en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_Stops
1 correction found
The story describes a world in which most of the human population has lost the ability to live on the surface of the Earth due to extreme climate changes and toxic air.
The story does not say humanity went underground because of climate change or toxic air. It instead describes the outer air as painfully cold/keen and later reveals that human beings still live on the surface.
Full reasoning
Forster's text does not attribute life underground to "extreme climate changes and toxic air." In Chapter I, the only explicit explanation given is that "the cold of the outer air" would kill a person without a respirator. In Chapter II, Kuno reaches the surface and describes grass, ferns, hills, and an atmosphere that is painful or "bitter"/"keen," but not "toxic." He also directly contradicts the idea that humans can no longer live there: by the end of the story he says he has seen and spoken to people on the surface.
So this Wikipedia sentence adds two specific causes — extreme climate change and toxic air — that are not stated in the story, and the "toxic air" part is undermined by the story's own later revelation that surface-dwellers still exist.
3 sources
- The Machine Stops/Chapter I - Wikisource
"The surface of the earth is only dust and mud, no life remains on it, and you would need a respirator, or the cold of the outer air would kill you."
- The Machine Stops/Chapter II - Wikisource
Kuno says: "The new air was still too bitter for me" and later describes grass, ferns, and hills on the surface.
- The Machine Stops/Chapter III - Wikisource
At the end Kuno says: "Are there still men on the surface of the earth?" ... "I have seen them, spoken to them, loved them."