Fiction & Climate Change

This month of school has galvanized my awareness of global heating like nothing before. It began with a presentation by an Australian member of staff about the bushfires still blazing, an impassioned plea that this is the world we are in. Changes are happening now, and not in a distant future. Changes are necessary and are becoming more necessary every moment. With too many governments abdicating their responsibility to act–I’m a member of this species too. Let me do something.

I’m not sure if this rise in consciousness is happening other places too. To me at least, I feel this community building its momentum. And as we discuss particular emissions sources, the unsustainable reliance of expat communities like ours on air travel, the carbon-sequestration of nut trees, and the far smaller than I had previously thought significance of eating locally (it seems a kilogram of avocados shipped in from far away actually emits less than a kilogram of beef produced next door), I also want to consider the role of words, communication, writers, and fiction. What can our writing do to awaken consciousness, spur action?

In researching for this post, I found Nicole Lampe’s excellent reflections on the necessity of imagination to move beyond the forces that dominate the present. Intransigent political leaders, poverty, oppression, profit-at-any-cost-motivated business–such forces feel utterly overpowering, insurmountable, world-dooming. And this very idea of their indomitable strength is part of what keeps them in their castles. We must imagine our way out of their shadow first, to make the real dismantling of them feasible. As Lampe quotes, the incredible Ursula K. Le Guin said, “We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.” (This quotation comes from Le Guin’s 2014 speech at the National Book Awards.)

Sociology, psychology, politics–from many voices we hear the inadequacy, perhaps even the impossibility of a global response to climate crisis. Humans are naturally short-sighted. Countries will not agree. Yet I feel compelled to ask whether imagination cannot lead us to a different answer. Do human ever look ahead? Do we ever cooperate and compromise? Do we ever exercise our better natures? And of course we do and can. Then it must be possible to do here, larger, with more of us involved, for that is what must be. Can the human imagination not spur us? Let us imagine the way forward, show it to others in our writing, even as we march the solution in practical steps too.

The language of global heating

We as writers know perhaps better than anyone the power a word has. I have recently come across a couple of relevant and fascinating articles about the way we talk about social issues and the effects these produce in readers.

The Guardian recently updated its style guide (the document each publication uses to make language consistent across its writers and content), replacing some existing scientific terms with what it identifies as “scientifically precise” (see the article here).

Significantly, The Guardian follows some recent moves by the United Nations and the Met Office (the United Kingdom’s national weather service) to replace “climate change” with “global heating” or “climate crisis,” terms that better capture the urgency of the situation. “Climate change” and “global warming” sound relatively passive, benign, are easier to ignore. Indeed, the conversation about appropriate action to respond to global heating has often been mired in the debate with the reasonable-sounding “climate skeptics.” The Guardian will now be calling people of this position “climate science deniers.”

The words we use to talk about current issues can shape opinions by their emotional power. Such tools have been used to great effect in the debate about abortion rights in the United States (see this interesting article from NPR on the subject and their own chosen terminology).

I do ask myself, as I write this, is changing the terms manipulative in a way? Is it unfair to call it a climate emergency with the express purpose of urging society to take urgent action? I’m not entirely sure. Except that I believe this cause is right, and I believe emergency does accurately reflect the current situation.

Another, subtler way our language makes a difference is the grammatical structure with which we speak or write. Recent research published in Psychological Science has found evidence that sentence structures that employ nouns result in less emotional reaction than those with verbs (read a summary of the research here).

The same meaning might be conveyed in these two ways:

• Noun structure: I support the enactment of a carbon tax.
• Verb structure: I support enacting a carbon tax.

The researchers found that Israeli students were more likely to accept compromise, less likely to agree with retaliatory measures, and less angry when policy proposals about the Israel-Palestine conflict were phrased using nouns.

How might this be relevant to writing about global heating? Can we phrase our dialogue with voters and politicians in ways that reduce tension, perhaps make the likelihood of action stronger? For people who resist the idea of taking action, perhaps this kind of language could help persuade.

Stories: what is important enough to pass on?

I have to wonder at the future, at what our descendants will see when they look back. We study the literature of the Civil Rights Movement, of women’s suffrage, of poverty and riches. What will be the literature of climate change? Where can our imaginations spur us on, into a future that someday will emerge over today’s daunting problems?

I don’t want to write didactic stories. I don’t want propaganda. But I think the best stories, the most changing stories, are the ones that take us where we are and show us an open door, enticing us enough perhaps to walk through it. We need not always push and pull.

The novel I wrote before this recent foray with short stories engaged some with a post-global-heating future, and I return to this now to consider how a future project might approach it differently, perhaps more directly. Perhaps it’s something I’ll take up.

What climate fiction is already out there?

The literature of climate change is being written already. I am still at the beginning of my exploration of it, but I’ve come across a few things so far that I’m excited to look at in more detail:

• The New Yorker here gives a great overview of the genre of the growing genre of cli-fi (climate fiction), highlighting standout works.
• The Guardian gives an analogous overview with some different takes.
• Maja Lunde’s novel The End of the Ocean, translated from Norwegian, explores the journey of climate refugees in the 2040s. This interview with Lunde explores how fiction might be used to raise awareness and encourage action on the climate crisis.
• The Burning Worlds newsletter writes about climate change in arts and literature in monthly installments. I’ve read good things about this newsletter and have signed up to start receiving it.
• And more. Please comment with your own suggestions for this list!

My husband and I are slowly contemplating changes. How can we reduce our airplane travel? Where can we reduce our food emissions? It sounds like one can book berths on cargo ships to cross the ocean. I’m not sure if we’ll try that. It could be amazing.

And then there’s the teaching, and the writing. There are many places we can act. What do you think? What cli-fi have you read? What other ways can we try to push this issue, alongside so many essential others?

Thank you. Best wishes for the week,
Jimmy