Climate Fiction: The Genre For Our Time

Climate fiction, or cli-fi, is a genre that has been quickly growing in popularity as attention and anxieties around climate change grow ever stronger. Climate fiction deals with the climate crisis, using fictional narratives to examine the impacts of climate change and humanity’s response to it. Most entries in the genre take place in the future: a form of speculative fiction, using current trends to imagine possible future scenarios.

Though the term ‘climate fiction’ has only been in common use since the 2010s, authors have dealt with climate and environmental themes for decades, in particular within science fiction. Some earlier examples that can be retroactively categorised as climate fiction include:

●     The Drowned World, by J. G. Ballard (1962). Global warming has transformed most of the planet into uninhabitable tropical jungles and swamps. The story follows a research team in a flooded London, as they investigate whether any of Europe may be reclaimed by society. A foundational climate fiction novel.

●     Parable of the Sower, by Octavia Butler (1994). A post-apocalyptic world, shaped by climate change and social injustice, sees the emergence of a new religion sown by a hyper-empath. Interestingly, it begins in an imagined 2024.

●     Oryx and Crake, by Margaret Atwood (2003). A world ruined by climate change, resource over-extraction, and a deadly virus, examines the scorching, toxic nature of the post-apocalyptic world and the factors that led to its creation. First of the MaddAddam trilogy.

Since the early 2010s, the volume of climate fiction has exploded, and contributions to the genre continue to flow thick and fast. Like all the best fiction, they defy categorisation, but can be roughly grouped into three main themes: climate dystopias, utopias, and ‘realism’ that captures the in-between.

Climate Dystopias

Many works of climate fiction deal with the predicted catastrophic impacts of climate change on society and individuals. These dystopian works imagine futures where climate breakdown has led to partial or total societal collapse, with big ramifications for the characters within them.

Authors of dystopian climate fiction often say they intend their works to be ‘wake-up calls’, exposing people to the potential consequences of inadequately addressing climate change. It’s well-known that people relate to stories far more than they do to facts and figures, so these works provide powerful touchpoints to – despite the fictional premise – bring the reality of climate change into hearts and minds. Examples include:

●     Odds Against Tomorrow, by Nathaniel Rich (2013). A maths genius makes a living from predicting worst-case scenarios and indemnifying corporations of responsibility – before a climate-induced catastrophe hits New York and throws him to the frontlines of survival.

●     The Water Knife, by Paolo Bacigalupi (2015). Drought has ravaged the southwestern USA. This thriller follows a ‘water knife’, a saboteur that destroys the water reserves of rival states – though it is corporations that truly govern the fate of regions. Bacigalupi is also the author of a young adult climate fiction trilogy.

●     The Swan Book, by Alexis Wright (2018). Set in a future Australia, climate change wars have shattered nations. From an Indigenous detention camp to a tower in a flooded city, this novel blends climate breakdown with Aboriginal folklore.

Climate Utopias

However, climate fiction can also go in the opposite direction when imagining humanity’s future. Imagine that we embrace the challenge of climate change to make use of innovative solutions to reshape society into something truly sustainable – and at the same time, bringing benefits for equity, community, nature, and other factors related to wellbeing. Climate change can be seen as a social catalyst: the best solutions involve simultaneously addressing other societal woes like inequality and biodiversity loss.

This approach is best epitomised by the emerging solarpunk genre. Riffing off the established steampunk and cyberpunk genres, solarpunk imagines something different: future utopias defined by renewable technologies, communion with nature, and progressive values.

Such imaginings make challenges for creating narratives – in an ideal world, what obstacles are there for protagonists to overcome? – but successful solarpunk works provide inspiring examples of what the future could look like, with the right motivation and momentum. Solarpunk is yet to make it into the true mainstream, but it’s well on its way. Examples include:

●     Ecotopia, by Ernest Callenbach (1975). Though this novel predates the terms ‘climate fiction’ or ‘solarpunk’ by several decades, it’s arguably the archetype for eco-utopia visions. Set in the ‘future’ of 1999, it follows a journalist’s entry into the nation of Ecotopia, which broke away from the US following its dissolution. He finds progressive lifestyles, renewable energy production, and close involvement with the natural world.

●     Suncatcher: Seven Days in the Sky, by Alia Gee (2014). Climate change and other societal crises have been weathered; now, upon a solar-powered airship, the protagonist must fend off airborne pirates.

●     Emergency Skin, by N.K. Jemisin (2019). This novelette follows a stellar explorer in the far future returning to Earth, from which his ancestors fled in the face of climate crisis. He expects a wasteland, but instead finds a new, healing society.

Climate Realism?

There is a middle ground between dystopia and utopia, which perhaps also offers the most realistic speculations for the future. These works of climate fiction incorporate both the serious impacts of climate change as well as impactful responses to it: imagining futures where society attempts to tackle climate change but, despite progress, does not fully meet the challenge and suffers the consequences.

This approach benefits from nuanced perspectives often based on close attention to current and projected environmental, economic, social, and political trends. While they are less likely to use exaggerated apocalyptic scenarios to make the point, they can highlight pragmatic solutions and pitfalls that are relatable to our current approach to the climate crisis.

Examples Include:

●     The Ministry of the Future, Kim Stanley Robinson (2020). Perhaps the most famous climate fiction novel, and authored by a paragon of science fiction, this broad-ranging novel revolves around the establishment of a global Ministry that advocates for the world’s future generations. The story takes place over decades, charting the course of climate change and a range of interlinked responses.

●     The Deluge, Stephen Markley (2023). This epic novel charts the decades-long journeys of a pantheon of characters, including an outspoken climate scientist, a passionate activist, an eco-terrorist, and a drug addict – as climate change creates a gradual and insidious breakdown of social order in the USA.

Why Is Climate Fiction Useful?

Fiction is often a form of escapism, which raises the question of why a genre that so directly confronts the most existential of societal anxieties is gaining such traction. To understand this trend, it’s useful to think about how people perceive climate change. Despite the effects of climate change ramping up across the world, it continues to be quite an amorphous concept: climate change is difficult to imagine, especially when thinking about the impacts on and responses of individual people and communities.

Climate fiction helps with this conceptualisation. Through compelling stories that investigate characters’ personal scenarios and journeys in climate-relevant contexts, the genre gives a shape to climate change. If we know what we’re dealing with, it’s easier to deal with it: whether this is taking direct action to mitigate climate change, or adapting to the impacts that are already baked in.

So climate fiction can be empowering – and, given climate anxieties are often rooted in feelings of helplessness and fatalism, this empowerment can help us feel stronger and more prepared. Climate fiction has a critical role to play in shaping how we address the greatest challenge of our time.