In August 2021, the news platform The New Humanitarian published its first fiction piece, the short story “Earthquake relief. Mexico. 2051” by writer, poet, researcher, and activist Malka older. This article discusses the role of science fiction—or speculative fiction—as a form of research that can contribute to the transfer of perspectives and methodologies from the arts, the humanities and creative writing to areas of interdisciplinary collaboration, disaster discourses and environmental policies. Cristina Rivera Garza’s ideas about “geological writings” enable the study of the writing strategies employed by Malka Older to interrogate past, present and future, and to expose their contradictions through speculation. With this in mind, the paper aims to contribute to expand understandings of the role of the arts, the humanities and speculative fiction in building disaster narratives in which cultural, affective and technical information and perspectives coexist. A new type of disaster narrative that integrates knowledge from the arts and humanities could not only deepen awareness of environmental issues but also increase horizontal connections between vulnerable communities, researchers, leaders, and international organisations, in support of mitigation and recovery with a decolonizing and environmental-justice perspective.