Fuzzy Mud

A serious real-life environmental crisis is a causal factor in Sachar’s fictional disaster at Heath Cliff. Sachar uses Fuzzy Mud to call attention to the problem of humanity’s rapidly increasing population and its negative impact on the environment. Simultaneously, Sachar illustrates the dangers of experimental science as a solution to overpopulation. Scientists face a non-choice, weighing the potential risks and benefits of scientific solutions against inaction and eventual human crisis. Fuzzy Mud inspires consideration of one’s own impact on the environment and contemplate viable solutions.

Sachar shows that science is a good servant but a bad master. The benefits of helpful scientific discoveries are innumerable, from penicillin to the internal combustion engine to atomic structure. When used wisely, scientific inventions improve lives. When misused or misunderstood, scientific discoveries can be deadly. Fitzman, like Dr. Frankenstein, pushes the boundaries of science and creates a new life form that escapes his control. Overconfident, Fitzman proudly touts his authority over the ergonyms, which he claims are incapable of existing in the presence of oxygen. Fitzman shows, however, that he’s not an all-powerful creator but a fallible one: He can’t control natural mutations. Like Dr. Frankenstein, Fitzman is a pure scientist: He tells Tamaya that he loves science and likes “figuring things out” (164). Fitzman’s eccentricity suggests social awkwardness and disconnection from society. Focused on science and the goal of helping people by solving the energy crisis, Fitzman fails to consider the potential social consequences. Additionally, Fitzman’s creation raises a potential ethical dilemma for consideration: whether it’s morally acceptable to use the ergonyms, discrete new life forms, as combustible clean energy, killing them in the process.

The equations that show the mutated ergonyms’ exponential growth graphically represents the microoganisms’ expanding threat and their potential to destroy life on Earth. On the flip side, Sachar reveals the positive impact of scientific discoveries: Dr. Crumbly discovers a cure for the disease. Chad, near death when rescuers find him, survives—although Tamaya compares his appearance to Frankenstein’s monster, suggesting that though science saved Chad, it also permanently scarred him.

While uncontrolled scientific discovery presents multiple dangers, Sachar emphasizes the dangers of unmitigated population growth as well. Overpopulation occurs when humanity’s population is too great for the earth’s natural resources to support. Scientists posit that the maximum population the earth can sustain is between 9 and 10 billion. In the chapter titled “Disaster Warning,” Professor Alice Mayfair tells the Senate committee that the earth will reach this capacity in 2050: The “disaster” of overpopulation will result in an increased need for resources, from energy to food to housing. Increased consumption of these resources, in turn, will impact the environment and society, leading to pollution, dramatic climate change, overcrowding, and disease.

Thomas Malthus, an 18th century economist, pessimistically theorized that the human population grows exponentially but that its food supply grows linearly, meaning that the human population grows faster than its food supply. When this happens, catastrophes like war and famine will restore a balance. Malthusian Theory has been criticized and largely disproven as too simplistic, but change is needed for the earth to continue to sustain humankind. Professor Mayfair advocates population control as the only solution. However, given that population control advocates focus on certain countries where they believe women have too many children, that solution raises ethical issues and has “racial, coloniser undertones,” according to global development lecturer Heather Alberro (Khan, Coco. “Is Our Planet Overpopulated? We Ask the Expert.” The Guardian, 12 November 2021). Alberro suggests redistributing resources and changing lifestyle expectations to help conserve the earth’s resources.

Fuzzy Mud doesn’t provide any comfortable answers. The fictional US Senate Committee on Energy and the Environment is faced with a Hobson’s choice: risk another, inevitable Biolene disaster but gain a clean source of energy, or reject that source of energy and face a “worldwide catastrophe.” The term “Hobson’s choice” is attributed to a 17th-century English livery stable owner, Thomas Hobson. When he hired out his horses, he noticed that some of the mounts were getting overworked, so he decided to rotate them. He made a rule that anyone renting one of his horses must select the one nearest to the stable door or none at all. Thus, a Hobson’s choice appears to be a free choice but is really no choice at all. The doubling human population mirrors the rapid doubling of the ergonyms. Both threaten humankind’s future, and no good solution exists. Humanity faces a similar dilemma, and Sachar makes it clear that the clock is ticking. Fuzzy Mud is a wakeup call about the potential disasters of overpopulation and the dangers of rushing to adopt an experimental solution.