I’m from a place on the southern edge of Western Australia called Albany. It’s a beautiful part of the world, flanked by ancient Jarrah and Karri forests to the west, the wildflowers and granite peaks of the Porongurup and Koi Kyeunu-ruff (Stirling) ranges to the north, and the copses of weeping peppermints, pristine beaches, rugged cliffs and capricious Southern Ocean to the south and east. Off the coast, nutrient-rich underwater canyons and reefs that skirt the continental shelf are home to a marine environment of rich biodiversity.
These sea and landscapes might sound familiar to those who’ve read Tim Winton’s work. He spent his formative years in Albany (pseudonymised as Angelus in his books), and his novels are full of vivid evocations of the surrounding country. He’s even written a “landscape memoir” of Australia and produced a documentary on Ningaloo for the ABC. His oeuvre is, in many ways, an homage to the raw and natural beauty of Australia.
His telling depicts a world where the equatorial latitudes have been rendered uninhabitable, and in the places where the remnants of civilisation do cling, populations spend entire summers underground.
It’s jarring then that the milieu of Winton’s latest book is one of desolation and ruin. Set in a climate-ravaged, post-apocalyptic future, Juice opens with urgency as a man and a child flee unknown pursuers across an ash-strewn plain. They happen upon what they think is a deserted camp, but are soon detained by its lone, cagey inhabitant. What follows is a recounting of the captive man’s life story as he tries to elicit empathy, and ultimately liberty, from his warden.
His telling depicts a world where the equatorial latitudes have been rendered uninhabitable, and in the places where the remnants of civilisation do cling, populations spend entire summers underground. Rain, when it arrives, can be ruinous in its deluge. This might be the setting of an alien world, but as the novel unfolds, peppered as it is with Wintonesque vernacular, it’s clear this place is Australia of centuries hence – northwest WA to be precise. And in this, the distinction between fiction and grim forecast becomes blurred.
In May, the Australian Security Leaders Climate Group (ASLCG) published a sobering report that warned of “near unliveable conditions” in northern Australia at 2.7°C warming above pre-industrial levels. Wet-bulb temperature (WBT) combines heat and humidity to measure the extent to which evaporative cooling – i.e. human sweating – remains effective. Studies have shown that a WBT above 30 significantly limits the human body’s ability to cool itself – leading to uncontrollable internal temperature rise and potentially heat stroke death. At 3°C of warming, most of Australia’s northern coast will experience such conditions up to 50 days a year. Living underground doesn’t sound so far-fetched.
Their conclusion is as succinct as it is profound: “The future of humanity hangs in the balance.”
Governments the world over have a seemingly endless facility for rote in claiming progress towards “net zero by 2050” and limiting warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels without actually doing anything meaningful to achieve it. As a result, the World Meteorological Organisation puts the likelihood of hitting that 1.5-°C threshold within the next three years at 47 per cent – essentially a coin toss. The lack of genuine climate action, let alone ambition, means that we’re “on course for a temperature increase of 2.6–3.1°C over the course of this century”, according to the UN Environment Programme’s 2024 Emissions Gap Report, “bring[ing] debilitating impacts to people, planet and economies”.
An October ASLCG compendium is alarming in its description of climate tipping points having already been met, and notes how the threat of cascading risk has pushed into existential territory. It also cites expert opinion on the likelihood of warming upwards of 2.5°C. A 2021 Nature survey found that “a clear majority of scientists expect warming of more than 3°C, and 82% expect to see catastrophic impacts of climate change in their lifetime”. This was echoed in a 2024 Guardian poll, with four-fifths of expert respondents expecting at least 2.5°C of warming, and half anticipating at least 3°C. Many envisage a “semi-dystopian” future.
“We are currently going in the wrong direction, and our increasing fossil fuel consumption and rising greenhouse gas emissions are driving us toward a climate catastrophe,” say yet more leading climate scientists in a recent BioScience article. Their conclusion is as succinct as it is profound: “The future of humanity hangs in the balance.”
Reflecting on the thought process behind his book’s genesis, Winton contemplates that “My forebears were a hardy lot. And I’m sure my antecedents will be too. But it haunts me to know that we have the capacity to ease the worst of their suffering and are simply choosing not to.”
In that sense, Winton’s work of future fiction feels more honest than many of us are with ourselves today. I can understand people’s need for optimism, lest they succumb to nihilistic apathy and lose any momentum for positive change. But by every measure, the trendlines are catastrophic. If that isn’t impetus enough, perhaps we should start digging our summer homes.
