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'''Climate fiction''' (sometimes shortened to '''cli-fi''') is ] that deals with ].<ref name=":2">Glass, Rodge (31 May 2013). "" retrieved 3 March 2016</ref> Generally ] in nature but inspired by ], works of climate fiction may take place in ], in the ], or in ] experiencing climate change. The genre frequently includes ] and ], imagining the potential futures based on how humanity responds to the ]. Climate fiction typically involves ] climate change and other environmental issues as opposed to weather and disaster more generally. Technologies such as ] or ] often feature prominently in works exploring their impacts on society. | |||
The term "cli-fi" is generally credited to freelance news reporter and climate activist Dan Bloom, who coined it in either 2007 or 2008.<ref name=":2" /><ref name="AsTheWeatherShifts">{{Cite web|last=Plantz|first=Kyle |agency=Reuters|title=As the weather shifts, 'cli-fi' takes root as a new literary genre|url=https://news.trust.org/item/20150410094252-x7we9/|access-date=15 February 2022|website=news.trust.org}}</ref> References to "climate fiction" appear to have begun in the 2010s, although the term has also been retroactively applied to a number of works.<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":1" /> Pioneering 20th century authors of climate fiction include ] and ], while dystopian fiction from ] is often cited as an immediate precursor to the genre's emergence. Since 2010, prominent cli-fi authors include ], ], ], and ]. The publication of Robinson's '']'' 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.<ref name=Rothman>{{cite magazine |last=Rothman |first=Joshua |date= 31 January 2022|title=Can Science Fiction Wake Us Up to Our Climate Reality? |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/31/can-science-fiction-wake-us-up-to-our-climate-reality-kim-stanley-robinson |magazine=The New Yorker |location= |publisher= |access-date=24 December 2022}}</ref> | |||
University courses on literature and environmental issues may include climate change fiction in their ].<ref>{{cite news|last1=Pérez-Peña|first1=Richard|title=College Classes Use Arts to Brace for Climate Change|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/01/education/using-the-arts-to-teach-how-to-prepare-for-climate-crisis.html|access-date=31 March 2015|work=]|date=1 April 2014 |page=A12}}</ref> This body of literature has been discussed by a variety of publications, including '']'', '']'', and '']'' magazine, among other international media outlets.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Tuhus-Dubrow|first1=Rebecca|title=Cli-Fi: Birth of a Genre|url=http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/cli-fi-birth-of-a-genre|access-date=23 March 2015|work=]|date=Summer 2013}}</ref> Lists of climate fiction have been compiled by organizations including Grist, Outside Magazine, and the New York Public Library.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Compelling Climate Fiction To Read Before It Becomes Nonfiction |url=https://www.nypl.org/blog/2023/09/08/compelling-climate-fiction-read-it-becomes-nonfiction |access-date=2024-05-20 |website=The New York Public Library |language=en}}</ref> Academics and critics study the potential impact of fiction on the broader field of ]. | |||
== Terminology == | |||
'''Climate fiction''' or '''climate-change fiction''', sometimes abbreviated to '''cli-fi''', is a literary and movie genre that describes novels and films about ] and ] issues.<ref name="NYT-20141209-JM">{{cite news |last=Mark |first=Jason |title=Climate Fiction Fantasy: What 'Interstellar' and 'Snowpiercer' Got Wrong |url=http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/10/opinion/what-interstellar-and-snowpiercer-got-wrong.html |date=9 December 2014 |work=] |at=The Opinion Pages, p. A35 |accessdate=11 December 2014 }}</ref> Climate change themes are found within many genres and may be set in the past, present, or future. Some movies and novels raise awareness about the major threats that climate change and global warming present to life on Earth, although not all of them have that kind of impact and are released or published merely as entertainment. | |||
Bloom had used the term to describe his novella ''Polar City Red'', a post-apocalyptic story about ] in Alaska set in 2075, which was not commercially successful.<ref name=":2" /> It later came into mainstream media use in April 2013, when '']'' and ] ran stories about a new literary movement of novels and films that dealt with human-induced ].<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3">{{Cite news|title=So Hot Right Now: Has Climate Change Created A New Literary Genre?|language=en|website=NPR.org|url=https://www.npr.org/2013/04/20/176713022/so-hot-right-now-has-climate-change-created-a-new-literary-genre|access-date=5 February 2019}}</ref> Bloom had been critical of the lack of mention of his role in coining the term in these features.<ref name=":2" /> Scott Thill wrote in '']'' in 2014 that he had popularised the term in 2009, inspired by the mixture of science and fiction in ]'s film '']''.<ref>{{Cite web|date=30 October 2014|title=Cli-Fi Is Real|url=https://www.huffpost.com/entry/cli-fi-is-real_b_6072518|access-date=15 February 2022|website=HuffPost|language=en}}</ref> | |||
==History== | |||
A global community of novelists, journalists, bloggers, and activists have explored this genre, including Canadian speculative fiction novelist ],<ref>{{cite web|last1=Blunt|first1=Tom|title=Margaret Atwood at ASU: 'Climate Change' or 'Everything Change'?|url=http://www.wordandfilm.com/2014/11/margaret-atwood-asu-climate-change-or-everything-change/|website=Word & Film|accessdate=23 March 2015}}</ref> American cli-fi activist Dan Bloom,<ref>{{cite web|title=Cli Fi|url=http://pcillu101.blogspot.ca/|accessdate=23 March 2015}}</ref> British cli-fi novelist Sarah Holding,<ref>{{cite news|last1=Holding|first1=Sarah|title=What is cli-fi? And why I write it|url=http://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2015/feb/06/what-is-cli-fi-sarah-holding|accessdate=23 March 2015|work=The Guardian|date=6 February 2015}}</ref> American literary novelist ],<ref>{{cite news|last1=Walsh|first1=Bryan|title=Barbara Kingsolver on Flight Behavior and Why Climate Change Is Part of Her Story|url=http://entertainment.time.com/2012/11/08/barbara-kingsolver-on-flight-behavior-climate-change-and-the-end-of-doubt/|accessdate=23 March 2015|work=TIME|date=8 November 2012}}</ref> Canadian cli-fi novelist Hamish MacDonald (Finitude, 2010), Australian cli-fi novelist Alice Robinson (Ancho Point,. 2015), American sci-fi novelist ],<ref>{{cite news|last1=Beauchamp|first1=Scott|title=In 300 Years, Kim Stanley Robinson's Science Fiction May Not Be Fiction|url=http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/04/in-300-years-kim-stanley-robinsons-science-fiction-may-not-be-fiction/274392/|accessdate=23 March 2015|work=The Atlantic|date=1 April 2013}}</ref> American media critic Scott Thill,<ref>{{cite news|last1=Thill|first1=Scott|title=Cli-Fi Is Real|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-thill/cli-fi-is-real_b_6072518.html|accessdate=23 March 2015|work=Huffington Post|date=30 October 2014}}</ref> American journalist Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow,<ref>{{cite news|last1=Tuhus-Dubrow|first1=Rebecca|title=Cli-Fi: Birth of a Genre|url=http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/cli-fi-birth-of-a-genre|accessdate=23 March 2015|work=Dissent|date=Summer 2013}}</ref> Canadian-American novelist Mary Woodbury,<ref>{{cite web|title=Eco-fiction|url=http://eco-fiction.com|accessdate=23 March 2015}}</ref> and Canadian academic and genre expert Lynn Wytenbroek. | |||
]'s 1889 novel '']'' imagines climate change due to ].<ref>{{cite journal | url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14787318.2022.2144339 | doi=10.1080/14787318.2022.2144339 | title=No Earth from Nowhere: Jules Verne's Critique of Terraforming | date=2022 | last1=Egholm Lund | first1=Sebastian | journal=Dix-Neuf | volume=26 | issue=3 | pages=169–185 | s2cid=253570300 }}</ref> In his posthumous '']'', written in 1883 and set during the 1960s, the eponymous city experiences a sudden drop in temperature, which lasts for three years.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Arthur B. |last=Evans |title=The 'New' Jules Verne |journal=Science-Fiction Studies |volume=XXII:1 |issue=65 |date=March 1995 |pages=35–46 |url=http://jv.gilead.org.il/evans/thenewjv.html |access-date=31 March 2015 |archive-date=20 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200820112935/http://jv.gilead.org.il/evans/thenewjv.html |url-status=dead }}<br />{{cite journal |first=Brian |last=Taves |title=Jules Verne's Paris in the Twentieth Century |journal=Science Fiction Studies |issue=71 |volume=24, Part 1 |date=March 1997 |url=http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/review_essays/taves71.htm }}</ref> | |||
]'s 1933 serialized novel '']'' has been described as an exemplary work of ecological science fiction from the golden age.<ref>{{cite book |title=Green Planets: Ecology and Science Fiction |editor-first1=Gerry|editor-last1=Canavan |editor-first2=Kim Stanley|editor-last2=Robinson |date=15 April 2014 |publisher=Wesleyan University Press |isbn=9780819574275}}</ref> It tells the story a man who awakes from ] in various future eras and learns about the destruction to the Earth's climate, caused by overuse of fossil fuels, ], and ]. People of the future refer to 20th century humans as "the wasters". They have abandoned over-industrialization and ] to live in small self-sufficient villages based around genetically engineered trees that provide all their necessities. ] credited ''The Man Who Awoke'' for bringing the "]" to his attention 40 years before it became common knowledge in the 1970s.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Asimov |first1=Isaac |title=Before the Golden Age |date=1974 |publisher=Fawcett Crest |page=40}}</ref> | |||
== History and origin == | |||
In the past, prior to current understandings of man-made global warming, authors such as JG Ballard, John Wyndham and Jules Verne delved into climate themes. In modern times, writers such as David Brin, John Atcheson and Liz Jensen have novels that could be deemed as working the climate-change fiction genre. When scientists began to develop current theories about anthropogenic global warming (AGW), modern climate-change fiction was born.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Langford|first1=David|title=Climate Change|url=http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/climate_change|accessdate=23 March 2015|work=The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction|publisher=Gollancz|date=26 February 2015}}</ref> An early example might be, for academic purposes only, Arthur Herzog's ''Heat,'' although that novel was written as a sci fi novel, published as a sci novel and read as a sci fi novel and never called a climate fiction novel until recently when climate fiction fans advocated for classifying it that way. <ref>{{cite news|last1=Andersen|first1=Gregers|title=Cli-fi: a Short Essay on its Worlds and its Importance|url=http://eco-fiction.com/cli-fi-short-essay-worlds-importance/|accessdate=23 March 2015|work=Eco-fiction|date=2015}}</ref>§ | |||
Several well-known ]n works by British author ] deal with climate-related natural disasters. In '']'' (1961), civilization is devastated by persistent hurricane-force winds, and '']'' (1962) describes a future of melted ice-caps and ] caused by ].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jan/22/1000-novels-jg-ballard|title=The best of JG Ballard|first=Toby|last=Litt|date=21 January 2009|work=The Guardian}}</ref> In '']'' (1964, later retitled ''The Drought'') his climate catastrophe is human-made, a ] due to disruption of the precipitation cycle by ].<ref>{{Cite journal|title=Dry Thoughts in a Dry Season|first=Joe|last=Milicia|journal=Riverside Quarterly|date=December 1985|volume=7|number=4|url=http://www.jgballard.ca/criticism/milicia_drought1985.html|access-date=30 January 2021}}</ref> | |||
== The "cli-fi" term == | |||
The '''cli-fi''' term is a shortening of the "climate fiction" term and has taken on a meaning of its own now, beyond genre. Outside its use sometimes as a nickname for '''climate fiction,''' it has become a buzzword that signifies a way of seeing the world we live in now, where climate change and global warming are major issues of the day worldwide. In a recent broadcast on climate issues on Minnesota Public Radio, for example, started off this way: ''Cli-Fi, meet reality. Call it the The Day After Tomorrow scenario. Scientists have been concerned that a freshening of seawater in the North Atlantic from increased meltwater in Greenland could cause changes to critical ocean circulation patterns that can change weather and climates. Now a new study in Nature Climate Change finds that changes in Atlantic Ocean currents are very likely already underway.'' The use of the cli-fi term this way -- "Cli-fi, meet reality" -- signifies how the buzzword has caught on outside the parameters of genre or academic studies. An upcoming four-part series from Reuters News Bureau in the UK, to be published the first week of April, will explain this more in depth, quoting a variety of sources working the cli-fi beat. § | |||
]'s 1965 science fiction novel ], set on a ], has been proposed as a pioneer of climate fiction for its themes of ecology and environmentalism.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|date=14 August 2015|title=''Dune'', climate fiction pioneer: The ecological lessons of Frank Herbert's sci-fi masterpiece were ahead of its time|url=https://www.salon.com/2015/08/13/dune_climate_fiction_pioneer_the_ecological_lessons_of_frank_herberts_sci_fi_masterpiece_were_ahead_of_its_time/|access-date=29 October 2021|website=Salon|language=en}}</ref> | |||
== The "sci-fi" term == | |||
Forrest J Ackerman used the term sci-fi (analogous to the then-trendy "hi-fi") at UCLA in 1954. As science fiction entered popular culture, writers and fans active in the field came to associate the term with low-budget, low-tech "B-movies" and with low-quality pulp science fiction. By the 1970s, critics within the field such as Terry Carr and Damon Knight were using sci-fi to distinguish hack-work from serious science fiction, and around 1978, Susan Wood and others introduced the pronunciation "skiffy." Peter Nicholls writes that "SF" (or "sf") is "the preferred abbreviation within the community of sf writers and readers." David Langford's monthly fanzine Ansible includes a regular section "As Others See Us" which offers numerous examples of "sci-fi" being used in a pejorative sense by people outside the genre. | |||
]'s ''] (''1993) imagines a near-future for the United States where climate change, wealth inequality, and corporate greed cause apocalyptic chaos. Here, and in sequel ] (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.<ref>{{cite magazine|last=Lucas|first=Julian|date=8 March 2021|title=How Octavia E. Butler Reimagines Sex and Survival|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/03/15/how-octavia-e-butler-reimagines-sex-and-survival|magazine=]|access-date=22 August 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine|last=Aguirre|first=Abby|date=26 July 2017|title=Octavia Butler's Prescient Vision of a Zealot Elected to 'Make America Great Again'|url=https://www.newyorker.com/books/second-read/octavia-butlers-prescient-vision-of-a-zealot-elected-to-make-america-great-again|magazine=The New Yorker|access-date=22 August 2021}}</ref> 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."<ref>{{cite interview|last=Butler|first=Octavia|interviewer=]|title=Decades ago, Octavia Butler saw a 'grim future' of climate denial and income inequality.|url=https://lithub.com/decades-ago-octavia-butler-saw-a-grim-future-of-climate-denial-and-income-inequality|access-date=22 August 2021|work=40 Acres and a Microchip (conference)|publisher=LitHub|location=Digital Diaspora, UK|date=1995|author-link=Octavia E. Butler|others=Corinne Segal}}</ref> | |||
== Climate-change fiction in the classroom == | |||
As the genre gains widespread exposure in the media, via newspaper stories and book reviews, more and more universities are offering literature classes featuring novels and films with climate change themes. From Columbia University to Temple University, the genre is reaching into the academy by leaps and bounds.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Bloom|first1=Dan|title=‘Cli-Fi’ Reaches into Literature Classrooms Worldwide|url=http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/03/cli-fi-reaches-into-literature-classrooms-worldwide/|work=Inter Press Service News Agency|date=10 March 2015|accessdate=23 March 2015}}</ref> | |||
As ] of the effects of fossil fuel consumption and resulting ] entered the public and political arena as "]",<ref name="aiphistory">{{cite web |url=http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm |title=The Carbon Dioxide Greenhouse Effect |work=The Discovery of Global Warming |year=2003 |first=Spencer |last=Weart |access-date=3 April 2015 |archive-date=11 November 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161111201545/https://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref> human-caused climate change entered works of fiction. ]'s '']'' (2000) was an early example of a literary novel that "tells a story about the devastatingly serious issue of human-induced climate change", set in the 1980s and published before the term "cli-fi" was coined.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Wilson|first=Elizabeth K.|title=Novelist Combines CO2 and Romance|journal=]|date=4 June 2001}}</ref> ]'s '']'' (2004), a ], was a bestseller upon its release but was criticised by scientists for portraying climate change as "a vast pseudo-scientific hoax" and ] the scientific consensus on climate change.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Slovic|first=Scott|year=2008|title=Science, Eloquence, and the Asymmetry of Trust: What's at Stake in Climate Change Fiction|journal=Green Theory & Praxis: The Journal of Ecopedagogy|volume=4|issue=1|pages=100–112 |doi=10.3903/gtp.2008.1.6|issn=1941-0948}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|date=4 February 2005|title=Novel on global warming gets some scientists burned up|url=https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/books/novel-on-global-warming-gets-some-scientists-burned-up/|access-date=15 February 2022|website=]|language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|date=7 October 2005|title=Crichton's conspiracy theory|language=en-GB|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4319574.stm|access-date=15 February 2022}}</ref> ]'s novel ] (2019) is a ] novel written in Norwegian that weaves together environmental collapse with an allegory of ]. | |||
== Opposing viewpoints == | |||
Two popular websites offer students, university professors and academic researchers varied and opposing views of the issues: ''cli'' fi vs ''climate fiction.'' | |||
] described what he perceived as a lack of coverage of climate change in contemporary fiction as "]".]] | |||
One website, which is not a mere blog but a bondafide professionally curated website, takes an '''anti cli fi''' viewpoint and is called Eco Fiction. It was once called CliFiBooks but the owner decided that cli fi was no longer their specific interest anymore and shifted to a broader view of literary things. It archives hundreds of novels classified in the nature writing, eco fiction and sci fi genres in a very comprehensive manner, among other genres surveyed and discused, including '''climate-change fiction.''' | |||
]'s '']'' series is an often cited ] in ].]] | |||
The other website, called The Cli Fi Report, is also not a mere blog but a bondafide professionally curated website, and, like Eco Fiction, it is a website created by an IT guy, in this case for a five-year period beginning in early 2015 and continuing at least until 2020 and hopefully longer. The independent curator has assembled a long list of news articles and academic links to '''cli fi''' items in order to provide a easy to browse link farm for students writing term papers, professors preparing cli fi literature classes and academics writing learned papers about the term. | |||
] explored the subject in her dystopian trilogy '']'' (2003), '']'' (2009) and '']'' (2013).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/12/margaret-atwood-interview_n_6141840.html|title=Margaret Atwood: 'I Don't Call It Climate Change. I Call It The Everything Change'|first1=Maddie |last1=Crum|date=12 November 2014|work=The Huffington Post}}</ref> In ''Oryx and Crake'', Atwood presents a world where "social inequality, genetic technology and catastrophic climate change, has finally culminated in some apocalyptic event".<ref name="PubWeekly">{{cite web|url=http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-385-50385-3|title=Fiction Book Review: Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood|date=1 May 2003|work=Publishers Weekly}}</ref> The novel's protagonist, Jimmy, lives in a "world split between corporate compounds", ] that have grown into ]s and pleeblands, which are "unsafe, populous and polluted" urban areas where the working classes live.<ref name="PubWeekly" /> | |||
In 2016, Indian writer ] expressed concern that climate change had "a much smaller presence in contemporary literary fiction than it does even in public discussion". In '']'', 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."<ref name=":4">{{Cite web|last=Ghosh|first=Amitav|date=28 October 2016|title=Amitav Ghosh: where is the fiction about climate change?|url=http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/28/amitav-ghosh-where-is-the-fiction-about-climate-change-|access-date=15 February 2022|website=the Guardian|language=en}}</ref> In ''The Anthropocene Unconscious: Climate Catastrophe Culture'', critic Mark Bould suggests the opposite when he argues that the "art and literature of our time is pregnant with catastrophe, with weather and water, wildness and weirdness."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bould |first1=Mark |title=The Anthropocene Unconscious: Climate Catastrophe Culture |date=2021 |publisher=Verso Books |isbn=9781839760471 |url=https://www.google.se/books/edition/The_Anthropocene_Unconscious/Jy9GEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=The+Anthropocene+Unconscious:+Climate+Catastrophe+Culture&printsec=frontcover}}</ref> | |||
By the 2010s, climate fiction had attracted greater prominence and media attention.<ref name="AsTheWeatherShifts"/><ref>{{Cite web|last=Sullivan|first=Jane|date=20 March 2015|title=Turning Pages: How climate-change fiction is heating up|url=https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/turning-pages-how-climatechange-fiction-is-heating-up-20150315-143ckv.html|access-date=15 February 2022|website=The Sydney Morning Herald|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite magazine|last=Tonn|first=Shara|title=Cli-Fi---That's Climate Fiction---Is the New Sci-Fi|language=en-US|magazine=]|url=https://www.wired.com/2015/07/cli-fi-thats-climate-fiction-new-sci-fi/|access-date=15 February 2022|issn=1059-1028}}</ref> Cultural critic Josephine Livingston at '']'' 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 ]'s '']'' to ]'s ''Odds Against Tomorrow'' as examples.<ref>{{Cite magazine|last=Livingstone|first=Jo|date=7 August 2020|title=How to Write About Climate Change|magazine=]|url=https://newrepublic.com/article/158838/write-climate-change|access-date=15 February 2022|issn=0028-6583}}</ref> | |||
In ], climate informed novels and short stories have been recently receiving attention as field of contemporary African literature. Books such as ''Eclipse our sins'', by ]; ''It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way'', by ] and ''Noor'', by ], have been highlighted as remarkable publications in the genre.<ref name="africanarguments.org">{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=12 October 2023|title=Has African climate fiction already shown us the future?|website=]|url=https://africanarguments.org/2023/10/has-african-climate-fiction-already-shown-us-the-future/|access-date=12 October 2023}}</ref> | |||
==Prominent examples== | |||
] under ] in AD2500.]] | |||
The popular science-fiction novelist ] has been writing on the theme for several decades, including his ''Science in the Capital'' trilogy, which is set in the near future and includes '']'' (2004), '']'' (2005), and '']'' (2007). Robert K. J. Killheffer in his review for '']'' said "''Forty Signs of Rain'' is a fascinating depiction of the workings of science and politics, and an urgent call to readers to confront the threat of climate change."<ref name="Killheffer">{{cite journal|last=Killheffer|first=Robert K. J.|date=October 2004|title=White Devils/The Zenith Angle/Forty Signs of Rain (Book)|journal=] |volume= 107|issue= 4/5|pages=39–46|issn=1095-8258}}</ref> Robinson's climate-themed novel, titled '']'', was published in March 2017.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/utopia-in-the-time-of-trump/ |title=Utopia in the Time of Trump|last=Canavan|first=Gerry|date=11 March 2017 |work=]|access-date=11 March 2017}}</ref> It gives a complex portrait of a coastal city that is partly underwater and yet has successfully adapted to climate change in its culture and ecology. Robinson's novel '']'', is set in the near future, and follows a subsidiary body, whose mission is to advocate for the world's future generations of citizens as if their rights are as valid as the present generation's. | |||
] | |||
British author ] used the setting of apocalyptic climate change in his early science fiction novels. In '']'' (1961), civilisation is reduced by persistent hurricane-force winds. '']'' (1962) describes a future of melted ice-caps and rising sea-levels, caused by solar radiation, creating a landscape mirroring the ] desires of the main characters. In '']'' (1964) a surrealistic psychological landscape is formed by drought due to industrial pollution disrupting the ] cycle. | |||
Similarly, '']'' (2006) by ] is set after an unspecified apocalypse or environmental catastrophe. It won the ] in 2007. Although it does not explicitly mention climate change, it has been listed by '']'' as one of the best climate change novels,<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|date=19 January 2017|title=Five of the best climate-change novels|url=http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2017/jan/19/five-of-the-best-climate-change-novels-cormac-mccarthy-margaret-atwood|access-date=11 June 2021|website=The Guardian|language=en}}</ref> and environmentalist ] has described it as "the most important environmental book ever written" for depicting a world without a ].<ref>{{Cite web|date=11 June 2014|title=Why the cultural response to global warming makes for a heated debate|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/why-the-cultural-response-to-global-warming-makes-for-a-heated-debate-9524081.html|access-date=11 June 2021|website=The Independent|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|date=30 October 2007|title=George Monbiot: Civilisation ends with a shutdown of human concern. Are we there already?|url=http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/oct/30/comment.books|access-date=11 June 2021|website=The Guardian|language=en}}</ref> | |||
The novel '']'' by ], published in December 2004, describes a conspiracy by scientists and others to create public panic about global warming.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Crichton |first=Michael |url=https://archive.org/details/stateoffearnove000cric/page/109 |title=State of Fear |publisher=] |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-06-621413-9 |location=New York |page=}} First Edition</ref> Crichton had publicly advocated "skepticism" of global warming.<ref name="Crichton01">{{cite web |author=Michael Crichton |author-link=Michael Crichton |date=25 January 2005 |title=The Case for Skepticism in Global Warming |url=http://www.pe.tamu.edu/DL_Program/graduate_seminar_series/Documents/MichaelCrichton_global%20warming.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140227175954/http://www.pe.tamu.edu/DL_Program/graduate_seminar_series/Documents/MichaelCrichton_global%20warming.pdf |archive-date=27 February 2014 |access-date=13 April 2013 |publisher=Michael Crichton The official site}} Speech at the National Press Club, Washington, D.C. (restored from archived copy)</ref><ref name="Crichton02">{{cite web |author=Michael Crichton |author-link=Michael Crichton |date=28 September 2005 |title=Statement of Michael Crichton, M.D. – The Role of Science in Environmental Policy-Making |url=http://www.epw.senate.gov/hearing_statements.cfm?id=246766 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130112214848/http://epw.senate.gov/hearing_statements.cfm?id=246766 |archive-date=12 January 2013 |access-date=13 April 2013 |publisher=U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works}} Testimony before the Committee on Environment and Public Works, Washington, D.C.</ref> His novel describes a group of ] attempting to create ]s to convince the public of the dangers of global warming. It is based upon the idea that there is a deliberately alarmist conspiracy behind ]. The book is critical of the ]. A critique in the BBC News pointed out that "Crichton's trade is to bring pleasurable terror to millions by spinning tales of science gone amok" and "To make sure you get his point, Crichton adds a 32-page footnote documenting his own conviction that global warming is an unscientific scare."<ref>{{cite news |last=Evans |first=Harold |date=2005-10-07 |title=Crichton's conspiracy theory |work=BBC News |location=London |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4319574.stm |access-date=2007-11-16}}</ref><ref name="Footnotes">{{cite news |last=Mooney |first=Chris |date=2005-02-06 |title=Checking Crichton's Footnotes |publisher=Boston Globe |url=http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2005/02/06/checking_crichtons_footnotes/}}</ref> | |||
]'s '']'' (2010) follows the story of a physicist who discovers a way to fight climate change after managing to derive power from artificial photosynthesis.<ref>{{cite news|last=Flood|first=Alison|date=4 August 2009|title=McEwan's new novel will feature media hate figure|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/aug/04/ianmcewan-fiction|newspaper=The Guardian}}</ref> ] (2007) by ] 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.<ref>{{cite web|title=The Stone Gods – Jeanette Winterson|url=http://www.jeanettewinterson.com/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=471|access-date=31 March 2015|archive-date=5 October 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131005222221/http://www.jeanettewinterson.com/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=471|url-status=dead}}</ref> | |||
Other authors who have used this subject matter include: | |||
* '']'' (1991) by ], ], and ]. Set in North America in the "near future", a radical ] ] movement dramatically cuts greenhouse gas emissions, only to find that manmade global warming was staving off a new ]. | |||
* <!-- *'']'' (2004), '']'' (2005), and '']'' (2007) comprise the ] series, a ] ] by ]. Set primarily in ], ] causes weather disasters in the US capitol and flooding of the fictional island nation of Khembalung. Main characters are American scientists, politicians, and ] monks.<ref></ref><ref></ref> -->'']'' (1994) by ] describes a catastrophic, rapid climate and weather change brought on by a nuclear explosion releasing ]s from the ocean floor, based on the ]. | |||
* '']'' (2004) by ]. 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.<ref>{{cite book|first1=Andrew|last1=Milner|first2=J.R.|last2=Burgmann|date=May 2020|title=Science Fiction and Climate Change: A Sociological Approach |publisher=Liverpool University Press |pages=99–121 |chapter=The Critical Dystopia in Climate Fiction |isbn= 9781789621723 |name-list-style=amp}}</ref> | |||
<!-- *'']'' (2007) by ]. This novel opens on the 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.<ref> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131005222221/http://www.jeanettewinterson.com/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=471 |date=5 October 2013 }} Retrieved on 2 January 2010</ref> --> | |||
* ''Far North'' (2009) by ], 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. | |||
* '']'' (2008) by ] and Dirk Cussler. A ] involving attempts to reverse global warming, a possible war between the ] and ], and "a mysterious silvery mineral traced to a long-ago expedition in search of the fabled Northwest Passage."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bookbrowse.com/bb_briefs/detail/index.cfm?ezine_preview_number=3195 |website=BookBrowse |title=Arctic Drift |accessdate=2009-04-14}}</ref> | |||
* ''Devolution of a Species'' by M.E. Ellington focuses on the ], and describes the Earth as a single living organism fighting back against humankind.<ref>{{cite web|title=Martyn Ellington|url=https://www.martynellington.com/books|website=Martyn Ellington}}</ref>{{Primary source inline|date=June 2021}} | |||
* '']'' (2009) by ] is set in a future where power is scarce and the ] has just begun carbon rationing. The story is told in diary form by Laura Brown, a teenager living in ] in the aftermath of the Great Storm. | |||
<!-- *'']'' (2010) by ] follows the story of a physicist who discovers a way to fight climate change after managing to derive power from artificial photosynthesis.<ref></ref> --> | |||
* ]'s novel, '']'' (2012), employs environmental themes and highlights the potential ] on the ].<ref>{{cite magazine|last1=Walsh|first1=Bryan|date=8 November 2012|title=Barbara Kingsolver on Flight Behavior and Why Climate Change Is Part of Her Story|magazine=]|url=https://entertainment.time.com/2012/11/08/barbara-kingsolver-on-flight-behavior-climate-change-and-the-end-of-doubt/|access-date=23 March 2015}}</ref> | |||
* Norwegian author ] has released a "Climate Quartet" of novels, beginning with ''Bienes histore'' (''The History of Bees'') in 2015, which examines ] 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.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Latham|first=Tori|date=14 September 2017|title=A Novel That Imagines a World Without Bees|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/09/maja-lunde-the-history-of-bees/538683/|access-date=10 June 2021|website=The Atlantic|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=How COVID influenced author Maja Lunde's work |date=11 March 2021|url=https://www.dw.com/en/how-covid-influenced-author-maja-lundes-work/a-56662154|access-date=10 June 2021|website=]}}</ref> | |||
* '']'' (2018) by ], which won the 2019 ]. The novel revolves around nine disparate characters with close associations to individual trees, that come together to address ].<ref>{{Cite web|last=Smith|first=Rosa Inocencio|date=16 April 2019|title=Writing the Pulitzer-Winning 'The Overstory' Changed Richard Powers's Life|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/04/richard-powers-pulitzer-the-overstory/587245/|access-date=14 June 2021|website=The Atlantic|language=en}}</ref> | |||
* ''The New Wilderness'' (2020) by ] is set in North America where climate change has affected the natural environment. It was shortlisted for the ].<ref>{{Cite web|last=Obreht|first=Téa|date=4 September 2020|title=The New Wilderness by Diane Cook review – a dazzling debut|url=http://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/sep/04/the-new-wilderness-by-diane-cook-review-a-dazzling-debut|access-date=9 June 2021|website=The Guardian|language=en}}</ref> | |||
* '']'' (2021) by ] was shortlisted for the ]. It was also longlisted for the 2021 ].<ref>{{cite web |title=National Book Awards 2021 |url=https://www.nationalbook.org/awards-prizes/national-book-awards-2021/ |website=National Book Foundation |access-date=14 October 2021}}</ref> It was selected by ] as part of '']'' on 28 September 2021.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Schaub |first=Michael |date=28 September 2021 |title=Oprah Picks 'Bewilderment' for Book Club |url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/news-and-features/articles/oprah-picks-bewilderment-for-book-club/ |access-date=21 October 2021 |website=]}}</ref> | |||
* ]’s novel, ''The Butterfly Effect'', is a dystopian cli-fi with thriller undercurrents that deals with ], scientific experiments gone wrong and the effect of intertwined disasters.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Basu |first=Priyadarshi |date=2019-01-05 |title=How horribly wrong can experiments in science go? This novel of ideas explores the possibilities |url=https://scroll.in/article/906022/how-horribly-wrong-can-experiments-in-science-go-this-novel-of-ideas-explores-the-possibilities |access-date=2024-04-19 |website=Scroll.in |language=en-US}}</ref> This book has been listed by Book Riot as one of "50 Must-Read Eco Disasters In Fiction".<ref>{{Cite web |last=Gooding-Call |first=Anna |date=2019-04-22 |title=50 Must-Read Novels About Eco-Disasters |url=https://bookriot.com/novels-about-eco-disasters/ |access-date=2024-04-19 |website=BOOK RIOT |language=en-US}}</ref> | |||
=== Description of apocalyptic scenarios === | |||
"]" are explored in multiple ] works. For example, in '']'' (1961), civilization is devastated by persistent hurricane-force winds, and '']'' (1962) describes a future of melted ice-caps and ] caused by ].<ref>{{cite web |last=Litt |first=Toby |date=21 January 2009 |title=The best of JG Ballard |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jan/22/1000-novels-jg-ballard |work=The Guardian}}</ref> In '']'' (1964, later retitled ''The Drought'') his climate catastrophe is human-made, a ] due to disruption of the precipitation cycle by ].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Milicia |first=Joe |date=December 1985 |title=Dry Thoughts in a Dry Season |url=http://www.jgballard.ca/criticism/milicia_drought1985.html |journal=Riverside Quarterly |volume=7|number=4 |access-date=30 January 2021}}</ref> | |||
]'s '']'' (1993) imagines a near-future for the United States where climate change, wealth inequality, and corporate greed cause apocalyptic chaos. Here, and in sequel ] (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.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Lucas |first=Julian |date=8 March 2021 |title=How Octavia E. Butler Reimagines Sex and Survival |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/03/15/how-octavia-e-butler-reimagines-sex-and-survival |magazine=] |access-date=22 August 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine |last=Aguirre |first=Abby |date=26 July 2017 |title=Octavia Butler's Prescient Vision of a Zealot Elected to 'Make America Great Again' |url=https://www.newyorker.com/books/second-read/octavia-butlers-prescient-vision-of-a-zealot-elected-to-make-america-great-again |magazine=The New Yorker |access-date=22 August 2021}}</ref> 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."<ref>{{cite interview |last=Butler |first=Octavia |interviewer=] |title=Decades ago, Octavia Butler saw a 'grim future' of climate denial and income inequality. |url=https://lithub.com/decades-ago-octavia-butler-saw-a-grim-future-of-climate-denial-and-income-inequality |access-date=22 August 2021 |work=40 Acres and a Microchip (conference) |publisher=LitHub |location=Digital Diaspora, UK |date=1995 |author-link=Octavia E. Butler |others=Corinne Segal}}</ref> | |||
] explored the subject in her dystopian trilogy '']'' (2003), '']'' (2009) and '']'' (2013).<ref>{{cite web |last1=Crum |first1=Maddie |date=12 November 2014 |title=Margaret Atwood: 'I Don't Call It Climate Change. I Call It The Everything Change' |url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/12/margaret-atwood-interview_n_6141840.html |work=The Huffington Post}}</ref> In ''Oryx and Crake'', Atwood presents a world where "social inequality, genetic technology and catastrophic climate change, has finally culminated in some apocalyptic event".<ref name="PubWeekly2">{{cite web |date=1 May 2003 |title=Fiction Book Review: Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood |url=http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-385-50385-3 |work=Publishers Weekly}}</ref> | |||
==Other examples== | |||
{{See also|:Category:Climate change novels}} | |||
* ''Heat'' (1977), by ], US<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p9KRAAAAIAAJ|title=Heat|first=Arthur|last=Herzog|year=1977|publisher=Simon and Schuster|isbn=9780671225322}}</ref> | |||
* '']'' (1987), by ], Australia | |||
* '']'' (1988), by ], UK | |||
* '']'' (1998) and ''The Flood'' (2004), ], US | |||
* '']'' (1990), ], US | |||
* '']'' (2000), ], US | |||
* '']'' (2001) and ''Aurora'' (2011), ], US | |||
* '']'' (2002) and sequels, ], US | |||
* '']'' (2008) and '']'' (2009), ], US | |||
* '']'' (2009),<ref name=":0" /> '']'' (2010), '']'' (2012), '']'' (2015) and ''Tool of War'' (2017), ], US | |||
* '']'' (2011), ], US | |||
* '']'' (2012), ], US | |||
* ''Odds Against Tomorrow'' (2013), ], US | |||
* '']'' (2014), ], UK | |||
* ''The Collapse of Western Civilization'' (2014), by ] and ], Columbia University Press, US | |||
* '']'' (2015), ], Finland | |||
* '']'' (2015), ], US | |||
* '']'' (2017), ], US | |||
* ''The Water Cure'' (2018), ], UK | |||
* ''] (The Emissary)'' (2018), ], Germany/Japan | |||
* '']'' (2019), by ] | |||
* ] (2019) by ]<ref>{{Cite news |last=Gupta |first=Alisha Haridasani |date=7 September 2019 |title=When Climate Change Is Stranger Than Fiction |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/07/books/amitav-ghosh-gun-island-climate-change.html |access-date=9 March 2022 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> | |||
* ''The Wall'' (2019), by ] | |||
* '']'' (2020), by ] | |||
* '']'' (2020) by ] | |||
* ''Migrations'' (2020) by Charlotte McConaghy<ref>{{Cite news|last=Christie|first=Michael|date=4 August 2020|title='The Animals Are Dying. Soon We Will Be Alone Here.'|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/04/books/review/migrations-charlotte-mcconaghy.html|access-date=9 June 2021|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> | |||
* ''Depart, Depart'' (2020) by Sim Kern | |||
* ''470'' (2020) by Linda Woodrow | |||
* ''Diatomea'' (2022), by ] | |||
* ''The Light Pirate'' (2022), by ] | |||
* ''Spellcasters: A Novel'' (2023), by ], India<ref>{{Cite web |last=Chaudhuri |first=Rajat |date=2023-11-20 |title=Alternative reality: Man wakes up in desert town and is drawn into a plan to kidnap a billionaire |url=https://scroll.in/article/1059141/alternative-reality-man-wakes-up-in-desert-town-and-is-drawn-into-a-plan-to-kidnap-a-billionaire |access-date=2024-04-19 |website=Scroll.in |language=en-US}}</ref> | |||
* ''The Girl who Rode the Unihorn'' (2024) by mìcheal dubh | |||
* ''Juice'' (2024) by ] | |||
==Anthologies and collections== | |||
* ''Welcome to the Greenhouse'' (2011) US edited by ] | |||
* ''Loosed Upon the World: The Saga Anthology of Climate Fiction'' (2015) US edited by ] | |||
* ''Drowned Worlds'' (2016) UK edited by ] | |||
* ''Possible Solutions'' (2017) US by ] – 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.<ref>Meyer, Bruce. ''Cli-fi: Canadian Tales of Climate Change''. Exile Editions, 2017</ref> | |||
* ''Meteotopia - Futures of Climate (In)Justice'' (2022) Collection of short stories on climate and environment by authors of the ].<ref name="africanarguments.org"/> | |||
== 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".<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Schneider-Mayerson|first1=Matthew|last2=Gustafson|first2=Abel|last3=Leiserowitz|first3=Anthony|last4=Goldberg|first4=Matthew H.|last5=Rosenthal|first5=Seth A.|last6=Ballew|first6=Matthew|date=15 September 2020|title=Environmental Literature as Persuasion: An Experimental Test of the Effects of Reading Climate Fiction|url=https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2020.1814377|journal=Environmental Communication|volume=17 |pages=35–50|doi=10.1080/17524032.2020.1814377|s2cid=224996198|issn=1752-4032}}</ref> | |||
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."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Schneider-Mayerson|first=Matthew|date=November 2018|title=The Influence of Climate Fiction: An Empirical Survey of Readers|url=https://read.dukeupress.edu/environmental-humanities/article/10/2/473/136689/The-Influence-of-Climate-FictionAn-Empirical|journal=Environmental Humanities|volume=10|doi=10.1215/22011919-7156848|doi-access=free}}</ref> | |||
Finally, an empirical study focused on the popular novel '']'' 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 ]s. However, its results suggest that dystopic climate narratives might lead to support for ]. Based on this result, it cautioned that "not all climate fiction is progressive", despite the hopes of many authors, critics, and readers.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Schneider-Mayerson|first=Matthew|date=1 May 2020|title="Just as in the Book"? The Influence of Literature on Readers' Awareness of Climate Injustice and Perception of Climate Migrants|url=https://academic.oup.com/isle/article/27/2/337/5855716|journal=Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment|language=en|volume=27|issue=2|pages=337–364|doi=10.1093/isle/isaa020|issn=1076-0962}}</ref> | |||
==See also== | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
== References == | == References == | ||
<!-- See http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Footnotes on how to create references using <ref></ref> tags which will then appear here automatically --> | |||
{{Reflist}} | {{Reflist}} | ||
==Further reading== | |||
== External links == | |||
* {{cite book |first1=Gerry |last1=Canavan |first2=Kim Stanley |last2=Robinson |author2-link=Kim Stanley Robinson |title=Green Planets: Ecology and Science Fiction |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=osHdAgAAQBAJ |date=2014 |publisher=Wesleyan University Press |isbn=978-0-8195-7428-2}} | |||
* | |||
* {{cite book |author-link=Andrew Milner |first1=Andrew |last1=Milner |first2=J.R. |last2=Burgmann |title=Science Fiction and Climate Change: A Sociological Approach |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PuzeDwAAQBAJ |date=2020 |publisher=Liverpool University Press |isbn=978-1-78962-752-7}} | |||
* | |||
* {{cite book |first=Antonia |last=Mehnert |title=Climate Change Fictions: Representations of Global Warming in American Literature |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YUVxDQAAQBAJ |date=2016 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-3-319-40337-3}} | |||
* | |||
* {{cite book |first=Matthew |last=Schneider-Mayerson |chapter=Climate Change Fiction |chapter-url=https://www.academia.edu/35907548 |editor-first=Rachel |editor-last=Greenwald Smith |title=American Literature in Transition, 2000–2010 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=689CDwAAQBAJ&pg=PP1 |date=2017 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-108-54865-6 |pages=309–321}} | |||
* | |||
* {{cite book |first=Adam |last=Trexler |title=Anthropocene Fictions: The Novel in a Time of Climate Change |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GZOdBAAAQBAJ |date=2015 |publisher=University of Virginia Press |isbn=978-0-8139-3693-2}} | |||
* | |||
* {{Cite book |last=Ghosh |first=Amitav |date=2016 |title=] |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-32317-6 |author-link=Amitav Ghosh}} | |||
* | |||
* {{cite book |first=Shelley |last=Streeby |title=Imagining the Future of Climate Change: World-Making Through Science Fiction and Activism |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jt02DwAAQBAJ |date=2018 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-29444-8}} | |||
* {{cite book | title=California, CLI-FI, and Climate Crisis: Special Issue of ''Western American Literature'' Vol. 56, nos. 3-4, Fall-Winter 2021| url=https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/47303 | publisher=University of Nebraska Press}} | |||
* {{cite book |first=Gregers |last=Andersen |title=Climate Fiction and Cultural Analysis: A new perspective on life in the anthropocene |url=https://www.google.se/books/edition/Climate_Fiction_and_Cultural_Analysis/6x-yDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Climate+Fiction+and+Cultural+Analysis&printsec=frontcover |date=2019 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781000710915}} | |||
* {{cite book |first=Johan |last=Höglund |title=The American Climate Emergency Narrative: Origins, Developments and Imaginary Futures |url=https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-60645-8 |date=2024 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=978-3-031-60645-8}} | |||
== External links == | |||
{{Speculative fiction all}} | |||
{{Commons category|Climate fiction}} | |||
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* , essay by ] for ] | |||
* , discusses current popularity of climate change dystopia. | |||
{{Climate change}}{{Speculative fiction all}} | |||
{{Science fiction}} | |||
{{Global catastrophic risks}} | |||
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Latest revision as of 11:04, 29 November 2024
Fiction in a setting defined in part by climate crisis Not to be confused with Climate change denial.
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Climate fiction (sometimes shortened to cli-fi) is literature that deals with climate change. Generally speculative in nature but inspired by climate science, works of climate fiction may take place in the world as we know it, in the near future, or in fictional worlds experiencing climate change. The genre frequently includes science fiction and dystopian or utopian themes, imagining the potential futures based on how humanity responds to the impacts of climate change. Climate fiction typically involves anthropogenic climate change and other environmental issues as opposed to weather and disaster more generally. Technologies such as climate engineering or climate adaptation practices often feature prominently in works exploring their impacts on society.
The term "cli-fi" is generally credited to freelance news reporter and climate activist Dan Bloom, who coined it in either 2007 or 2008. References to "climate fiction" appear to have begun in the 2010s, although the term has also been retroactively applied to a number of works. Pioneering 20th century authors of climate fiction 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.
University courses on literature and environmental issues may include climate change fiction in their syllabi. 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. Lists of climate fiction have been compiled by organizations including Grist, Outside Magazine, and the New York Public Library. 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 climate refugees in Alaska set in 2075, which was not commercially successful. It later came into mainstream media use in April 2013, when Christian Science Monitor and NPR ran stories about a new literary movement of novels and films that dealt with human-induced climate change. Bloom had been critical of the lack of mention of his role in coining the term in these features. Scott Thill wrote in HuffPost in 2014 that he had popularised the term in 2009, inspired by the mixture of science and fiction in Franny Armstrong's film The Age of Stupid.
History
Jules Verne's 1889 novel The Purchase of the North Pole imagines climate change due to tilting of Earth's axis. 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.
Laurence Manning's 1933 serialized novel The Man Who Awoke has been described as an exemplary work of ecological science fiction from the golden age. It tells the story a man who awakes from suspended animation in various future eras and learns about the destruction to the Earth's climate, caused by overuse of fossil fuels, global warming, and deforestation. People of the future refer to 20th century humans as "the wasters". They have abandoned over-industrialization and consumerism to live in small self-sufficient villages based around genetically engineered trees that provide all their necessities. Isaac Asimov credited The Man Who Awoke for bringing the "energy crisis" to his attention 40 years before it became common knowledge in the 1970s.
Several well-known dystopian works by British author J. G. Ballard deal with climate-related natural disasters. In The Wind from Nowhere (1961), civilization is devastated by persistent hurricane-force winds, and The Drowned World (1962) describes a future of melted ice-caps and rising sea-levels caused by solar radiation. In The Burning World (1964, later retitled The Drought) his climate catastrophe is human-made, a drought due to disruption of the precipitation cycle by industrial pollution.
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.
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. 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."
As scientific knowledge of the effects of fossil fuel consumption and resulting increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations entered the public and political arena as "global warming", human-caused climate change entered works of fiction. Susan M. Gaines's Carbon Dreams (2000) was an early example of a literary novel that "tells a story about the devastatingly serious issue of human-induced climate change", set in the 1980s and published before the term "cli-fi" was coined. Michael Crichton's State of Fear (2004), a techno-thriller, was a bestseller upon its release but was criticised by scientists for portraying climate change as "a vast pseudo-scientific hoax" and rejecting the scientific consensus on climate change. Sigbjørn Skåden's novel Fugl (2019) is a Sámi novel written in Norwegian that weaves together environmental collapse with an allegory of colonialism.
Margaret Atwood explored the subject in her dystopian trilogy Oryx and Crake (2003), The Year of the Flood (2009) and MaddAddam (2013). In Oryx and Crake, Atwood presents a world where "social inequality, genetic technology and catastrophic climate change, has finally culminated in some apocalyptic event". The novel's protagonist, Jimmy, lives in a "world split between corporate compounds", gated communities that have grown into city-states and pleeblands, which are "unsafe, populous and polluted" urban areas where the working classes live.
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." In The Anthropocene Unconscious: Climate Catastrophe Culture, critic Mark Bould suggests the opposite when he argues that the "art and literature of our time is pregnant with catastrophe, with weather and water, wildness and weirdness."
By the 2010s, climate fiction had attracted greater prominence and media attention. 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.
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.
Prominent examples
The popular science-fiction novelist Kim Stanley Robinson has been writing on the theme for several decades, including his Science in the Capital trilogy, which is set in the near future and includes Forty Signs of Rain (2004), Fifty Degrees Below (2005), and Sixty Days and Counting (2007). Robert K. J. Killheffer in his review for Fantasy & Science Fiction said "Forty Signs of Rain is a fascinating depiction of the workings of science and politics, and an urgent call to readers to confront the threat of climate change." Robinson's climate-themed novel, titled New York 2140, was published in March 2017. It gives a complex portrait of a coastal city that is partly underwater and yet has successfully adapted to climate change in its culture and ecology. Robinson's novel The Ministry for the Future, is set in the near future, and follows a subsidiary body, whose mission is to advocate for the world's future generations of citizens as if their rights are as valid as the present generation's.
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, and environmentalist George Monbiot has described it as "the most important environmental book ever written" for depicting a world without a biosphere.
The novel State of Fear by Michael Crichton, published in December 2004, describes a conspiracy by scientists and others to create public panic about global warming. Crichton had publicly advocated "skepticism" of global warming. His novel describes a group of eco-terrorists attempting to create natural disasters to convince the public of the dangers of global warming. It is based upon the idea that there is a deliberately alarmist conspiracy behind climate change activism. The book is critical of the scientific consensus on climate change. A critique in the BBC News pointed out that "Crichton's trade is to bring pleasurable terror to millions by spinning tales of science gone amok" and "To make sure you get his point, Crichton adds a 32-page footnote documenting his own conviction that global warming is an unscientific scare."
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. 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.
Other authors who have used this subject matter include:
- Fallen Angels (1991) by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Michael Flynn. Set in North America in the "near future", a radical technophobic green movement dramatically cuts greenhouse gas emissions, only to find that manmade global warming was staving off a new ice age.
- 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.
- 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."
- 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.
- The Carbon Diaries: 2015 (2009) by Saci Lloyd is set in a future where power is scarce and the UK has just begun carbon rationing. The story is told in diary form by Laura Brown, a teenager living in London in the aftermath of the Great Storm.
- Barbara Kingsolver's novel, Flight Behavior (2012), employs environmental themes and highlights the potential effects of global warming on the monarch butterfly.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Bewilderment (2021) by Richard Powers was shortlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize. It was also longlisted for the 2021 National Book Award for Fiction. It was selected by Oprah Winfrey as part of Oprah's Book Club on 28 September 2021.
- 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. This book has been listed by Book Riot as one of "50 Must-Read Eco Disasters In Fiction".
Description of apocalyptic scenarios
"Climate apocalypse scenarios" are explored in multiple science fiction works. For example, in The Wind from Nowhere (1961), civilization is devastated by persistent hurricane-force winds, and The Drowned World (1962) describes a future of melted ice-caps and rising sea-levels caused by solar radiation. In The Burning World (1964, later retitled The Drought) his climate catastrophe is human-made, a drought due to disruption of the precipitation cycle by industrial pollution.
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. 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."
Margaret Atwood explored the subject in her dystopian trilogy Oryx and Crake (2003), The Year of the Flood (2009) and MaddAddam (2013). In Oryx and Crake, Atwood presents a world where "social inequality, genetic technology and catastrophic climate change, has finally culminated in some apocalyptic event".
Other examples
See also: Category:Climate change novels- Heat (1977), by Arthur Herzog, US
- The Sea and Summer (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), 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
- 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
- Depart, Depart (2020) by Sim Kern
- 470 (2020) by Linda Woodrow
- Diatomea (2022), by Núria Perpinyà
- The Light Pirate (2022), by Lily Brooks-Dalton
- Spellcasters: A Novel (2023), by Rajat Chaudhuri, India
- The Girl who Rode the Unihorn (2024) by mìcheal dubh
- Juice (2024) by Tim Winton
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.
- Meteotopia - Futures of Climate (In)Justice (2022) Collection of short stories on climate and environment by authors of the Global South.
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".
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."
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.
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
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- 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.
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- Herzog, Arthur (1977). Heat. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9780671225322.
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- Meyer, Bruce. Cli-fi: Canadian Tales of Climate Change. Exile Editions, 2017
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- Schneider-Mayerson, Matthew (1 May 2020). ""Just as in the Book"? The Influence of Literature on Readers' Awareness of Climate Injustice and Perception of Climate Migrants". Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment. 27 (2): 337–364. doi:10.1093/isle/isaa020. ISSN 1076-0962.
Further reading
- Canavan, Gerry; Robinson, Kim Stanley (2014). Green Planets: Ecology and Science Fiction. Wesleyan University Press. ISBN 978-0-8195-7428-2.
- Milner, Andrew; Burgmann, J.R. (2020). Science Fiction and Climate Change: A Sociological Approach. Liverpool University Press. 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.
- Ghosh, Amitav (2016). The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable. University of Chicago Press. 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.
- Andersen, Gregers (2019). Climate Fiction and Cultural Analysis: A new perspective on life in the anthropocene. Routledge. ISBN 9781000710915.
- Höglund, Johan (2024). The American Climate Emergency Narrative: Origins, Developments and Imaginary Futures. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-3-031-60645-8.
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.
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