Heat, wealth and denial

 

The Earth is on fire – literally and politically. From southern Europe to the American West, from South Asia to the UK, we are witnessing heatwaves, floods and systemic breakdowns not as outliers but as the new normal.

And still, somehow, we go on pretending.

The Guardian's recent opinion headline – “Why do we pretend heatwaves are fun and ignore the brutal, burning reality?” – poses exactly the right question. Why are inflatable paddling pools, rooftop cocktails and weather presenters chirping about “glorious sunshine” still our cultural defaults, even as climate systems tip dangerously toward the edge?

This dissonance is a form of climate denial. Not the outright rejection of science, but a quieter, more pervasive refusal to let the facts fully alter how we live, lead, or legislate.

Adaptation limits

This week, the UK’s Climate Change Committee released its latest review, warning that Britain remains dangerously unprepared for what lies ahead. “We are not resilient to the changes that are already happening,” the report states. And worse, the pace of adaptation is slowing just when it needs to accelerate.

While the report argues that the UK can still reach net zero by 2050, it warns that this alone will not protect the country from flooding, heatwaves and food system instability. "Adaptation is as important as mitigation," the committee notes, "and right now we’re failing on both fronts."

This echoes what climate scientist Tim Lenton told The Guardian in a powerful new interview: “This is a fight for life.”

Lenton, an expert on climate tipping points, warns that cascading climate failures are not decades away – they are unfolding now.

What may once have been theoretical risks are becoming visible ruptures in our weather systems, water cycles and social infrastructure.

“We are in a planetary emergency,” he declares bluntly. “But there’s still agency. We have a meaningful chance to turn this around – if we act.”

Tipping points and privilege

Among the most chilling parts of Lenton’s interview is his critique of how the wealthy attempt to insulate themselves from climate impacts – by migrating, insuring, air conditioning, or building physical barriers.

“People with financial resources are trying to buy resilience,” he says. “But in the long run this is not a crisis that respects wealth.”

We saw that vividly in 2023’s flash floods in Germany, and again in recent Canadian wildfires and southern US droughts. Critical infrastructure collapses. Water fails. Food prices spike. Insurance markets break down. And while the vulnerable suffer first, no one is untouched

In short, climate chaos is not a distant threat to people in far away lands. It is here, now, and it is coming for the systems we all rely on.

Fiction as foresight

As someone who has turned to fiction rooted in climate science as a means of conveying urgency, I see this new way of storytelling as a way to make the different facets of climate change more real. 

 My forthcoming novel, Flood Waters Down, imagines a near-future Britain fractured by flooding, authoritarian drift and collective disorientation.

The geography is drawn from Climate Central’s real-world sea level projection tools. The characters – though fictional – face choices rooted in policy inertia, displacement and social fragmentation.

They live in a country that pretended, for too long, that it could “cope” its way through climate change.

If that sounds familiar, it's because it is.

Just this past week, CNN detailed the now-undeniable link between human-caused global warming and record-breaking heatwaves across the globe. “We are seeing extremes that scientists didn’t expect until the 2030s or 2040s,” one researcher noted. “We’ve accelerated the timeline of risk.”

Heat isn’t neutral

Extreme heat is not just uncomfortable. It kills. It erodes productivity, threatens food security and degrades mental health. It disproportionately affects the elderly, the poor, outdoor workers and those living in poorly insulated or densely built environments.

And yet, in much of the UK’s mainstream media and politics, heat is still treated as a lifestyle issue, not a public health or systemic risk.

Another recent editorial in The Guardian put it plainly: “We must stop thinking of climate breakdown as a future issue. We need to build national readiness now, or we’ll let everyday life keep breaking down.”

That means investing in climate-resilient infrastructure, yes. But it also means telling new stories – stories that prepare people not just with facts, but with frameworks for feeling, thinking and acting differently.

Inflection point

The convergence of science, policy warnings, media coverage and lived experience is no coincidence. We are in an inflection moment – when the consequences of inaction are visible, and the possibilities of change remain open.

Whether we respond with courage or complacency will define more than just the future of emissions. It will define the kind of society we become and the kind of world we leave.

In Flood Waters Down, the waters rise – and so does something else. It’s characters and the challenges they face aren’t far from us. They’re just a few degrees – and decisions – ahead.

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 Flood Waters Down – for further details contact Clive Simpson

Where data meets dystopia

 

Future flood risk areas across Eastern England. (Climate Central)

I’ve always been fascinated by maps. Even in today’s world of satellite navigation and real-time updates, there’s something deeply reassuring about unfolding a trusty Ordnance Survey chart.

But whether modern digital or old-style printed, these visual guides can reveal far more than just the lay of the land. They hint at stories – past, present and future. 

Look long enough and you begin to see not only how the world is today but how it might be reshaped in the years ahead.

One such projection, hosted by Climate Central – a non-profit organisation of scientists and journalists that researches and communicates the impacts of climate change – powerfully illustrates how the world’s coastal floodlines are gradually being redrawn.

Much of eastern England’s low-lying coast is a prime example of the land that will be changed by current rates of global warming and sea level rise.

Zoom into the coastline around The Wash, the Lincolnshire Fens and parts of Norfolk and Cambridgeshire, and the familiar low-level terrain begins to vanish beneath a soft wash of red.

In near-future years, areas known for agriculture, an unassuming rural life and their historic market towns are increasingly shown as sitting in flood zones – places where the sea will make ever more frequent inroads.

In technical terms the scenario depicted by Climate Central is based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 2021 median projection under the SSP3-RCP7.0 pathway which suggests global sea levels could rise by an average of over half a metre by 2050.

Whilst this may not sound catastrophic in itself, the impact on low-lying coastal and inland regions such as the Fens could be profound.

Sea floods will become more frequent and, in some places, just a few more inches of water could turn temporary storm surge flood zones into permanent wetland or, worse still, uninhabitable zones.

It’s a slow-motion disaster already moving forwards apace. And it’s also the starting point for the world I build in my forthcoming novel.

Personal and urgent

Flood Waters Down is set in a dystopian near-future Britain, where the eastern lowlands have been severely impacted by rising sea levels, repeated flooding and  climate-driven societal change.

Much of the action unfolds in and around a transformed Fens region – a landscape made unfamiliar not just by water also but by the consequences of ecological neglect and authoritarian responses.

I didn’t choose the setting by accident. I grew up here and live not far from these primal lands. I know their moods, the smell of the fields, the rhythm of life in mile after mile of flat country where sky and soil focus the conversation.

This familiarity made the writing more personal – and more urgent. When you imagine your own region unravelling at the edges, fiction quickly becomes something more than entertainment. It’s like a window on the future.

In recent years, climate fiction – or “climate-inflected sci-fi” – has matured into a serious literary genre. It’s not about predicting precisely what might happen, but rather projecting emotional, social and political truths through the lens of imagination.

That’s the intention behind Flood Waters Down – to extrapolate not just environmental conditions but the human responses that arise in their wake.

Map reading

The Coastal Risk Screening Tool developed by Climate Central uses peer-reviewed data and elevation models to simulate areas likely to fall below future annual flood levels.

The default setting projects flood risk for the year 2050 by combining anticipated sea level rise with the statistical height of a typical annual coastal flood. This leads to a visualisation of areas where permanent or frequent inundation may occur, reflecting  land, in the absence of any flood protection infrastructure, that would be below water during an annual flood event in 2050.

As a result, it can add risk to areas that may currently be defended in one way or another – and act as a reminder that such protections require continuous investment, maintenance and political will to remain effective.

The visual simplicity of the tool belies its complexity. You can explore different scenarios and time frames using the year slider and other settings – including more severe flood probabilities or the projected impacts of sea level rise alone.

Disappearing towns

In the SSP3-RCP7.0 scenario – considered a “regional rivalry” pathway with moderate-to-high emissions and limited climate policy cooperation – vast swathes of Lincolnshire and the East Anglian coast appear increasingly vulnerable.

Towns like Boston, Holbeach, Wisbech, King’s Lynn and Spalding are among those at greater risk. Crucially, it’s not just coastal settlements but deep inland areas at sea level, historically reliant on pumps and drainage defences, that face the greatest exposure.

In Flood Waters Down, I take this reality and extend it into the near future. Civil infrastructure has failed, government priorities have shifted and certain regions are no longer considered worth defending or restoring.

People who stay behind – by choice, by poverty or protest – form fragmented communities, surviving in marginal conditions and living outside the protection of what remains of the state.

This isn’t science fiction in the conventional sense. It’s a narrative echo of today’s policy drift and tomorrow’s possible consequences.

We’ve been here before

The Fens, of course, have always lived with water. Historically marshland, they were systematically drained between the 17th and 20th centuries to create some of the UK’s most fertile farmland. That reclamation was a triumph of engineering, ambition and hubris – a human insistence on mastering nature.

But as climate change accelerates and sea levels rise, this delicate equilibrium is under threat. According to the UK Environment Agency, around 620,000 properties in England are currently at risk from coastal flooding.

The same organisation warns that parts of Eastern England may be impossible to defend indefinitely without major adaptation or relocation strategies.

Add to that the social and political dimensions – resource stress, forced migration and increased surveillance – and you begin to glimpse the world Flood Waters Down inhabits.

Fiction as foresight

After many years writing as a journalist I now also believe fiction has a vital role to play in climate discourse. Scientific data tells us what might happen; stories help us imagine what it could feel like. 

And in a time when climate anxiety is increasingly widespread – but often abstract or numbed – storytelling can make the intangible personal again.

The characters in Flood Waters Down are not heroes in the traditional sense. They’re ordinary people living in extraordinary times – facing moral compromise, loss and the persistent pull of memory. They resist erasure, they adapt, and sometimes they fail. But above all, they bear witness.

Through them, I explore the many layers of the climate crisis, not just floods and nature, but governance, inequality, fear and the question of what kind of future we’re willing to fight for.

Flooding as a metaphor

When I began writing Flood Waters Down, I used flooding as metaphor – representing broader themes of collapse and disruption. But as I continued, and as the flood risk projections grew starker, I realised the metaphor was becoming real.

Sea levels are rising. Maps across the world are being redrawn. And governmental policy is either non-existent or still in the slow lane.

Climate Central’s map is a tool anyone can use to visualise what might be coming. My novel is a tool to feel it. Both are meant to spark conversation, reflection – and maybe, just maybe – preparation. 

Because the floodwaters aren’t just coming. In many places, they’re already here. The question is: how will we respond?

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Explore the map: Climate Central Coastal Risk Screening Tool

Flood Waters Down – for further details contact Clive Simpson