JL Peridot writes love letters to the future on devices form the past. She’s a qualified computer scientist, former website maker, amateur horticulturist, and sometimes illustrator. But most of the time, she’s an author of romantic science fiction. She lives with her partner and fur-family in Boorloo (Perth, Australia) on Whadjuk Noongar country.

Visit her website at jlperidot.com for the full catalogue of her work.

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A love letter to our future

Australia’s climate has warmed by an average of 1.4°C since national records began in 1910. We’ve seen increases in sea surface temperatures, more heatwaves and bushfires, rising ocean levels and acidity, and decreased snow in our alpine regions.

That’s a lot to take in. And if we do nothing to reduce our carbon emissions, these changes are only going to intensify. Of course, government and industries are doing something now, but who knows what difference that’ll make at a global scale? What do we lose if it’s too little too late? Thinking about all this is alarming and depressing.

But it helps to imagine a future, even if it’s not a perfect future. Just knowing humanity can persevere and keep trying … well, it helps.

Yet We Sleep, We Dream imagines University students on a summer excursion in deep space, studying a dead planet that never survived its Anthropocene. But in the dust and ashes of that once-great civilisation, the students find hope for their own warming world.

It’s a love letter to our future — and pure fantasy of course. I don’t believe that magic and gods and semi-sentient robots will save us. Only we can do that by caring for ourselves, for each other, and for the world in which we live.

Want to learn how to care for the planet?

Start by finding your climate superpowers — that’s all a first step needs to be. Many people mistakenly believe they need to open with big dramatic actions, but massive changes mainly need to happen at the government, industry and billionaire level. For people like you and me, it’s about small, sustainable, ongoing actions that add up to a collective effort from the whole community.

Add solarpunk to your reading list. Solarpunk is a hopeful fiction genre and lifestyle movement that embraces technology in harmony with society and environment. If you’ve ever needed fiction to pull you out of your climate anxiety, solarpunk will be the one to do it. For newcomers to the genre, I recommend Tomorrow’s Parties: Life in the Anthropocene, a short story anthology edited by Jonathan Strahan. Have tissues on hand; some stories are beautiful enough to make you cry 😪

If you live around nature, learn about the plants around you and go deeper on the ones that are native to your region. Learn about their history and role in the ecosystem. You’ll unearth incredible hidden knowledge about the home just beyond your home. It’s a fascinating way to develop nature smarts and connect with the Earth.

Finally, look for one thing you can do that’s greener or more supportive of your local community. Keep it practical and within your budget. Do it deliberately and own it, and once you’re comfortable having conversations about it, know that you’re helping build a stronger and more caring culture by doing so.