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On the bleak future The Water Knife depicts, including state border patrols and climate refugees

People don't actually stay still, you know — when their area is a disaster, they go somewhere else, right? And that's just a natural human impulse. And it's also a natural human impulse for people to sort of hunker down and say "no, no, this is ours — we've got the good stuff, and we don't want to share."

And so yeah, in this future, there's a point where there's so many refugees on the road, there's so many — some of them because of hurricanes, some of them because of high seawater levels, some of them because of drought — that you're starting to see all of the states sort of, like ... you know, sort of really getting much more muscular about their state's rights.

They're like: "No, no, no, this is our territory. We don't want to share it with the state next to us." And you see a really weak federal government at the same time that isn't able to really coordinate or get people to sort of cooperate with one another.

I think that, when I think about the future that The Water Knife represents, it's one where there's a lack of oversight, planning and organization. That's really the disaster. There's the drought and there's climate change, and those things are horrible — and then there's how people react to it. And this is, this world is built on the assumption that people don't plan, don't think and don't cooperate — which makes for a pretty bad future!

On how to categorize his fiction

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Paolo Bacigalupi is also the author of the novels The Windup Girl, Ship Breaker and The Drowned Cities. J.T. Thomas Photography hide caption

itoggle caption J.T. Thomas Photography

Paolo Bacigalupi is also the author of the novels The Windup Girl, Ship Breaker and The Drowned Cities.

J.T. Thomas Photography

The questions about how we label a story really seem to set a lot of preconceptions in people's minds. So if I say this book is science fiction, or if I say I'm a science fiction writer, automatically one of the things you'll hear from people is "oh, I don't read that."

[But if you say,] "No, no, no — well, so I actually write about this crazy drought in the Southwest where Phoenix and Las Vegas are having a water war, and there's very little water in the Colorado River," and suddenly the person's like "oh yeah, well, we're having a terrible drought here" or wherever they're living. And suddenly they're very engaged...

When I think about myself as a writer, for sure I am a science fiction writer. The tools of extrapolation, the tools of anticipating the future — those are science fictional questions.

And so, you know, in terms of labeling it, I'll label my books anything that will get somebody to read it. ... [You] want them to like or hate your book based on the book is itself, not based on the idea that maybe it's, I don't know, Barbarella.

Read an excerpt of The Water Knife

lake mead

colorado river

science fiction

Paolo Bacigalupi

drought

Las Vegas

Phoenix

In what is being described as an embarrassing release of a confidential email, the Bank of England has inadvertently revealed that it is making financial plans for the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union, should that ever come to pass.

Earlier this month, the newly reelected British Prime Minister David Cameron reiterated his party's commitment to hold a referendum by the end of 2017 on continued membership in the EU.

According to The Guardian, on Friday, the Bank of England, the U.K.'s central bank, "accidentally emailed details" the newspaper details of a contingency plan in the works on how to extricated the U.K. from the EU, "including how the bank intended to fend off any inquiries about its work."

The plan has been dubbed "Operation Bookend," according to the newspaper.

The Guardian reports that "The email, from [Deputy Governor for Financial Stability Sir Jon] Cunliffe's private secretary to four senior executives, was written on 21 May and forwarded by mistake to a Guardian editor by the Bank's head of press, Jeremy Harrison.

"It says: 'Jon's proposal, which he has asked me to highlight to you, is that no email is sent to James's team or more broadly around the Bank about the project.'

"It continues: 'James can tell his team that he is working on a short-term project on European economics in International [division] which will last a couple of months. This will be in-depth work on a broad range of European economic issues. Ideally he would then say no more.'"

While the United Kingdom is one of 28 EU member states, it maintains its own currency and is not part of the Eurozone.

banking

United Kingdom

European Union

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Votes are counted as the ballot boxes are opened Saturday at an election center in Dublin. Charles McQuillan/Getty Images hide caption

itoggle caption Charles McQuillan/Getty Images

Votes are counted as the ballot boxes are opened Saturday at an election center in Dublin.

Charles McQuillan/Getty Images

The head of the Iona Institute, which ran the No campaign in Ireland's vote to legalize same-sex marriage, has tweeted his congratulations to the yes campaign.

Some are interpreting this as conceding defeat, reports NPR correspondent Ari Shapiro.

Early results certainly suggest as much, Shapiro says. Conservative areas that voted against legalizing divorce in the 1990s have come in with a Yes vote for same-sex marriage, he reports.

Counting of votes began Saturday on the question of whether the heavily Catholic country will amend its constitution to make same-sex marriage legal.

Here's the tweet from Iona Director David Quinn:

Congratulations to the Yes side. Well done. #MarRef

— David Quinn (@DavQuinn) May 23, 2015

Hillary, Bill and Chelsea Clinton brought in millions of dollars for their charitable foundation through paid speeches. They gave the honorarium to the organization. This is the latest release of information about the foundation's funding, as a result of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

Last week, the campaign filed a financial disclosure showing that since January of 2014, Bill and Hillary Clinton made more than $25 million dollars in paid speeches. Thursday's release from the Clinton Foundation begins to complete the picture.

The Clintons' speaking fees brought between $12 million and $26 million to the foundation since 2002. The foundation didn't put a precise dollar figure on the fees, but rather a range.

The former president gave three speeches that paid between 500-thousand and a million dollars. Hillary Clinton gave most of her talks to universities and big banks, while Chelsea Clinton addressed a handful of Jewish Federations.

The speech fees had not previously been disclosed as donations. The Washington Post reports that the foundation considered the money as "revenue," coming from the Clintons, and not donations from the groups that paid for the speeches.