Manifesto

On 28th March 2019 the United Nations claimed we had just over eleven years to prevent irreversible damage from climate change. 29th July 2021 was Earth Overshoot Day, when the demand for ecological resources and services in the course of one year exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year. Our ‘new’ future has begun. How do we want it to look? What must we do to preserve our world?

We’re all part of the same universe: human-beings, animals, fish, insects, trees, oceans, deserts, the air we breathe, the water we drink. If one link in the chain breaks, there are massive consequences. Each individual climate disaster, be it national or local, is our joint disaster. But there is hope, and there is beauty. There are also mysteries that we haven’t managed to solve yet. Indeed, never has the world been such an exciting place to live in. But it needs our help.

My trilogy, ‘Katja’s World Game’, tells the story of our fast-deteriorating world through the eyes of six undergraduate students at a university in Bath, southern England. From China, Iran, Northern Ireland, Norway, the U.S.A. and West Africa, they ask important questions about the future: how should we live? How can we care for our planet and for one another? What is the future?

Their story is our story; their fight for a better and safer world is our fight. Can fiction help us to visualise a better, safer and healthier future? Yes, I think so. My three novels contain important facts about climate change. They are not ‘just’ scientific facts but reality for my characters. The dance show which the students put on in book one, ‘Katja’s World Game: The Game Begins’, is the start of a challenging journey. The computer game that they devise in book two, ‘Katja’s World Game: The Understory,’ with its three fictional countries and their different climate problems, gives us choices – choices that determine our future. The solution that is proposed in book three, ‘Katja’s World Game: The Overstory’, gives us hope, but it requires that we change our life style significantly. At the same time, my characters discover that this is a small price to pay for a safe and healthy future. Keep the best of the old world, nurture it and enjoy it, and take full advantage of the benefits of the evolving new one, with its advanced technology and Artificial Intelligence. This is their solution. It can be ours too. The road to success is paved with questions. Together, my characters find at least some of the answers. They are not perfect but they’re determined. And they know all too well that success is the only option – as it is for us too.