Part two of the Dune reboot has been gathering up rave reviews since its release earlier this month. Amid the cheers, multiple takes about the story’s parallels to our own climate crisis have rolled out. This is no accident. In 1957, Dune saga author Frank Herbert visited the coastal dunes in Florence, Oregon, to write an article on how the Department of Agriculture was stabilizing the sand using fast-growing grass. While he never published the article, it sparked a lifelong interest in the dusty ecosystems, and inspired the series. But ecology is only the start of the similarities between the fictional world and our own climate-changed planet.
Want more Earth-saving tips?
Subscribe to the one5c newsletter here
Water conservation is of utmost priority
On Arrakis, the fictional planet where Dune takes place, water is such a precious resource that some inhabitants have developed systems to extract it from dead bodies. Though things on Earth aren’t that bad, the trend line is troubling. According to UNICEF, around 2 billion people in the world already live in areas with water scarcity. In a few years, this number is expected to more than double. Some of the most water-stressed regions in the world lie in the Middle East, which also inspired Arrakis and its Fremen cultures, but you can see the state of water availability anywhere on Earth via this interactive map.
‘Spice’ is an allegory for fossil fuels
A key factor in the novels and films is spice—and we’re not talking about paprika. Dune’s spice is a valuable commodity as not only a potent mind-altering drug but also as fuel for intergalactic travel. On our own pale blue dot, 95% of worldwide transportation relies on fossil fuels, according to the Rhodium Group. Data from the Energy Institute predicts we will run out of oil and gas by the end of the century.
Arrakis versus the real world
Scarcity begets conflict. A policy brief by the Harvard Kennedy School found that as many as half of interstate wars since 1973 can be linked to oil—and the trend is primed to escalate. We can already see this in the Nile River and Tigris-Euphrates basins, where conflicts have already erupted over water. According to a 2019 study in the journal Nature, as essential resources like food, water, and oil deplete, more conflicts will pop up globally.
Dune presents a world struggling with extreme and debilitating scarcity—one in which people restrain themselves from crying or vomiting in order to conserve water. But Herbert didn’t mean for his work to spur us to leave Earth, but rather to save it. Today, it’s a reminder that we have the tools we need to prevent our planet from turning to dust. Yes, that entails large-scale solutions like a renewable grid and electrified transportation, but it also includes pop culture moments like Dune bringing climate narratives to the masses.