Climate fiction
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Climate fiction (sometimes shortened as cli-fi) is
The term "cli-fi" is generally credited to freelance news reporter and climate activist Dan Bloom in 2007 or 2008.[1][2] "Climate fiction" has only been attested since the early 2010s, and the term has been retroactively applied to a number of works.[3][4] Pioneering 20th century authors include J. G. Ballard and Octavia E. Butler, while dystopian fiction from Margaret Atwood is often cited as an immediate precursor to the genre's emergence. Since 2010, prominent cli-fi authors include Kim Stanley Robinson, Richard Powers, Paolo Bacigalupi, and Barbara Kingsolver. The publication of Robinson's The Ministry for the Future in 2020 helped cement the genre's emergence; the work generated presidential and United Nations mentions and an invitation for Robinson to meet planners at the Pentagon.[5]
University courses on literature and environmental issues may include climate change fiction in their syllabi.[6] This body of literature has been discussed by a variety of publications, including The New York Times, The Guardian, and Dissent magazine, among other international media outlets.[7] Academics and critics study the potential impact of fiction on the broader field of climate change communication.
Terminology
Bloom had used the term to describe his novella Polar City Red, a post-apocalyptic story about
History
Jules Verne's 1889 novel The Purchase of the North Pole imagines climate change due to tilting of Earth's axis.[9] In his posthumous Paris in the Twentieth Century, written in 1883 and set during the 1960s, the eponymous city experiences a sudden drop in temperature, which lasts for three years.[10]
Several well-known
Frank Herbert's 1965 science fiction novel Dune, set on a fictional desert planet, has been proposed as a pioneer of climate fiction for its themes of ecology and environmentalism.[4]
Octavia E. Butler's Parable of the Sower (1993) imagines a near-future for the United States where climate change, wealth inequality, and corporate greed cause apocalyptic chaos. Here, and in sequel Parable of the Talents (1998), Butler dissects how instability and political demagoguery exacerbate society's underlying cruelty (especially with regards to racism and sexism) and also explores themes of survival and resilience.[15][16] Butler wrote the novel "thinking about the future, thinking about the things that we're doing now and the kind of future we're buying for ourselves, if we're not careful."[17]
As
In 2016, Indian writer Amitav Ghosh expressed concern that climate change had "a much smaller presence in contemporary literary fiction than it does even in public discussion". In The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable, Ghosh said "if certain literary forms are unable to negotiate these waters, then they will have failed – and their failures will have to be counted as an aspect of the broader imaginative and cultural failure that lies at the heart of the climate crisis."[25]
By the 2010s, climate fiction had attracted greater prominence and media attention.[2][26][27] Cultural critic Josephine Livingston at The New Republic wrote in 2020 that "the last decade has seen such a steep rise in sophisticated 'cli-fi' that some literary publications now devote whole verticals to it. With such various and fertile imaginations at work on the same topic, whether in fiction or nonfiction, the challenge facing the environmental writer now is standing out from the crowd (not to mention the headlines)." She highlighted Jeff Vandermeer's Annihilation to Nathaniel Rich's Odds Against Tomorrow as examples.[28]
In African literature, climate informed novels and short stories have been recently receiving attention as field of contemporary African literature. Books such as Eclipse our sins, by Tlotlo Tsamaase; It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way, by Alistair Mackay and Noor, by Nnedi Okorafor, have been highlighted as remarkable publications in the genre.[29]
Prominent examples
The popular science-fiction novelist
British author J. G. Ballard used the setting of apocalyptic climate change in his early science fiction novels. In The Wind from Nowhere (1961), civilisation is reduced by persistent hurricane-force winds. The Drowned World (1962) describes a future of melted ice-caps and rising sea-levels, caused by solar radiation, creating a landscape mirroring the collective unconscious desires of the main characters. In The Burning World (1964) a surrealistic psychological landscape is formed by drought due to industrial pollution disrupting the precipitation cycle.
Similarly, The Road (2006) by Cormac McCarthy is set after an unspecified apocalypse or environmental catastrophe. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2007. Although it does not explicitly mention climate change, it has been listed by The Guardian as one of the best climate change novels,[32] and environmentalist George Monbiot has described it as "the most important environmental book ever written" for depicting a world without a biosphere.[33][34]
The novel
Ian McEwan's Solar (2010) follows the story of a physicist who discovers a way to fight climate change after managing to derive power from artificial photosynthesis.[40] The Stone Gods (2007) by Jeanette Winterson is set on the fictional planet Orbus, a world very like Earth, running out of resources and suffering from the severe effects of climate change. Inhabitants of Orbus hope to take advantage of possibilities offered by a newly discovered planet, Planet Blue, which appears perfect for human life.[41]
Other authors who have used this subject matter include:
- .
- Mother of Storms (1994) by John Barnes describes a catastrophic, rapid climate and weather change brought on by a nuclear explosion releasing clathrate compounds from the ocean floor, based on the clathrate gun hypothesis.
- The Swarm (2004) by Frank Schätzing. The book follows an ensemble of protagonists who are investigating what at first appear to be freak events related to the world's oceans. Seemingly unrelated events like the destabilization of the continental shelf resulting in a megatsunami, whales attacking a commercial freighter, and an outbreak of an epidemic caused by contaminated lobsters are revealed to be caused by an unknown submarine species trying to defend the oceans against human influence.[42]
- Far North (2009) by Marcel Theroux, in which the world is largely uninhabitable due to climate change. However, the novel implies that scientists got it wrong and that it was our actions combating global warming that irrevocably altered the climate.
- Arctic Drift (2008) by Clive Cussler and Dirk Cussler. A thriller involving attempts to reverse global warming, a possible war between the United States and Canada, and "a mysterious silvery mineral traced to a long-ago expedition in search of the fabled Northwest Passage."[43]
- Devolution of a Species by M.E. Ellington focuses on the Gaia hypothesis, and describes the Earth as a single living organism fighting back against humankind.[44][non-primary source needed]
- UK has just begun carbon rationing. The story is told in diary form by Laura Brown, a teenager living in Londonin the aftermath of the Great Storm.
- effects of global warming on the monarch butterfly.[45]
- Norwegian author Maja Lunde has released a "Climate Quartet" of novels, beginning with Bienes histore (The History of Bees) in 2015, which examines pollinator decline through a number of human storylines throughout history, followed by The End of the Ocean (2017), Przewalski's Horse (2019) and an upcoming fourth instalment.[46][47]
- The Overstory (2018) by Richard Powers, which won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. The novel revolves around nine disparate characters with close associations to individual trees, that come together to address deforestation.[48]
- The New Wilderness (2020) by Diane Cook is set in North America where climate change has affected the natural environment. It was shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize.[49]
- Bewilderment (2021) by Richard Powers was shortlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize. It was also longlisted for the 2021 National Book Award for Fiction.[50] It was selected by Oprah Winfrey as part of Oprah's Book Club on 28 September 2021.[51]
- Rajat Chaudhuri’s novel, The Butterfly Effect, is a dystopian cli-fi with thriller undercurrents that deals with genetic engineering, scientific experiments gone wrong and the effect of intertwined disasters[52]. This book has been listed by Book Riot as one of "50 Must-Read Eco Disasters In Fiction"[53].
Description of apocalyptic scenarios
"
Octavia E. Butler's Parable of the Sower (1993) imagines a near-future for the United States where climate change, wealth inequality, and corporate greed cause apocalyptic chaos. Here, and in sequel Parable of the Talents (1998), Butler dissects how instability and political demagoguery exacerbate society's underlying cruelty (especially with regards to racism and sexism) and also explores themes of survival and resilience.[56][57] Butler wrote the novel "thinking about the future, thinking about the things that we're doing now and the kind of future we're buying for ourselves, if we're not careful."[58]
Margaret Atwood explored the subject in her dystopian trilogy Oryx and Crake (2003), The Year of the Flood (2009) and MaddAddam (2013).[59] In Oryx and Crake, Atwood presents a world where "social inequality, genetic technology and catastrophic climate change, has finally culminated in some apocalyptic event".[60]
Other examples
- Heat (1977), by Arthur Herzog, US[61]
- The Sea and Summer [Drowning Towers] (1987), by George Turner, Australia
- The Crystal World (1988), by J. G. Ballard, UK
- The Ice People (1998) and The Flood (2004), Magee Gee, US
- Earth (1990), David Brin, US
- A Friend of the Earth (2000), T.C. Boyle, US
- Floodland (2001) and Aurora (2011), Marcus Sedgwick, US
- Exodus (2002) and sequels, Julie Bertagna, US
- Flood (2008) and Ark (2009), Stephen Baxter, US
- The Windup Girl (2009),[32] Ship Breaker (2010), The Drowned Cities (2012), The Water Knife (2015) and Tool of War (2017), Paolo Bacigalupi, US
- Empire Builders (2011), Ben Bova, US
- 2312 (2012), Kim Stanley Robinson, US
- Odds Against Tomorrow (2013), Nathaniel Rich, US
- The Bone Clocks (2014), David Mitchell, UK
- The Collapse of Western Civilization (2014), by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, Columbia University Press, US
- Memory of Water (2015), Emmi Itäranta, Finland
- Gold Fame Citrus (2015), Claire Vaye Watkins, US
- American War (2017), Omar El Akkad, US
- The Water Cure (2018), Sophie Mackintosh, UK
- The Last Children of Tokyo (The Emissary) (2018), Yoko Tawada, Germany/Japan
- The City in the Middle of the Night (2019), by Charlie Jane Anders
- Gun Island (2019) by Amitav Ghosh[62]
- The Wall (2019), by John Lanchester
- The Ministry for the Future (2020), by Kim Stanley Robinson
- A Children's Bible (2020) by Lydia Millet
- Migrations (2020) by Charlotte McConaghy[63]
- Diatomea (2022), by Núria Perpinyà
- Depart, Depart (2020) by Sim Kern
- 470 (2020) by Linda Woodrow
- Spellcasters: A Novel (2023), by Rajat Chaudhuri, India[64]
Anthologies and collections
- Welcome to the Greenhouse (2011) US edited by Gordon Van Gelder
- Loosed Upon the World: The Saga Anthology of Climate Fiction (2015) US edited by John Joseph Adams
- Drowned Worlds (2016) UK edited by Jonathan Strahan
- Possible Solutions (2017) US by Helen Phillips – Many of the short stories concern climate change.
- Author and editor Bruce Meyer and creative writing professor at Georgian College edited a 2017 anthology of stories about "changing ocean conditions, the widening disappearance of species, genetically modified organisms, increasing food shortages, mass migrations of refugees, and the hubris behind our provoking Mother Earth herself", which he labels as "cli-fi". The anthology includes works by George McWhirter, Richard Van Camp, Holly Schofield, Linda Rogers, Sean Virgo, Rati Mehrotra, Geoffrey W. Cole, Phil Dwyer, Kate Story, Leslie Goodreid, Nina Munteanu, Halli Villegas, John Oughton, Frank Westcott, Wendy Bone, Peter Timmerman, and Lynn Hutchinson-Lee.[65]
- Meteotopia - Futures of Climate (In)Justice (2022) Collection of short stories on climate and environment by authors of the Global South.[29]
Influence
Many journalists, literary critics, and scholars have speculated about the potential influence of climate fiction on the beliefs of its readers. To date, three empirical studies have examined this question.
A controlled experiment found that reading climate fiction short stories "had small but significant positive effects on several important beliefs and attitudes about global warming – observed immediately after participants read the stories", though "these effects diminished to statistical nonsignificance after a one-month interval". However, the authors note that "the effects of a single exposure in an artificial setting may represent a lower bound of the real-world effects. Reading climate fiction in the real world often involves multiple exposures and longer narratives", such as novels, "which may result in larger and longer-lasting impacts".[66]
A survey of readers found that readers of climate fiction "are younger, more liberal, and more concerned about climate change than nonreaders", and that climate fiction "reminds concerned readers of the severity of climate change while impelling them to imagine environmental futures and consider the impact of climate change on human and nonhuman life. However, the actions that resulted from readers' heightened consciousness reveal that awareness is only as valuable as the cultural messages about possible actions to take that are in circulation. Moreover, the responses of some readers suggest that works of climate fiction might lead some people to associate climate change with intensely negative emotions, which could prove counterproductive to efforts at environmental engagement or persuasion."[67]
Finally, an empirical study focused on the popular novel The Water Knife found that cautionary climate fiction set in a dystopic future can be effective at educating readers about climate injustice and leading readers to empathize with the victims of climate change, including environmental migrants. However, its results suggest that dystopic climate narratives might lead to support for reactionary responses to climate change. Based on this result, it cautioned that "not all climate fiction is progressive", despite the hopes of many authors, critics, and readers.[68]
See also
- Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction
- Climate apocalypse
- Ecofiction
- Climate change in popular culture
- Media coverage of climate change
- Mundane science fiction
- Petrofiction
- Public opinion on climate change
- Solarpunk
- Utopian and dystopian fiction
References
- ^ a b c d e Glass, Rodge (31 May 2013). "Global Warning: The Rise of 'Cli-fi'" retrieved 3 March 2016
- ^ a b Plantz, Kyle. "As the weather shifts, 'cli-fi' takes root as a new literary genre". news.trust.org. Reuters. Retrieved 15 February 2022.
- ^ a b "So Hot Right Now: Has Climate Change Created A New Literary Genre?". NPR.org. Retrieved 5 February 2019.
- ^ a b "Dune, climate fiction pioneer: The ecological lessons of Frank Herbert's sci-fi masterpiece were ahead of its time". Salon. 14 August 2015. Retrieved 29 October 2021.
- ^ Rothman, Joshua (31 January 2022). "Can Science Fiction Wake Us Up to Our Climate Reality?". The New Yorker. Retrieved 24 December 2022.
- ^ Pérez-Peña, Richard (1 April 2014). "College Classes Use Arts to Brace for Climate Change". The New York Times. p. A12. Retrieved 31 March 2015.
- ^ Tuhus-Dubrow, Rebecca (Summer 2013). "Cli-Fi: Birth of a Genre". Dissent. Retrieved 23 March 2015.
- ^ "Cli-Fi Is Real". HuffPost. 30 October 2014. Retrieved 15 February 2022.
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- ^ Evans, Arthur B. (March 1995). "The 'New' Jules Verne". Science-Fiction Studies. XXII:1 (65): 35–46. Archived from the original on 20 August 2020. Retrieved 31 March 2015.
Taves, Brian (March 1997). "Jules Verne's Paris in the Twentieth Century". Science Fiction Studies. 24, Part 1 (71). - ISBN 9780819574275.
- ^ Asimov, Isaac (1974). Before the Golden Age. Fawcett Crest. p. 40.
- ^ Litt, Toby (21 January 2009). "The best of JG Ballard". The Guardian.
- ^ Milicia, Joe (December 1985). "Dry Thoughts in a Dry Season". Riverside Quarterly. 7 (4). Retrieved 30 January 2021.
- ^ Lucas, Julian (8 March 2021). "How Octavia E. Butler Reimagines Sex and Survival". The New Yorker. Retrieved 22 August 2021.
- ^ Aguirre, Abby (26 July 2017). "Octavia Butler's Prescient Vision of a Zealot Elected to 'Make America Great Again'". The New Yorker. Retrieved 22 August 2021.
- ^ Butler, Octavia (1995). "Decades ago, Octavia Butler saw a 'grim future' of climate denial and income inequality". 40 Acres and a Microchip (conference) (Interview). Interviewed by Julie Dash. Corinne Segal. Digital Diaspora, UK: LitHub. Retrieved 22 August 2021.
- ^ Weart, Spencer (2003). "The Carbon Dioxide Greenhouse Effect". The Discovery of Global Warming. Archived from the original on 11 November 2016. Retrieved 3 April 2015.
- ^ Wilson, Elizabeth K. (4 June 2001). "Novelist Combines CO2 and Romance". Chemical & Engineering News.
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- ^ "Novel on global warming gets some scientists burned up". The Seattle Times. 4 February 2005. Retrieved 15 February 2022.
- ^ "Crichton's conspiracy theory". 7 October 2005. Retrieved 15 February 2022.
- ^ Crum, Maddie (12 November 2014). "Margaret Atwood: 'I Don't Call It Climate Change. I Call It The Everything Change'". The Huffington Post.
- ^ a b "Fiction Book Review: Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood". Publishers Weekly. 1 May 2003.
- ^ Ghosh, Amitav (28 October 2016). "Amitav Ghosh: where is the fiction about climate change?". the Guardian. Retrieved 15 February 2022.
- ^ Sullivan, Jane (20 March 2015). "Turning Pages: How climate-change fiction is heating up". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 15 February 2022.
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- ^ a b "Has African climate fiction already shown us the future?". African Arguments. 12 October 2023. Retrieved 12 October 2023.
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- ^ Canavan, Gerry (11 March 2017). "Utopia in the Time of Trump". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 11 March 2017.
- ^ a b "Five of the best climate-change novels". The Guardian. 19 January 2017. Retrieved 11 June 2021.
- ^ "Why the cultural response to global warming makes for a heated debate". The Independent. 11 June 2014. Retrieved 11 June 2021.
- ^ "George Monbiot: Civilisation ends with a shutdown of human concern. Are we there already?". The Guardian. 30 October 2007. Retrieved 11 June 2021.
- ISBN 978-0-06-621413-9. First Edition
- ^ Michael Crichton (25 January 2005). "The Case for Skepticism in Global Warming" (PDF). Michael Crichton The official site. Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 February 2014. Retrieved 13 April 2013. Speech at the National Press Club, Washington, D.C. (restored from archived copy)
- ^ Michael Crichton (28 September 2005). "Statement of Michael Crichton, M.D. – The Role of Science in Environmental Policy-Making". U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Archived from the original on 12 January 2013. Retrieved 13 April 2013. Testimony before the Committee on Environment and Public Works, Washington, D.C.
- ^ Evans, Harold (7 October 2005). "Crichton's conspiracy theory". BBC News. London. Retrieved 16 November 2007.
- ^ Mooney, Chris (6 February 2005). "Checking Crichton's Footnotes". Boston Globe.
- ^ Flood, Alison (4 August 2009). "McEwan's new novel will feature media hate figure". The Guardian.
- ^ "The Stone Gods – Jeanette Winterson". Archived from the original on 5 October 2013. Retrieved 31 March 2015.
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- ^ "Arctic Drift". BookBrowse. Retrieved 14 April 2009.
- ^ "Martyn Ellington". Martyn Ellington.
- ^ Walsh, Bryan (8 November 2012). "Barbara Kingsolver on Flight Behavior and Why Climate Change Is Part of Her Story". Time. Retrieved 23 March 2015.
- ^ Latham, Tori (14 September 2017). "A Novel That Imagines a World Without Bees". The Atlantic. Retrieved 10 June 2021.
- ^ "How COVID influenced author Maja Lunde's work". Deutsche Welle. 11 March 2021. Retrieved 10 June 2021.
- ^ Smith, Rosa Inocencio (16 April 2019). "Writing the Pulitzer-Winning 'The Overstory' Changed Richard Powers's Life". The Atlantic. Retrieved 14 June 2021.
- ^ Obreht, Téa (4 September 2020). "The New Wilderness by Diane Cook review – a dazzling debut". The Guardian. Retrieved 9 June 2021.
- ^ "National Book Awards 2021". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 14 October 2021.
- ^ Schaub, Michael (28 September 2021). "Oprah Picks 'Bewilderment' for Book Club". Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved 21 October 2021.
- ^ Basu, Priyadarshi (5 January 2019). "How horribly wrong can experiments in science go? This novel of ideas explores the possibilities". Scroll.in. Retrieved 19 April 2024.
- ^ Gooding-Call, Anna (22 April 2019). "50 Must-Read Novels About Eco-Disasters". BOOK RIOT. Retrieved 19 April 2024.
- ^ Litt, Toby (21 January 2009). "The best of JG Ballard". The Guardian.
- ^ Milicia, Joe (December 1985). "Dry Thoughts in a Dry Season". Riverside Quarterly. 7 (4). Retrieved 30 January 2021.
- ^ Lucas, Julian (8 March 2021). "How Octavia E. Butler Reimagines Sex and Survival". The New Yorker. Retrieved 22 August 2021.
- ^ Aguirre, Abby (26 July 2017). "Octavia Butler's Prescient Vision of a Zealot Elected to 'Make America Great Again'". The New Yorker. Retrieved 22 August 2021.
- ^ Butler, Octavia (1995). "Decades ago, Octavia Butler saw a 'grim future' of climate denial and income inequality". 40 Acres and a Microchip (conference) (Interview). Interviewed by Julie Dash. Corinne Segal. Digital Diaspora, UK: LitHub. Retrieved 22 August 2021.
- ^ Crum, Maddie (12 November 2014). "Margaret Atwood: 'I Don't Call It Climate Change. I Call It The Everything Change'". The Huffington Post.
- ^ "Fiction Book Review: Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood". Publishers Weekly. 1 May 2003.
- ISBN 9780671225322.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 9 March 2022.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 9 June 2021.
- ^ Chaudhuri, Rajat (20 November 2023). "Alternative reality: Man wakes up in desert town and is drawn into a plan to kidnap a billionaire". Scroll.in. Retrieved 19 April 2024.
- ^ Meyer, Bruce. Cli-fi: Canadian Tales of Climate Change. Exile Editions, 2017
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- .
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Further reading
- Canavan, Gerry; ISBN 978-0-8195-7428-2.
- ISBN 978-1-78962-752-7.
- Mehnert, Antonia (2016). Climate Change Fictions: Representations of Global Warming in American Literature. Springer. ISBN 978-3-319-40337-3.
- Schneider-Mayerson, Matthew (2017). "Climate Change Fiction". In Greenwald Smith, Rachel (ed.). American Literature in Transition, 2000–2010. Cambridge University Press. pp. 309–321. ISBN 978-1-108-54865-6.
- Trexler, Adam (2015). Anthropocene Fictions: The Novel in a Time of Climate Change. University of Virginia Press. ISBN 978-0-8139-3693-2.
- ISBN 978-0-226-32317-6.
- Streeby, Shelley (2018). Imagining the Future of Climate Change: World-Making Through Science Fiction and Activism. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-29444-8.
- California, CLI-FI, and Climate Crisis: Special Issue of Western American Literature Vol. 56, nos. 3-4, Fall-Winter 2021. University of Nebraska Press.
External links
- Cli-Fi in American Studies: A Research Bibliography
- Climate Fiction in English: Oxford Research Encyclopedia
- Burning Worlds Column in the Chicago Review of Books
- Stories to save the world: the new wave of climate fiction, essay by Claire Armitstead for The Guardian
- Climate Change Dystopia, discusses current popularity of climate change dystopia.