Was that a deliberate choice? Like, did you not want to talk about the fact that we are doing something to try and tackle climate change?

In a way, I think what you're getting at with this point about climate change not having the duality that I've put in the book in terms of the artificial intelligence and technology gets at the point that for me, the climate change elements of the book are not the plot of the book, but the setting for the book.

I think it is hard to make climate change into a plot, although it is quite dramatic, and now you've given me an interesting thought.

What would it be like to write a novel where climate change was literally the central conflict, and how could I find the duality sufficient to drive a narrative forward? So maybe you've now given me my idea for my next book, so thank you for that.

But, but in Hum specifically, it is the setting for the book.

It is the context.

It is...

And then as a writing, uh, professor, what, what is your advice to budding writers who want to write about climate change, either incorporating it directly into their stories or indirectly?

Hi, I'm Ben Hirst, activist and advocate exploring what positive masculinities can look like, and self-confessed climate normie.

So I'm going to read to you from chapter four of Hum.

So just to set this up a little bit, after losing her job to artificial intelligence, my protagonist Mae has finally made some money from getting paid for being a guinea pig in an experiment that modified her face so that it can't be recognized by surveillance.

In this scene, you see her spending that money, perhaps not in the wisest way.

So here you go, chapter four of Hum.

The ticket booth was on an inconspicuous street, nothing to mark it as the pathway to other vistas.

Clumps of damp litter, discarded cigarette butts.

Mm

Helen, do tell us more about your book.

Well, it begins with a woman who loses her job to artificial intelligence.

And in order to make money to support her family, she becomes a guinea pig in an experiment that alters her face so that it can't be recognized by surveillance.

And with the money she gains from being involved in this experiment, she makes a choice that is maybe not wise financially, but she insists on doing it, which is buying tickets for her family to spend three days in the one remaining green area within their city of the future.And it's the one place where there are forests and animals.

I'm thinking now of the island you were just speaking of, um, this one area that maintains all of this biodiversity.

Um, and she insists when they go that they remove the, themselves from their devices.

She separates the children from the so-called bunnies that they wear on their wrists all the time.

[laughs]