The modern environmentalism movement is decades-old, but in the 21st century, people outside the movement have also become more familiar with climate science and how climate change devastates communities. Atwood wrote “Time Capsule” in 2009, just four years after the catastrophic Hurricane Katrina, a natural disaster made worse by climate change. The Guardian’s “10:10” climate initiative began just as newly elected President Barack Obama made climate change a priority issue.

Atwood’s story is a parable depicting the changes in the environment brought on by human industrial development since the early 1800s. The rise in gasses like carbon and methane from industry and animal cultivation has contributed to the rising temperature of the earth’s atmosphere, creating the so-called “greenhouse effect,” or global warming. The primary effects of a warmer earth include drastic shifts in regional climates, increased prevalence and intensity of natural disasters and extreme weather events, habitat removal and destruction, and rising sea levels.

Since the mid-20th century, climate science has continued to evolve, but there is near universal scientific acceptance that man-made climate change is real and that it is leading to drastic changes in the earth and in the way humans will eventually have to organize society.