The whole premise of Ellen’s tale and the Sefuty Chronicles was based on climate change, which I have already mentioned on 15th December 2010 on this blog, and my interest in genetic engineering.
I have been following the Genome Project, discoveries in genetics, cloning and all relevant side shoots for more than two decades even though I did always understand. I might have a Science degree (it was in Anthropology and Nutrition) but I am no scientist, but I was always interested and fascinated.
Our family has over the years owned all manner of breeds of dogs all of which are the result of being genetically engineered over the centuries for specific purposes. Many people ride horses which have been altered in the same way, and do not let us forget how different farm animals are today from even Roman times. I do have unease in the applications of some aspects of this science; mine is not a whole-hearted endorsement, well aware that the greatest ideas can be hi-jacked by the humans that use them. And I do understand the differences ethically, of selection of the fittest and creating the fittest. In the creation of a world in the 22nd century it seemed inconceivable to me that, whatever happened to our civilization, some form of genetic tinkering would not be used, either funded or a done deal from the decades before disaster. After all we already have GM crops and cloned pets in many parts of the world.
I have already expressed some views on food security in 'Clear skies and food security' in http://www.didyoueverkissafrog.typepad.com/ 19th April 2010 and will no doubt do so again as I grow more agitated at the lack of will to address these very real approaching problems. What kind of world would exist in the time of Ellen was much more of a guess as no one seems to know the what? The when? Or even the if? However if there is massive climate change then conflict, mass migrations of populations and food shortages seem to be inevitable. If these are inevitable then what else would happen?
This was the question that exercised my mind a lot the summer that Ellen was coming to fruition and even more so when I decided there was more than one book to be written. How much of the world, we know now, would survive? How would human nature change or not? Could we cope?
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