New imaginative writing to mobilise action on climate change

An 8000 word story of mine about the future of Britain and Barcelona is included in a new e-book published this week by Cambria Publishing.

Weatherfronts: climate change and the stories we tell is an anthology of specially commissioned work by 12 writers and poets featuring their imaginative and very different responses to the topic of climate change.

The book will be launched this Sunday at the Llandeilo Litfest and on May 25 at the Hay Festival.

The question of how to mobilise public opinion to do something about climate change using imaginative fiction and poetry was behind two weekend-long events that resulted in the works contained within it.

These were attended by over 130 writers and 50 scientists at London’s Free Word Centre and resulted in two sets of commissions for 12 very varied writers. The idea was – to reach the parts of people’s brains that scientists and politicians cannot reach!

The project has seen writers’ and indeed all artists’ responses to the subject of climate change grow far more sophisticated and extend in range and scope.

Reading this collection one can see this progression, from the sometimes didactic to the much more considered examination of particular times, places and aspects, greater use of imagination, and even of humour, in writing for children.

Different writers are also writing for different audiences.

So this collection presents twelve very individual approaches. The authors’ experience of the subject is very varied, but all have committed themselves deeply to their own interpretation of the theme.

All have also benefited from meeting and talking to scientists, social scientists and geographers to whom they have been introduced by TippingPoint.

The collection combines two publications only available previously as PDFs into one e-book.

From the first collection come contributions from writers Sarah Butler, Dark Mountain’s Nick Hunt, Stevie Ronnie, Dan Simpson, and a group of three activist poets, all with a deep commitment to social and climate justice, Zena Edwards, Sai Murray and Selina Nwulu.

From the second collection come Darragh Martin, with a delicious children’s story about ‘the shortest private detective in her school’, Emma Howell’s warm tale of the 1970s, Sarah Thomas’ exploration of her neighbours’ experience of recent floods, David Thorpe’s near future in which adapting to climate change has unfortunate consequences, and Justina Hart’s poetic evocation of the earlier inhabitants of what is now the North Sea forced off their land by the melting ice cap. Sound familiar?

If there is a common theme to these five powerful pieces of writing it is that their scale is personal.

As Peter Gingold, Director, TippingPoint, says: “This most grandiose and abstract subject is experienced at a very personal level, making its demands on the way we live with partners – or with friends, neighbours and communities. This must be fruitful.”

The pieces in this collection were commissioned by TippingPoint, Free Word and partners from 2014-2016. TippingPoint has since morphed into the project Climate Cultures.

Download Weatherfronts: climate change and the stories we tell.

Featuring work by:
Sarah Butler, Zena Edwards, Justina Hart, Emma Howell,
Nick Hunt, Darragh Martin, Sai Murray, Selina Nwulu,
Stevie Ronnie, Dan Simpson, Sarah Thomas, David Thorpe

Forewords by:
Peter Gingold, Director, Tipping Point

Climate change fiction is coming of age

Literature that touches on the topic of climate change is reaching maturity. This is evidenced by the latest collection of work just launched by the Weatherfronts project, called Realistic Utopias, in which I have an 8,000 word story, For The Greater Good.

Whether you call is climate fiction, cli-fi, stories for change or have your own pet name, it really doesn't matter. It is now such a broad church that this collection includes poetry, a very funny children's story (with illustrations), speculative fiction, human interest and domestic drama.

The book is a free download:

https://cdn.freewordcentre.com/uploads/2017/01/Realistic-Utopias-Writing-for-Change.-Anthology.pdf

There was a previous collection last year:

https://cdn.freewordcentre.com/legacy/files/Weatherfronts_-_Climate_change_and_the_stories_we_tell_-_Final1_copy.pdf

The Weatherfronts project, run by TippingPoint and the Free Word Centre (where the launch happened) in London, is about using the arts to broaden the conversation about climate change, away from the scientific, polemical or political. Five stories were commissioned for this collection.

It grew out of an event that brought together fifty scientists and thinkers and fifty writers in a series of workshops. (Listen to it here.)

"One thing we have seen very clearly is that over the 12 years of TippingPoint’s life, writers' responses to the subject have grown far more sophisticated and increased in their range and scope," observed the director of the Free Word Centre, Peter Gingold, as he introduced the writers to this sold out event.

The audience arrives for the launch event.

Peter Gingold introduces the authors.

Each of the authors then read some of their work:

Sarah Thomas read from her story based on her friendship with the widow of the one man who died in the Cumbrian floods of the winter of 2014-15, Rainfell, Fell.

Emma Howell read from Thrift: A Love Story about her father's attempts to go green in the 1970s.

Justina Hart read from her poem sequence Doggerland Rising, in which she imagines (based on archaeological research) the inhabitants of islands that used to exist in the North Sea having to leave their homes when the sea level rose around 9,000 years ago.

Then I read from my story For the Greater Good, set in 2084, in which I imagine the possible side-effects of Britain achieving a goal of feeding its population and satisfying all of its energy from renewables.

But as I'm taking the photos there isn't one of me! Anyway, a number of people said afterwards how affecting the story is. Which was satisfying, so thank you.

Then Darragh Martin read from his hilarious kids' tale Thumbelina Jellyfizz and the Elephant in the Bathroom, with vibrant illustrations from Euan Cook:

There was the inevitable panel discussion, with Durham University's Harriet Bulkley introducing Jane Riddiford, the visionary founder of the amazing Global Generation, a club for teenagers and kids in King's Cross, central London. She explained how she got the children interested in nature.

L2R: Harriet Bulkley, Emma Howell, Darragh Martin and Jane Riddiford,

This led to the following amazing film about their work:

She guides them through periods of silent contemplation and then asks them to write about nature. Three of them came to read their work:

Samika of Global Generation reading her poem on nature.

Aisha of Global Generation

Rania of Global Generation

Then the audience had to do some work – write their own feelings about what nature meant for them, which was a cathartic experience:

That's me in the middle at the front!

It does feel like writing stories about climate change is no longer weird or unusual. Climate change is here, and all stories now react to it or are situated within a climate changed world.

The stories in this collection are all domestic. They show lives, families, affected by the changing climate and our reactions to it. They help us think about what this means and come to terms with the enormity of it. They let us develop and consider our own emotional responses.

Find out more here: https://www.freewordcentre.com/explore/realistic-utopias-writing!


[David Thorpe is the writer of Marvel's Captain Britain, the sci-fi YA novels Hybrids, Doc Chaos: The Chernobyl Effect and the climate change fantasy Stormteller.]

For the Greater Good

I wrote a short story for the Weatherfronts commission. The brief was to respond to the themes and the discussions arising from a two day Weatherfronts event that took place at the Free Word Centre earlier this year.

This event brought 50 writers/artists and 50 climate change scientists together to discuss creative ways to respond to climate change.

My 8000 word story was called For the Greater Good and I've just had feedback for it from the editors:

"We really enjoyed reading it! This was a great read. The human relationships here were very believable and there were some strong emotions conjured quickly, to pull the reader in to this new, alternate world. This was a great unpicking of the moral and societal dimensions that were raised at Weatherfronts, and it broached pertinent moral questions in a plausible and non-didactic way."

That's a relief!

The story will be published next month and there will be a launch event at the Free Word Centre on January 19. Maybe see you there?

We need more writers who can make us feel

In November, fellow author Dianne Hofmeyr posted her response to the Paris terrorist attacks with a picture of bicycle locks.

The repercussions of the attacks led to the following Sunday's planned marches about climate change in the city being banned.

The organisers of the march instead asked people to place shoes where they would have marched. This led to the following image, one amongst many photographs that were taken on the day.

“The shoes are marching for us” @nicoleghio via Twitter

In the context of the loss of life caused by the terrorist attacks the sight of these empty shoes takes on an added poignancy.

Children and teenagers were either directly or indirectly affected by these attacks. Children and teenagers are also affected by the war conducted by and against ISIL. They are affected by climate change too.

To say that writers and artists cannot address social issues like these in their work is pointless. Social issues affect children in as many ways as they affect adults but children lack the conceptual apparatus to contextualise and understand them.

Both of the above pictures remind me of artwork by Ai Weiwei that I saw at his Royal Academy exhibition, which I visited after I went on the climate change march in London in December.

For example this piece contains hundreds of steel reinforcing bars, straightened after being mangled and twisted in the Sichuan earthquake of 2008, the number of bars corresponding to the number of victims, whose names are listed on the wall behind.

And, continuing the bicycle theme begun by Dianne Hofmeyr, this is a chandelier made from bicycles:

In all cases, repetition serves to reinforce the message, adding weight to the impact.

There was controversy surrounding the choice of David Almond's novel A Song for Ella Grey for the Guardian children's fiction prize, just as there often is for the Carnegie Medal children's book prize, because the winning books frequently address social issues.

Anyone who thinks that books for children that address social issues should not win literary prizes does not appreciate what it is like to be a child these days.

Whether directly – at home, on the streets and in the playground – or indirectly – on their screens – children are exposed to violence, drugs, crime, sex, exploitation, commercial pressures, manipulation, pollution, ugliness, danger and a whole Pandora's box of other pressures.

What should children do?

Most children strive to understand what they are experiencing. Unfortunately they don't always get the opportunity to discuss what is troubling them with either their friends or adults.

At least if they see that writers and artists are addressing these issues, this can help them think about them in new ways. They can find catharsis by empathising with stories that make them cry and laugh. Reading these books can provide a jumping off point for discussion too.

Children, and teenagers especially, worry more than anything else about whether what they are experiencing in their minds is "normal" or if there is somehow something wrong with them.

Again, art and books can help them to find an answer.

Even in fantasy and so-called escapist fiction, true to life characters can be found who struggle with problems that their readers can and do relate to. Often it's easier to relate to characters in fantasy novels or films, because they are removed from close-by reality.

At the rally in Westminster at the culmination of the climate change march, the enlightened organisers put poets and singers on the bill. But of course.

It was incredibly moving to see and hear Kate Tempest reading her new poem ‘Europe Is Lost’. Hundreds of young people were there to hear her. It actually made me cry. She is a poet for the new generation.

pic from @KateTempest

Almond's books move me too. His latest is a retelling of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Orpheus was the greatest poet of his time who had to suffer enormous loss in order to find poetic truth. It is probably my favourite myth.

Now, more than ever before, we need writers and artists to articulate what we feel.

---

David Thorpe is the writer of the Sci-Fi YA novel Hybrids and the cli-fi YA novel Stormteller.

I'm at Hay-on-Wye Literature Festival this Month - Come See Me

I'm very excited because this month I am to achieve a long-time ambition of being on stage at a literary festival. Not just any literary festival, but Hay, and not just once but twice! I'm not at all nervous, no.

Both events are part of the festival's 'green' strand.

The first will be about my new non-fiction book The One Planet Life where I will be in conversation with Jane Davidson, director of INSPIRE and a fellow patron of the One Planet Council.

The second will be to do with children's writing and climate fiction, where I will be joined by Saci Lloyd, Jane, and climate change campaigner George Marshall. I hope other members of the Facebook group of cli-fi authors will be there, too.

Saci, plus other cli-fi authors, took part in a week of activity on the Guardian's children's books website last month about writing about ecological and environmental matters for children, culminating in a Twitter chat [#GdnEcoChat] on the evening of World Book Night with Frank Cottrell-Boyce, Kate Kelly, Sarah Holding, Tony Bradman and others.  The Guardian's record of it is here.

One of the questions that was asked was: is cli-fi just a passing fad? My answer, which was favourited a few times, was: 'NO! We've only just begun! One day all books will contain an element of cli-fi. They'll have to.'

It's now recognised by almost everybody that climate change is real and happening and caused by human beings burning fossil fuels. Any story that is set in the future which paints a picture of a world that hasn't been affected by climate change in one way or another will just look daft, especially if read in a few years' time.

It doesn't have to have disasters in it, it doesn't have to be a dystopia and it doesn't have to be science fiction. The lives of any characters, whether living 10, 50 or 200 years in the future, will have been affected in one way or another, whether it is how they get about, what the technology is like, what their home is like, or where they live.

I usually write about the near future. Stormteller and Hybrids both take current trends and extrapolate them, but the former is almost exclusively cli-fi and the latter only contains one tiny nod to it: a description of a swollen River Thames in London.

The novel I'm writing now is set in 2089-2104 and, while it is not about climate change at all, I still have to describe the ways that people get about (in their self-driving electric cars, rapid transit buses, or high-speed trains), the buildings that people live and work in (where attempts have been made, successfully or not, to retrofit them to save and/or generate electricity and to bring nature back into cities), the food they eat and where it comes from, the energy they use (all kinds of renewables), where the coastline happens to be (usually not where it is now) and what has happened to former seafronts.

This is a radical reimagining of life. It's neither dystopic nor utopian, just looking at how life and society might have to adapt in one way or another.

In this election there has been little talk of climate change, but all of the main parties (even UKIP, but with the striking exception of the DUP) recognise the huge contribution the low carbon or clean technology sector already makes to the UK economy, employing as it does close to one million people. Inevitably this contribution will continue to rise. Some parties (LibDems, Greens) attach more importance to the way that green jobs can make life better and improve the economy generally. It's a win-win-win scenario.

Yes, predicting the future is notoriously difficult, but the predictions about climate change have, ever since 1993, been consistent in saying that a certain list of impacts is likely to happen; exactly when is less certain.

We also know that human nature tends to leave everything to the last minute, only responding to disasters when they are imminent or actually happening.

Put the two together and you begin to get an idea of the way things might go; except that climate change is not one disaster but a whole succession of transformations with all sorts of ramifications that will continue for the next few centuries.

In the past, quite a few writers who have tried to predict the future have found life imitating art, such as Ray Bradbury's description of “little seashells… thimble radios” that brought an “electronic ocean of sound, of music and talk and music and talk” in Farenheit 451; John Brunner’s description of electric cars powered by fuel cells and Detroit as an abandoned wasteland in Stand on Zanzibar; tablet computers in Arthur C Clarke's 2001: A Space Oddysey; Google Glass type goggles in Willliam Gibson's Neuromancer; not to mention ubiquitous people watching (CCTV) in Orwell's 1984.

Not written for kids? Actually, almost all of these books I read as a teenager.

I will leave you with two thoughts: encouragement to contemporary writers not to ignore developments that are consistent with a world predicted by climate science, and the infographic below that I discovered, which records many predictions made by writers that have come to pass.

David Thorpe is the author of cli-fi YA fantasy Stormteller and the YA SF Hybrids.

INTERVIEW: Dan Bloom on CliFi – Climate Fiction

Fancy some climate change with your popcorn or bedtime read? Climate fiction, or cli-fi, is a new genre of fiction that was first identified as a distinct concept by Dan Bloom, a freelance writer who has been based in Tokyo and Taipei since 1991. It is, basically, fiction which touches in some way on the topic of climate change.

Dan recently sat down with me,  David Thorpe, author of the cli-fi novel Stormteller, and I picked his brains about the cream of the genre and particularly what the writers of these works think will happen to cities in the future. This is what happened:

David: First, Dan, tell me, what is cli-fi?

Dan: Cli-fi is a new genre term for novels, short stories and movies that stands for works of art and storytelling that deal with climate change and global warming concerns: "cli" stands for the first thee letters of ''climate,'' and "fi" stands for the first two letters of ''fiction.'' Just as sci-fi stands for science fiction, cli-fi stands for what might be called "clience fiction," or novels and movies where climate change is a major theme, although not always the main theme.

Many sci-fi novels and movies also delve into climate themes, so in many ways cli-fi is a sister genre to sci-fi, but with a specific focus on climate change concerns. You could say that sci-fi and cli-fi are cousins.

But in the world we are living in today, where both scientists and the general public is well aware of what the future might look like if we do nothing to stop CO₂ emissions and runaway climate change, cli-fi serves a very important function for writers, literary critics, book reviewers, film directors, scriptwriters and movie critics.

Jeffrey Newman in London has told me that in his view of things, cli-fi is a "reframing" of the national and international discussions we are having on climate issues. Scott Hill in Los Angeles has referred to cli-fi as "a cultural prism" in which to view global warming and its possible fallout, if we do nothing to stop it. I also like to think of cli-fi as a critical prism: a way to focus on what the future might hold.

In the end, what is cli-fi? It is a literary and cinematic ''platform'' for artists and writers to use to say what's on their minds.

David: Can you give examples of how cities are portrayed in cli-fi novels and films?

Dan: Cli-fi novels or movies can deal with large cities, or with smaller cities and towns as well. In "The Odds Against Tomorrow" by New Orleans writer Nathaniel Rich, the setting is Manhattan in the near future, where rising sea levels put the entire area under water, and people are seen canoeing down major streets and avenues. In "Flight Behavior" by Barbara Kingsolver, the setting is the rural countryside where a massive butterfly die-off brings in scientists from the big cities to study the problem.

In "Polar City Red" by Jim Laughter, the setting is Fairbanks, Alaska in 2075 after heat waves in the Lower 48 states of the USA have made that part of the world uninhabitable and climate refugees take refuge in so-called "polar cities" – domed or underground cities – in the Arctic regions to serve as "breeding pairs" for future generations, an idea that was originally put forth by British chemist James Lovelock.



Dan Bloom and Ah-Lin, an actor playing JERKY, in a scene from POLAR CITY RED the movie during location shooting in Alaska.

David: Do you regard the way LA is portrayed (constant rain) in Blade Runner as a clifi feature?

Dan: Yes. That's a very cli fi feature of that movie. And I lived in Tokyo City for five years in the 1990s.....thirty million population....it was Blade Runner to me for five years especially at night and especially in the spring rainy season.



But it doesn't have to be all dark and depressing in cli fi novels or movies. I also hope to read and see cli fi works that portray positive, hopeful ways of coping with what is arguably the most pressing existential threat humankind has ever faced. I am an optimist, myself. I hope cli fi can help readers and movie-goers break through to the side of optimism and hope. But there is a lot of ground to cover, and not all of it is going to be a pretty picture.

In "Finitude" by Scottish novelist Hamish MacDonald, the setting is a city much like London in some un-named country much like Britain in the near future, where all hell breaks loose and a group of people search for a safe haven, against all odds. It's all one of the first cli-fi novels written by a gay author and with a major gay romance in the story.



So cli-fi is an open genre that serves as a platform for writers and film people to explore the future, not in a sci-fi but in a cli-fi way.

David: In some cli fi novels or movies, cities are abandoned. Do you think this is likely?

Dan: Yes, I do. I can't see the future, and I don't have a time frame for when all these things are going to happen, it's anybody's guess and my instinct tells me it's still 300 to 500 years away before the shit hits the fan, so to speak, but if we cannot curb the problems that are causing man-made global warming and runaway climate change, then cities will have to be abandoned and climate refugees will have to seek food, shelter and fuel in northern areas of the Arctic. Goodbye Manhattan, goodbye London, goodbye Paris, goodbye Beijing, goodbye Sydney.

Possible refuges might be New Zealand, the island of Tasmania, and all of the Arctic from Alaska to Canada to Greenland to Scandinavia to Russia and northern China. This is all fertile ground for storytellers to explore with the cli-fi platform.

David: Are all cli-fi films and novels dystopias? Or are there examples of how we might cope positively with climate change in the future?

Dan: "Cli-fi" movies and novels are emerging as a niche genre, taking the pomp of doomsday science-fiction films and novels and mixing it with an underlying message of environmental awareness. Cli fi works do not have to be dystopian, and I hope to see utopian cli fi as well.

Margaret Atwood (right, reading her book Year of the Flood) has coined a term she calls "ustopian" for novels and movies that are both ''u''-topian and dys-''topian'' in theme. Most of what I have read and seen so far in literature and cinema has been what I call dystopiana. But I really hope to see cli-fi take on more optimistic approaches to what ails the Earth these days.

Fabien Cousteau, the grandson of famed oceanographer Jacques Cousteau and a filmmaker himself, believes that cli-fi movies allow people to view a changing part of the world through what he calls ''the prism of an anecdote.'

By relating the scientific part of a cli-fi story in a way that people can be entranced by it, cli fi storytellers can win their audiences over, he believes. I like the way he frames it.

What I hope to see in the future are cli fi movies and novels with the power of Neville Shute's 1957 novel "On the Beach," which painted a wake up call picture about the dangers of nuclear war and nuclear winter. We need an "On the Beach" about the dangers of climate change and with, hopefully, a hopeful, positive ending, to raise awareness and also to goad people to take action in ways they see fit.

We need to go beyond abstract, scientific predictions and government statistics and try to show the cinematic or literary reality of a painful, possible future of the world climate changed. I do believe that cli-fi is a veritable cultural prism, a powerful critical prism, that we need to cherish and nurture among our artists and visionary storytellers. Time will tell.

David: What are your favorites?

Dan: For me, "Finitude" and "Polar City Red" resonated deeply. Neither novel is well known, and neither novel was reviewed by the mainstream media critics in London or New York or Los Angeles and both were released by small presses. But I read them both three years ago, and the stories they tell still remain with me. I'd love to see either of them turned into a movie. Hollywood, are you listening?

David: Do we have an idea of how popular they are and who reads them?

Dan: Cli-fi is still such a new term that only ten per cent of the population has ever heard of it, and such novels and movies – classified as cli-fi – are not on the radar of mainstream book reviewers or movie critics.

So for the time being, the publishing industry and the Hollywood establishment has largely ignored the rise of cli-fi (even with major news stories about the genre in Time magazine, the Guardian, The Financial Times and the New York Times).

I believe the public is hungry for cli-fi – both movies and novels. But how to get such storytelling distributed to the public is a question I cannot answer. I'm looking for the answer now but it still eludes me.

Follow #CliFi on Twitter to keep up.

David Thorpe's novel Stormteller is available from the publisher here. or on Amazon.com. 

The inspiration for my new novel

My first novel in several years is out this week – Like Hybrids it's still YA, it's still set in the future, but it's very different in subject matter. I thought it might be interesting to talk about why I wanted to write it.

I lived in mid-Wales, where Stormteller is set, for nearly 20 years. After separating from my first wife I eventually landed up in Taliesin, partly because I was attracted to a place named after Wales' legendary bard.

I know the landscape almost as well as I know my back garden now, having walked over much of it. I always felt when I moved to this edge of the British Isles from London that here, unlike most places, the skin of the present is thin: you can feel the vibrations from the past still reverberating down the centuries like thunder beneath your feet.

Just inland from Taliesin village is a collapsed dolmen that is given the name 'Taliesin's grave' – though it is much older than that.

Between my house at that time and the sea, lies Borth bog: you may remember the images in the media last winter when flames were leaping across it from burning peat despite the snow: spooky.

And then Borth itself: a long sliver of a town that shouldn't be there, streamed onto a spur of land against the glint of the sea, on a section of coast that is the most vulnerable in the whole of Wales to storm surges. Again, it was in the media last winter when it was attacked by giant waves.

The spur continues to Ynys Las, a nature reserve of sand dunes opposite the Dyfi estuary from Aberdyfi – a colony of English retirees and yachting people largely immune to the influence of the past.

Above it, however, by the Bearded Lake, is allegedly a footprint left by King Arthur when he passed this way, and north of there the mountain Cader Idris, Welsh for Seat of Arthur.

But the real stories that come from this area are older than Arthur's: the birth of Taliesin and Cantr'er Gwaelod, which is the tale of how the land that now lies beneath Cardigan Bay was drowned by the sea.

It's these, and the beautiful, wild and dramatic landscape, that sparked my imagination to write this novel.

Let me tell you the beginning of the first story: a mother had two children – a beautiful girl and a hideous boy with a hunched back. The girl wasn't a problem, she's not even part of the story, probably got married off to a Prince.

But the boy... the mother felt sorry for him. Perhaps the gift of wit and wisdom might make him popular so she could get him off her hands. So she laboured a year and a day to make a magic potion for him, but on the last day she left the servant boy, Gwion, in charge while she popped out. "Just stir: don't taste," she told him.

You can probably guess what happened next. The long and the short of it is that Gwion got to sample the potion and he received all the gifts intended for the son. He was the one who became Taliesin.

Nowadays, Taliesin is revered in Wales and beyond for his poetic and shamanic genius. But his talents should have belonged to someone else – the son, whose name is Afagddu. No one remembers him now, but Taliesin has a village and even an arts centre named after him.

So I thought: how would Afagddu feel? What would he want?

And this is a starting point for Stormteller.

As a rebirthed baby, Gwion floated down the Dyfi river to Ynyslas where he was found by a local prince, who named him Taliesin. That leads into the second story....

...with a tragic ending – the flooding of the land – that it seemed to me has echoes of the threat that Borth and the whole coast of Britain faces now and in the future: rising sea levels, more storms and extreme weather caused by climate change.

We all feel threatened by climate change. We feel powerless to do anything about it. So I wanted the novel partly to be about giving some degree of optimism. It's trying to look at the question of rewriting the endings of stories: ours – about climate change – and these two old legends.

It's easy to give into a sense of fatalism. I believe that we can all rewrite our stories, we at least have the power to do that. And this is true for the teenagers in the novel. But, as in life, there are always sacrifices to be made...

You can find out more about the background to the novel here.

Let’s see this Olympic spirit change politics for the better

The world's greatest athletes have packed and gone home after the most inspiring and emotional of Olympic Games.

The spirit that they generated throughout most corners of this motley land has infused in it a renewed sense of optimism and self-confidence, channeled by Sebastian Coe into his hope that it will inspire a generation.

Galen Rupp's act of self-sacrifice so that his training partner, Mo Farah, could win his second gold medal and enter the history books, exemplifies this spirit, and the best of human nature.

Everybody now wants a share of this Olympic spirit. If they could bottle it, it would sell by the tanker load.

David Cameron hoped that some of this euphoria and excitement would rub off to the economic benefit of the country; this was the motivation behind UK Trade and Investment's business summits held concurrent with the Olympics.

It is also the motivation behind the Downing Street Hunger Summit, which Cameron hopes will secure sufficient commitments from leaders and multinational firms to help improve the nutrition of 25 million children by the time of Rio's 2016 Olympic Games.

This has been backed by many Olympic stars. They have urged the prime minister to go further and make alleviating hunger the top priority for the UK's presidency of the G8 next year.

Mo Farah, whose story is perhaps the most inspiring of many inspiring and humbling stories to emerge from the Games, has lent his support. He has already set up his own Foundation to give aid to the Horn of Africa. Merely by tweeting about its first fundraising ball on 1 September to his many new followers, he caused the server that hosts its website to crash.

It does make you wonder why a similar sense of global togetherness and teamwork cannot come together at other times; like the Rio+20 sustainable development summit, or the annual United Nations efforts to find a global agreement on ways to limit climate change.

Anyone who has attended these gatherings as a campaigner immediately senses a similar coming together of thousands of people from all over the world, and their enthusiasm for a common cause, and knows full well the origins of the blocks to attaining these goals.

The Olympic opening ceremony, depicting coal-smoke belching factories functioning with the indentured labour of millions of workers, reminded us all that Britain began the industrial revolution, thus inaugurating the process of climate change.

Mo Farah's campaign to combat famine in Africa should also bring to our minds that it is this continent which stands to suffer the most from climate change.

The closing ceremony, in turn, by having a children's choir sing John Lennon's Imagine, attempted to make us think that if we all come together we really can save the world. As the song goes: “it's easy if you try".

It may be easy if you try, but as every medal winner at London 2012 will tell you, it's the trying that is hard: years of painful effort. But the result is worth it, even for those who do not succeed; they will cherish forever the joy of participating.

So, if the Hunger Summit succeeds, why not, in four years time, when we are back at Rio de Janeiro, home of the Sustainable Development summits, be even more ambitious?

If we do not have a global agreement by then to tackle the most pressing problem facing all life on earth, then we should use the opportunity, the euphoria and optimism, to force world leaders to sign up to one: an Olympian pact to limit emissions.

Never mind how, or who gives the most. Cease this useless bickering and destructive posturing. Show us the same generosity of spirit we have witnessed in East London.

We need from our world’s politicians displays of teamwork, cooperation within competition, and self-sacrifice, like those that have mesmerised us this last fortnight.

Olympic competitors have stunned us with their world-beating achievements that have exceeded our wildest expectations of what human beings are capable of. We expect it of our athletes.

How much more should we demand it of our political servants?

Earth: Art of a Changing World at the Royal Academy

Yesterday I visited the Earth: Art of a Changing World exhibition at the Royal Academy. It's fantastic, the best show I've been to in a long time - superior to the Radical Nature one at the Barbican earlier this year.

It collects works by many artists that have enviromental themes, especially addressing climate change. In many ways it does what the Centre for Alternative Technology's (CAT) Arts in Transition initiative wants artists to do.

It's not overwhelmingly polemical. Many of the works are oblique, some funny, many sad or touching, some make you angry, and a surprising number are very beautiful.

36 pieces are gathered under the following themes: Introduction; External, Perceived Reality; Destruction; the Artist as Explorer; and Re-Reality. Many current art world stars are represented, including David Nash, Anthony Gormley, Keith Tyson, Sophie Calle, and Tracey Emin - whose 3 pieces are the best things by her I've seen - touching and beautifully executed.

Several artists have been to Greenland on Cape Farewell tours, specifically organised to expose artists to the physical effects of climat change in the arctic. Novelist Ian McEwan, who went on one such trip, is represented by a text he wrote in response.

Yael Bartana's video about Israeli men driving their 4x4s over sand dunes for kicks is crazy - is this the summit of human progress? 'Progress' is also questioned by Lemn Sissay's poem, performed in a video with a jazz trio, "What if?" - poignant and challenging.

Another video, 'Doomed', by Tracey Moffat, is a hilarious compilation of disaster sequences from Hollywood movies. Yao Lu alters an image of rubbish dumps to make them seem at first glance like traditional Chinese landscapes.

Clare Twomey's ceramic flowers and Adriane Colburne's fabulous installation Up From Under the Edge of the Earth, are among pieces that by being incredibly beautiful and fragile remind us of the care we need to take to preserve our awesome natural environment, while Edward Burtynsky's photographs of Canadian tar sand exploitation, quarries and a Chinese chicken-processing factory (whose rows of women workers themselves look like factory farmed chicks), show us how little care some industries are taking.

Finally, we are made to hope that Antti Laitinen's documention of his long, futile attempt to make an island in the freezing Baltic Sea, striving like King Canute to fight the inevitable tidal forces, is not a prophetic allegory for humanity's attempt to stave off the effects of global warming.

I've won a grant to write a new novel!

I've won grant to write a new novel. The Drowning will be a novel about two sworn enemies - young teen boys - thrust together to survive in the wild when climate change makes them homeless.

I'll be blogging about the process of writing it, and the research results, as I write it. The work will begin in the summer, after I've finished my current book (which I'm just starting), a non-fiction title for Earthscan about eco-refurbishment of existing homes.

The £6,326.90 grant is from 'cyfle i greu' - 'chance to create' a scheme run by Powys Arts Forum under the Wales Assembly Government.

I like playing games - but not the Blame Game [poem]

Don't talk to me about climate change
It's coming out of my ears
I'm feeling uneasy that my low carbon diet
Is cooked on an oil-fired range.
I don't dare fly 'cos I'll be sent to Coventry
By the greener than thou eco-tocracy
I'll be sent by bike
Doesn't matter what I like.
My oil's peaked too soon - I need eco-Viagra.

I've got eco-phobia - A fear of greenies.
They're worse than an attack of the Blue Meanies.
When I see a wooly jumper coming down the street
I'll cross over so as not to meet.
Green meanies point and say
"You're not wearing hemp - which is Green Heaven sent
To solve all evils it has the ability."
My Lycra two-piece is a liability.

I want Tesco's - it's all about choice,
Everywhere else's got it so hear my voice.
"But choice is bad. We should do what we're told.
Burning carbon's like hoarding gold.
Learn to do without, don't live in the past."
But I want to enjoy it while it lasts.

In the Gospel according to George Monbiot
Satan's sat at the wheel of a Ford Mondeo
He has Jeremy Clarkson's hideous face
And Richard Branson's plan to conquer outer space.
The boot's full of tins of greenwash
And vocabularies of total tosh.
But just because I want to have my cake and eat it
Shouldn't mean I have to beat it
When the Green Police come calling
To check my electricity bill is falling,
Leaving their filthy carbon footprints
All over my pearly chintz.

'Cos we know they've got their ipods,
Their PCs, their digi-gods
Their mobile phones with low carbon ring-tones
Homes full of green bling from the Natural Collection
A selection of fair trade organic confections
An oil-guzzling jalopy to take them shopping
From their so-called self-sufficient hill-billy small-holding
Well to paraphrase David Byrne I wouldn't live there
If you paid me in shares in a holding company.

I want all my lights on
I want the tv always on
I work hard, I've a right
To throw away half my food if I'm in the mood.
I care about polar bears and receding glaciers
But my life's also precarious and I'm not nefarious.
I didn't make the mess we're in
I'm a victim of 21st century capitalism.
I didn't ask to be addicted to oil
Jail the pushers don't roil me.
Who made you judge and jury?
I'll resent you for making me feel ashamed
Take the plank from your own eye -
I've been framed.