Place and Futures (2) – dystopia
Writing about place – evoking a vision of contemporary Newcastle/Muloobinba/Mulubinba and some potential futures
These pieces were written on the unceded lands of the Awabakal people, in the western parts of Muloobinba (Newcastle, NSW, Australia), mid-2021 to mid-2022. These very much represent early draft attempts to engage ethnographically with the city I live in and potential future trajectories for it. Apologies for these being a bit of a long read, hopefully interesting though.
2.a. Possible Futures: Scenario one – the future I desperately want to avoid
If we do not see a swift substantial change in responses to climate change at the local, national, and international levels along with action to dismantle capitalism and colonialism at minimum, the future is likely very grim.
Some countries may try and pivot to renewables, but many others will not. This means that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere will continue to rise well beyond those witnessed since the evolution of our branch of hominids. Average temperatures and sea levels will continue to rise. Massive storm events will become more frequent and destructive. The jet-streams and major ocean currents that regulate different climactic zones on our planet will continue to destabilise and eventually shut down. Extended widespread droughts and heatwaves, alternating with monsoonal storms, flooding, and arctic cold snaps, will become more frequent and severe leading to crop failures and increased deaths just from the temperature and erratic rainfall. Already island nations in the pacific are increasingly threatened by sea level rise, and desertification threatens areas near the equator that used to be able to rely on monsoon seasons as the rainfall bands shift slowly to higher latitudes. Areas near the poles are also already facing severe heatwaves and accelerated melting as the destabilising polar vortexes and jet-streams cause cold and hot air from different regions to migrate unpredictably.
All of this climate destabilisation is occurring in a context of increasing authoritarianism and militarisation following a brief lull at the end of the cold war. Military advisors to many governments provide constantly updated predictions of how climate destabilisation threatens the geopolitical status quo. Wary of the ways that climate change drives crop failures, local unrest, and refugee flows, wealthier countries are strengthening their borders and militaries. Instead of working to make things less severe, they are simply building walls and rules to keep those from (formerly) colonised countries out at the same time as continuing to extract resources from those same countries. This is a continuation of the trend where those countries that have benefited the most from global colonialism and fossil fuelled industrial development externalise the costs of this development as well as the impacts of climate change onto the ‘global south’ countries that they colonised and extracted material, human, and economic resources from. The rich are at least partially insulated from the immediate effects of climate change while the poor feel the brunt of it first.
Increased authoritarianism, more frequent military tensions, massively destabilised climate, unpredictable crop yields, infrastructure failures from temperature extremes, weakened economies due to disrupted trade and food production, more frequent health crises of various kinds. This is the global and regional context for the city of Newcastle and its local environment.
Given the political and economic winds for the last several years, the federal and state governments’ appetite for austerity (for the poor) and support for the interests of big business will likely lead to continuing support for fossil fuels against all expert scientific advice and very weak support for renewable energy transition. Global destabilisation and conflict over who gets to extract and keep mineral resources will mean that although renewables have become much cheaper than fossil fuel energy in the early 2020’s, raw resources for new equipment may well become entirely unavailable for many people in different regions. Instead of a government supported and managed transition away from fossil fuels, the fossil fuel industry will continue extracting and selling coal oil and gas at increasing rates from increasingly marginal deposits up until the market for these products collapses. In turn, those regions relying on the fossil fuel industry for employment and infrastructure that the government has historically not bothered to provide will be left completely in the lurch with no supports. As the global market for fossil fuels is already showing volatility due to many regions shifting to renewables this is likely to be a problem well within the next couple of decades at least, but every decade that the transition is delayed climate change impacts get worse and the severity of disruption to coal communities does likewise. It has been suggested from some recent modelling by government and the coal industry itself that depending on global demand and progress on renewable energy transitions around the world, the coal industry (export and local coal power plants) could close between 2040 and 2065 even without government action on emissions and despite having coal reserves that could nominally last until 2120 at current usage rates. Needless to say, if we actually want to limit climate change then the fossil fuel industry needs to be closed down within the next decade, but that is not the trajectory for this scenario.
Aside from fossil fuel exports, Australia’s economy also relies heavily on the export of timber, grain, livestock, and other bulk food and mineral resources. Lack of meaningful action on climate change is already negatively impacting on crop production for export markets. While some years the increased average temperature and rainfall that can come from our current level of climate change produces bumper crops, other years crops are entirely devastated by alternating extreme fires and droughts, monsoonal downpours, and floods which mean that either crops simply do not grow or they are destroyed by climate events before they can be harvested. This means that the national economy will be negatively affected by reduced ability to export bulk farm outputs. More importantly, in the context of destabilised trade as well as farming, the ability to produce enough affordable food for the country’s population comes under threat even with new developments in drought-resistant modified crops.
Increased average temperatures, sudden sustained heatwaves and cold snaps pushing temperatures outside engineering design parameters, and increased severity of storms and fires will cause substantial problems for all kinds of infrastructure. This will impact energy grids, rail lines, roads, bridges, buildings. Every piece of the built environment is designed to operate within certain environmental conditions that will be exceeded more frequently and to a greater degree as the climate warms and destabilises. There will be failures of different parts of the energy grid, bridge collapses, sections of rail line unusable. Buildings will heat to temperatures they were never designed for, and in the absence of reliable insulation and energy for cooling, the inhabitants of these inadequately designed buildings will die. This is already happening in some areas.
The unfortunate reality is that the government of this country, and most other countries from what I have seen, pretty much always prioritises ‘the economy’, their corporate backers, and their own power and future careers within the capitalist system over any meaningful and sustained concerns about environment and social justice issues. Much socio-political analysis has also pointed out that in times of upheaval and perceived or actual resource competition the political landscape (at least in global north democracies) becomes more reactionary, authoritarian, and xenophobic. This tendency is actively stoked by conservative mainstream political parties as well as by right-wing fringe political parties and groups. Simple fear-based narratives of a deserving ‘us’ vs a dangerous and morally impure ‘them’. This is evident in political discourse about unemployed people, First Nations Indigenous Australians, migrants and people of colour, citizens and governments of other nations (especially non-white nations), the queer community, the political left (especially those of anarchist or communist leanings), ‘dirty environmentalist hippie activists’. These undeserving yet threatening groups are contrasted against ‘hard working’ (white and heterosexual) aussie farmers and workers, owners of businesses who benefit ‘the economy’ (or at least political parties), and the very institution of capitalist liberal democratic government that is nominally secular but heavily influenced by certain forms of conservative and populist Christian values. Any activists campaigning against the ever worsening status quo will be labelled violent extremist criminals and cracked down on immediately and severely.
What does all this mean for Newcastle?
The surrounding hunter valley has all but been carved up between vineyards, horse studs, and coal mining (with some ‘unconventional gas extraction as well in the upper valley). The lower hunter has some remnant bush and wetlands, and some remaining other agricultural land apart from wine and coal. The upper hunter is more of a mix between various agricultural crops and livestock alongside massive coal mines. The massive scale of mining in the region as well as expansion of cities and towns has already reduced the capacity of the area to grow food even by the 2020’s.
The harbour port in the heart of Newcastle is focused around exporting coal, with some limited exports of mixed cargo and grains that are constrained by so-called anti-competition rules set by the government so that Newcastle cannot currently infringe upon the cargo exports of Sydney and Wollongong. During the late 2010’s and early 2020’s the port of Newcastle management has been campaigning to get the government to undo that legislation so that the port can diversify and properly ride out the transition away from coal, but as yet it is unclear if or when that will actually happen.
Large amounts of the city, particularly the older inner-city districts, are very low lying and barely above the 2020 harbour water level. Several of the more wealthy and exclusive neighbourhoods are higher above sea level, but very exposed on the coast to erosion and storm damage. With increasing sea levels and storm intensity under a ‘no-action-on-climate’ scenario large chunks of inner Newcastle will be permanently or intermittently underwater. All of the eastern parts of Newcastle will be increasingly thrashed by storms coming in off the ocean that will by the latter part of the century make the ‘pasha bulker’ storm of 2007 seem like a warm-up. All the low-lying areas will be at increased risk of flooding, while at the same time the western suburbs backing onto remnant bush and agricultural land will be increasingly threatened by bushfires. Huge amounts of money will haver to be sunk into protecting and continuing port operations despite the sea level rise, reducing global demand for coal, and increasing disruption and damage to the rail lines that feed the port as a result of extreme temperatures and weather. The local ecosystem will be completely devastated by pollution, heat, flooding, storms, and continued development. There are no real ways of accurately mapping the impact of ecosystem collapse and the potential flow-on effects on pandemics, soil and water quality, flood and fire patterns, or the humans remaining while their non-human co-inhabitants die out.
The contrasts I spoke of in contemporary Newcastle will only get more extreme. Siloed areas of gentrification will create districts and buildings designed according to cutting edge sustainability principles that only the wealthy can afford. The rest of the city will likely be left to suffer and degrade despite any efforts from local council as funding from state and federal governments dries up and any remaining investment is driven by businesses and wealthy individuals to benefit themselves. Renewable energy projects that council is so proud of today will become inadequate band-aids and display pieces that fail to really address issues of energy security and sustainability.
Pockets of industry and wealthy people who have scored prime real estate in parts of the city less affected by storms and flooding will continue their profit seeking enterprises. But these businesses will be serviced by a combination of automated processes and desperate workers willing to take any conditions and pay. Depending on how well the state and federal governments hold onto and exert their authority over the region, unions may well have a resurgence of militancy and influence and thus fight to improve worker conditions, or they may remain toothless from decades of industrial reforms and any attempts at militant organising will be crushed by increasingly violent police forces serving the authoritarian government.
For many living in Newcastle life will be shaped by: poverty, food insecurity, unreliable or unaffordable electricity, water insecurity, unsafe or unavailable housing, houselessness, vulnerability to extreme weather and illnesses. Large sections of the population will be living in poor quality housing that is not being maintained while paying exorbitant rent or squatting in unsafe abandoned buildings. Those in areas more insulated from sea level rise and severe weather events will be desperate not to lose the housing they have access to. Without a radical change in politics the welfare and medicare systems Australians rely on currently will have quite likely been dismantled by mid-century. Demonisation of minorities will be at an all-time high, and visibly minority groups will be at increased risk of violence from other community members who are facing poverty and housing insecurity but otherwise fit into the white hetero Australian mainstream.
Those at the top rungs of society and industry specialisation will be relatively insulated by their wealth and the threat of violence from government forces keeping the poor majority in check. The poor majority will have to increasingly rely on community mutual aid, the black market, and insecure semi-legal work with terrible conditions in order to get by. Indigenous people whose land the city resides on, visibly non-white migrants, houseless people, and many of those in the queer community (particularly trans people) will be hit the hardest. They will face increasing demonisation from political demagogues. They will be discriminated against in employment, housing, and healthcare. Many of the medications and other healthcare supports they need will either be extremely expensive or entirely unavailable. When disasters strike they will be the first to be turned away from shelters. Without protections in employment and a functioning welfare system they will not be able to afford what little poor quality yet expensive food is available in supermarkets. As a result, they will have to rely on urban and guerrilla gardening and informal sharing and aid networks.
People will die young from preventable illnesses. the elderly and ill will die from malnutrition or heatwaves or freezing to death depending on the weather that year. Stratification of society will get worse from the grasping death throes of capitalism trying to squeeze the last drops of profit out of dying ecosystems. The lines between officially elected ‘representative’ authoritarian government, the military, and mega-corporations will increasingly blur.
Given my age it is quite possible in a positive and supportive environment I could well reach 80 or so years old, which would get me to 2050. But with the parameters of this scenario, I will most likely lose access to the medications that make my life bearable. I will also no-doubt lose reliable access to housing, employment, welfare benefits, healthcare coverage. Those I am in community with will be vulnerable to houselessness, poverty, illness, starvation, heatwaves, and bigoted violence. With all of that I am much less likely to reach 2050 and see the full effects of this scenario setting in. And the situation is even more grim for those who are not white-skinned citizens of this colonial nation, particularly the Indigenous people whose land we are occupying. This is also a brief sketch of a possible future in a relatively well connection regional city. Things are going to be even more extreme in many ways for more regional and remote areas with less infrastructural support.
This is the truly dystopian cyberpunk climate wasteland future that current trends of inaction on climate change and inequality are steering us towards. We will get all the grinding despair, and maybe some more of the neon distractions in larger cities. But things for the majority of people by the second half of this century are going to really suck. By the end of this century the impacts of climate change will no longer be avoidable even for the wealthy elite, but by that point the death toll and ecological destruction will be immense. Humanity in some form may survive, some forms of life on the planet no doubt will go on to build new ecosystems as the climate re-stabilises at some future point.
Nevertheless, despite the bleak picture painted here, at all points along this trajectory there is still scope for punks and other activists of different stripes as well as the broader community to intervene and force our path towards a more habitable future. If we give in to despair and the current political and economic powers this future will likely come to pass, but if we doggedly fight against it to strive towards a better world we can make one of the other possible scenarios a reality.
