Written by Alison Weaverdyck
Heathrow airport has just reported a record-breaking 40C+ temperature today. Even if you love the summer, those kinds of temperatures are too hot to handle. And if the real world goes the way of the World of HOOD, they will also become all too common. For the people of Robyn’s Nottingham, this kind of weather is all summer, every summer. And it’s the poorest people in the Outer Circle who always suffer.
But what led to the advanced climate change within our story world?
A Timeline Reshaped by Magic
One of the fundamental differences between the real world and the story is that magic exists, but this isn’t like most magic you’d be familiar with. Hycathae (the women who can use magic) get their power from being able to control and manipulate atoms. So they can control fire and heal themselves, but there aren’t any spells or potions in sight.
The presence of this science-based magic did more than just win wars for the Hycathae, it also had a lasting impact on the development of technology all over the globe. As each advancement came a little earlier than it did for us, the next came earlier too. By Robyn’s day, her people are basically 100 years in the future compared to where we are now, both in terms of technology AND its impact on the environment.
Getting Warmer…
Which brings us to the late 19th century and the Second Hycath War. Scholars sometimes disagree on the motivations behind the infamous Blomgren sisters and their crusade against humanity. For many, it was just an embodiment of how power is always a corrupting force. After their defeat, people in general became leery of Hycathae, and most were completely run out of Europe. They had to create their own new settlement – a vast, magically imbued oasis called Al-Murooj.
Which brings us to the late 19th century and the Second Hycath War. Scholars sometimes disagree on the motivations behind the infamous Blomgren sisters and their crusade against humanity. For many, it was just an embodiment of how power is always a corrupting force. After their defeat, people in general became leery of Hycathae, and most were completely run out of Europe. They had to create their own new settlement – a vast, magically imbued oasis called Al-Murooj.
But the reason cited by the sisters themselves was rooted in the desire to save the planet from unchecked, human-created climate change. Then, as now, pollution was pumping CO2 into the atmosphere, causing the global temperatures to rise. The Blomgren sisters saw the precipice the human race was on, as well as their total lack of efforts to save themselves. So they took matters into their own hands. And unfortunately for Robyn’s world, no one heard their message.
They lost the war and temperatures continued to rise. A few decades later, the world of HOOD hit a tipping point. As the glaciers melted, they released trapped pockets of methane gas, which sent the climate warming into overdrive. (We did not make this up, this is exactly what will happen to our world if we don’t stop it.) Sea levels rose rapidly, causing The Great Torrent of 1922. Coastlines all over the world changed. Famine spread, killing billions.
By the time Robyn was born, things had calmed down, but her reality and our reality are very different. Food shortages are still widespread, and the world has stayed far hotter than ours.
…which brings us back to the heat wave today. This might seem like just an uncomfortable fluke on the surface, but if we don’t do something to live more sustainably, it’ll become the status quo all too soon.
Sound Off
What do you do in your daily life to live sustainably? Got any favourite organizations you think we should donate to? And how are you beating the heat? Leave us a comment!
