Nnedi Okorafor’s Spider the Artist provided an interesting ‘sci-fi’ point of view on environmental injustice. While the premise of Artificial Intelligence robots guarding and inflicting violence on the populations surrounding a pipeline is a daunting and uncomfortable notion, it is not that far off from a possible real future. In this way Spider the Artist reminded me of one of our class’s very first readings, Margaret Atwood’s, It’s Not Climate Change, It’s Everything Change. In her article Atwood provided three possible scenarios for the world’s future under climate change. While some futures seemed more improbable than others, two provided an image of the future that privileged some while inflicting violence and suffering on others. Specifically, Atwood’s scenario for the future that predicts wealthier countries who have, or can, invest in alternative energy and shelter themselves from the rest of the world. Both this scenario in Atwood’s article and the issues presented in Spider the Artist bring to light the issue of who suffers the consequences of oil production, environmental injustice, and climate change. While oil continues to flow freely and fairly cheaply in the United States, it is easy to forget that people are living with, and suffering from, the oil origins.
With pipelines and fracking projects being proposed and carried out in the United States, it’s easy to adopt a “not in my backyard” attitude, but the ugly truth is, as long as the world is consuming oil, these undesirable, and unhealthy infrastructures that wreak havoc and violence on those who live in their proximity, have to go somewhere. When looking at stories such as Atwood’s predictions for the future and Spider the Artist the problematic and harmful nature of oil is strikingly clear, and it seems that the solution lines in alternative energy. While alternative energy is much cleaner and less harmful to live near, the evil forces presented, as I saw it, in the form of Zombie robots, is really the corporations and government that allowed violence to be inflicted on those who live near the pipeline. While oil presents inherent and problematic harms to the world, and especially to those who live near it, it seems that Spider the Artist presented argument that corporations and government are the root of the problem for causing harm and violence on the people they exploit. I wonder if a shift to renewable energy wouldn’t in its own way lead to violence and exploitation of marginal people?
Atwood, M. (2014, July 27). It’s Not Climate Change It’s Everything Change.
Okorafor, N. (2011, March). Spider the Artist.
