They Would Have Ended by Burning Their Own Globe

Abstract

A speculative essay that asks how we might read Jules Verne’s The Black Indies (Les indes noires) (1877), and especially its fantasies about coal, during the time of climate change. The chapter reflects on the embeddedness of a certain kind of nineteenth-century narrative of progress in the imaginary of humans today, living on the surface of a rapidly changing planet. To cut ourselves off from such a narrative may require acts of violent disruption.