“Events cannot change the background, but an event can change character, and character can change the background. The event, “climate crisis,” is the same.” The writer, Cheon Seon-Ran (Writer Cheon), said, “The “event” of the climate crisis itself cannot change our lives, but life changes eventually when the “character” changes little by little.”

On September 28th, the lecture, “Meeting with the Writer: Cheon Seon-Ran,” was held in the complex culture space of the Central Library on the first floor. Writer Cheon spoke out on the subject of coexistent life to resolve the climate crisis. The writer, who is showcasing her Korean SF, spread the way of coexistence that we must move forward in the endless developing technology through her fiction, “A Thousand of Blue (천 개의 파랑).”

■The Climate Crisis That We Do Not Know

Writer Cheon mentioned that the Korean Fir Colony in Jeju as the first example of the climate crisis. The Korean Fir is the tree used to make Christmas trees that we often can see. However, as the temperature in Jeju has increased, the colony was totally devastated and never managed to be revived.

The second example was about arctic animals. Writer Cheon described Antarctica as “Hawaii.” People living there wear short sleeves. Little penguins, whose waterproof fur cannot grow, get caught in the rain and freeze to death from hypothermia because there is no snow in Antarctica anymore. This is not the end. The arctic walruses are going upward the body of the relative because ice is melting, and they have lost their habitats. When the walruses weigh about 1~2 tons overlap, the bottom among their bodies suffocates and they are finally dead. Also, those driven to the cliffs are unaware of the stones on the floor, instead of the sea, so they fall down and die when resting.

Additionally, writer Cheon emphasized that the typhoon that occurred and damaged us this summer was the scar that the climate crisis remains. She said, “The typhoon that rises to the northern hemisphere, and dwindles after meeting jet streams and the cold sea, becomes more powerful as it combines with warm winds and seawater due to the climate crisis. The typhoon will come back stronger frequently.” Likewise, she stated, “The weather that has risen and dried up has caused fires; in 2020, the large-scale forest fire in Australia burned several times the area of Seoul and killed more than a billion wild animals.”

■The Way We Don’t Give Up Hope

Writer Cheon mentioned that an “event” as the disaster of the climate crisis requires a shock to change an entire life. “Foot and Mouth Disease” in 2010 was one of the events. Animal rights have been attracting attention, as people have watched piglets being buried alive and animals trampled on. The writer said, “In order for animal rights to be realized, carbon emissions must be reduced, which naturally led to a view of the climate crisis. I always reminded myself of a sentence: some imperfect vegetarians would be better than one perfect vegan.

Writer Cheon pointed out the harsh situation of taking action on the climate crisis. She said, “The first thing to do for the climate is to give up hygiene, the second is to reduce meat consumption, and the third is not to consume something that needs to live. We are all living life full of all the previous things that I mentioned, though. For happiness, we must behave consuming or eating something repeatedly, but that stop us from breaking the connection coming back to the climate crisis.”

The writer emphasized that just as the background in novels changes slightly when the characters change, we need to change our lives little by little, with the attitude of cutting off only one small thing, to overcome the climate crisis.

Reporter Kang Ji-Won

Translated by Park Yeon-Hee