What is Climate Fiction?

Climate Fiction is literature that deals with climate change and global warming as a major topic. Often described as a sub-genre of science fiction, this specific brand of literature often involved dystopian or utopian themes as well. To be put simply, climate fiction is stories on climate change or stories about global warming. It is often speculative in nature, though not necessarily so, and plays with the idea of how humanity will deal with a climate disaster in a world similar to our own, or in the near future. It often includes technology that has been built in order to combat climate change, the disintegration of our technological advancements as a consequence to climate change or both.

Where Did Climate Fiction Come From?

We, as humans, have been studying the greenhouse effect since the 1800s, when Eunice Foote described recreating the effect with glass jars in 1856. The idea that we are polluting the earth that one day it will cause massive climate disasters is not a new one. However, the term climate fiction is relatively new. It started gaining prominence around 2010, in light of our more recent knowledge on the seriousness of climate change, it makes sense that more and more books would be surfacing about the topic. There are some pretty epic stories to be told here! Credit for who coined the term climate fiction has been given to journalist Dan Bloom by multiple sources, who used it for the first time in the late 2000s.

Why Should You Read Climate Fiction?

As much as I love climate fiction, why should you read it? Why is climate fiction important? Is climate fiction important at all? Is climate fiction even interesting? Well, here’s why I think you should read climate fiction. At least to try it out. Climate fiction is growing in popularity, along with our growing wealth of information about greenhouse gases that scientists are studying all the time. Not only that, but socially, the world is growing to be more knowledgeable on climate change as changes are happening right before our eyes. And when a large number of people speak up and create unrest, things change. Policies change when we work for it, and when we work to educate ourselves on the issues and fight for growth. Remember a few years ago when there was huge outrage over plastic straws killing the turtles? Companies listened to that! I barely remember the last time I got a plastic straw with my drink.

So am I saying that you should try out climate fiction to educate yourself? Absolutely not. There are incredible resources out there for you to see. What I really want to say is that we have our greatest creative minds (writers) writing compelling stories about the consequences of climate change. They are critically examining the way we interact with the earth, so that we can have an idea about how to think creatively about what to do about climate change. They are getting creative with the possible consequences of our inactions. They are showing us how to think critically and creatively about climate change and we should listen.

Will climate fiction ultimately have an answer for us? Probably not. But I don’t think that’s really the point either. I think that it is a great way to explore the policies put into place and the implications of those policies. Especially in it’s current state where we think of it more as a futuristic topic. Climate fiction does grant us the opportunity to start to think about the world more creatively and critically all at once. I love the creative spark that the genre can give to us to think about our world differently.

The Future of Climate Fiction Books

Climate fiction is often considered to be a subgenre of science fiction that deals with climate crisis at it’s center, but climate disasters don’t only happen within the scope of science fiction. While it’s true that climate disasters have been pretty uncommon in the west until recently, that doesn’t mean they haven’t happened elsewhere. Though considering that nearly all of English publishing is owned and run in the west, it isn’t as surprising to see climate fiction be considered science fiction. In the west, we have a tendency to bury disasters (especially if we help cause them) as something that only happens to “them” and not “us.”

Recently, we’ve been seeing a lot more climate disasters happening in the west. With it, I think we’re going to start seeing climate fiction permeate through more than just science fiction as a genre. If we’re experiencing climate disasters alongside our day to day lives, at what point do we start adding climate disaster into contemporary fiction? The time for that might be sooner than we think.

Considering the rising prevalence of climate disasters around the world, we’re getting to a point where it feels irresponsible to have any sort of science fiction without at least a background of climate disaster. If science fiction is based on the imagined future of technology and science, it will very soon be unbelievable to imagine a future without any sort of climate crisis. If we’re experiencing climate crisis today, is it really believable to imagine a future where there is none? Considering what we know about climate change?

Maybe instead of being considered a subgenre of science fiction, it would make more sense for us to start thinking of climate fiction as more of a theme. Climate disaster shouldn’t be tucked away in the depths of what we consider to be speculative when we’re seeing the effects of climate change happen right before our eyes, displacing families, and harming entire communities.