As we contend with a range of new environmental challenges, increasingly extreme designs are being proposed- shields in low orbit to reflect the sun's rays from the earth, vacuums that suck up CO2, chemicals that induce rain. There are uncanny parallels to the worlds of science fiction, blurring the line between what is speculative and what is possible. From DUNE to Star Wars, to Three-Body Problem, science fiction writers have not only imagined extreme weather conditions but preempted climate change and created according strategies to address these threats. While often predicated on magic, impossible technologies, and superpowers, there is much to learn from the ecological interventions that sci-fi depict.

This Olio will include a survey of tools, objects, and strategies employed in sci-fi, in parallel to some of the large scale propositions being introduced by climate scientists. We will explore how politics, technology, and social movements playout in science fiction and equate them to contemporary responses. Together we will examine how speculative design is a key to climate preparedness and how imagining the future we want can help determine the tools and strategies we propose.