "last, best chance" to secure global net zero emissions by 2050 and keep the average global temperature from rising 1.5℃ above pre-industrial levels. Failure to achieve this threshold will make extensive regions of our planet uninhabitable. Some areas are already facing famine, loss of coastlands to the sea, and other climate change disasters. Many of these areas are small-island nations where their cries for help have yet to be heard. Listen to what Barbados Prime Minister Mottley had to say at the Climate Summit.
In her latest book of speculative fiction, Daylight Come (Peepal Tree Press, UK, 2020), Jamaican author and environmental activist Diana McCaulay envisages a future when daylight kills. In 2017, after reading about the impact of extreme heat on construction workers, farmers, and people without shelter in India, McCaulay began thinking what it would mean for a tropical country like Jamaica if it became too dangerous to be outside during the day.
"Suppose it got so hot that we all had to work at night and sleep in the day?" McCaulay asks in her Author's Note (p.195). "And suppose there was a girl, a teenager, who simply couldn't sleep during the day?"
Daylight Come begins in 2084 on the fictitious island country of Bajacu. Sorrel, the restless heroine, is fourteen years old. She lives in the dying city of Bana with her forty-five-year-old mother Bibi. Situated in the coastal Immersion Zone where the Domins rule with brutal force, the city faces daily threats from the encroaching sea.
Read more of this post
WordPress.com
No comments:
Post a Comment