Two new Australian novels imagine how we might live in a climate‑changed future. Bri Lee’s Seed explores antinatalism in an Antarctic seed vault. And Rose Michael’s Else follows a mother and daughter improvising survival on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula.
Together, these novels ask what we owe future generations – and what forms of care remain possible when the planet itself becomes precarious.
Antinatalism is the view that bringing new humans into the world is morally suspect because life entails unavoidable harm. It has become increasingly visible alongside escalating climate anxiety. In fiction, the question tends to crystallise around the figure of “the child as future”: should we burden the planet with more lives, and burden those lives with the planet we have made?
