Haley Stone

December 6, 2018

LBST 2301-338

The Year of the Flood Critique

The book, The Year of the Flood, is based on the planet after climate change

takes its course. This book features a religious cult based around an environmental

Christianity viewpoint. They name the leaders after Adam and Eve, and the followers

are called Gardeners. They live in a world that is much similar to the world we live in,

their government has immense control over the citizens, racist stereotypes and

classifications, and intense climate change. Some find this book a little too

overdramatized viewpoint of climate change, but I believe it reflects the current state of

our environmental and social problems and what we are to expect next.

In The Year of the Flood, one of the main characters, Ren, mentions how the

government listened in for certain words during phone calls and how her and her

friend, Amanda, made up code words to replace them (Atwood, pg 56). This is

something we see people worry about in today’s society, as well. The government has

already spoke about how they have a sensor to detect phone users that send certain

words; and they claim they do this to detect terrorist threats. But, there has also been a

huge scare that the government and other companies have the power to watch you at

any given second. For example, when advertisements come up they are more than

often something the user has previously searched or even purchased online before.

Another example, is how many people with cameras on their desktop feel safer to put a
piece of tape over it. This has caused lots of people to mistrust the government and

feel insecure about their own safety and security.

In The Year of the Flood, there was a prostitution club called, “Scales and Tails”,

and according to the book, one night they “smuggled Eurotrash or Tex-Mexicans or

Asian Fusion and Redfish minors” to satisfy men that they didn’t feel that their own

workers should even be subjected to. After, they would consider those girls

“contaminated” and didn’t want to bother spending their own money on testing them

(Atwood, pg 130). All of those nicknames are ways the book classified people into a

group identifying them by their race and making them seem less human, so people

wouldn’t mind objectifying them into such degrading acts. There is an offensive name

for almost every race, and we have seen people in the recent past and modern day find

a way to make other races seem less inferior.

We can see this type of stuff happening in our own society today. In the book,

they spoke about refugee camps that housed mostly Tex-Mexicans. The refugee

camps and shelters were unequipped for weather disasters, had dirty drinking water

that made people sick, and they didn’t offer any medicine (Atwood, pg 84). We have

recently uncovered the disgusting living conditions for refugees in the United States

today. We have also seen people disconnect the humanity from refugees and

immigrants, as well. For example, in the United States there is an opinion that a large

sum of people agree upon, about refugees not deserving to come into the United

States to seek safety from the country they live in. Even though, they are people just

like us, that happened to just be born into a bad situation. People have found a way to
think of them less as humans, which is why people are okay with not helping them and

shrugging it off, knowing that they will most likely die in their country.

Ocean dead zones are an area with oxygen levels at little to none, killing the fish

and other marine life in that area. In The Year of the Flood, Adam One is saying a prayer

to God with the Gardeners and mentions several of the dead zones they are witnessing

in the book: Gulf of Mexico, Lake Erie, Black Sea, Grand Banks fo Newfoundland and

in the Great Barrier Reef (Atwood, pg 197). Shockingly enough, all of these bodies of

water that is mentioned, have all either had dead zones in recent years or are still

experiencing dead zones in those areas. As of June of this year, NOAA scientists

forecasted that the Gulf of Mexico dead zone will be approximately the size of

Connecticut (NOAA). It also mentions on the very first page of the book, how coral

reefs have become bleached, colorless and with zero life surrounding it. As of 2016,

half of our Great Barrier reef is dead due to climate change, which is causing the

bleaching and eventually dying of the coral to happen at such a high rate (National

Geographic).

Unfortunately, this book relates too well to the climate change we are enduring

now and what is to be expected next. A lot of the things that are discussed in The Year

of the Flood are happening today. Just a few of those being the ones I touched on: the

mistrust in the government, suggestive ads, racism and stereotypes, the refugee living

conditions, and the ocean dead zones. The Year of the Flood is trying to warn people

the dangers that we are experiencing today and what we have in store for the future, if

we don’t take action to fight against climate change.

 Bibliography

Atwood, Margaret. The Year of the Flood. (2009).

“Average Sized Dead Zone Forecast for Gulf of Mexico.” National Oceanic and Atmospheric

Administration, NOAA, 7 June 2018, www.noaa.gov/media-release/average-sized-dead-

zone-forecast-for-gulf-of-mexico.

James, Lauren E. “Half of the Great Barrier Reef Is Dead.” National Geographic, National

Geographic, 7 Aug. 2018, www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/08/explore-atlas-

great-barrier-reef-coral-bleaching-map-climate-change/.