Climate fiction, sometimes called cli-fi, is a type of literature that focuses on climate change. These stories are often imaginary but are based on real science about the Earth's climate. They can take place in the world we know today, in the near future, or in made-up worlds that are affected by climate change. This genre often includes science fiction and stories about possible futures that are either very bad (dystopian) or very good (utopian). These stories use research about climate change to imagine how humans might deal with its effects. Climate fiction usually centers on climate changes caused by humans and other environmental problems, not just weather or natural disasters. Stories often explore technologies like climate engineering or ways people might adapt to climate changes and how these could affect society.

A book titled The Ministry for the Future, written by Kim Stanley Robinson in 2020, helped make climate fiction more well-known. This book was discussed by leaders, including the president and members of the United Nations, and Robinson was invited to meet with planners at the Pentagon. Some college classes that teach literature and environmental topics include climate fiction in their course materials. Many newspapers and magazines, such as The New York Times, The Guardian, and Dissent, have written about this type of literature. Organizations like Grist, Outside Magazine, and the New York Public Library have created lists of climate fiction books. Experts and reviewers study how stories about climate change might influence how people talk about and understand the issue.

Use of the phrase

The term "cli-fi" is usually given credit to Dan Bloom, a freelance news reporter and climate activist, who created it in 2007 or 2008. The phrase "climate fiction" became more widely used in the 2010s, though it has also been applied later to some earlier works. Early 20th-century writers associated with climate fiction include J. G. Ballard and Octavia E. Butler. Dystopian stories by Margaret Atwood are often seen as a direct influence on the genre's development. Since 2010, well-known cli-fi authors have included Kim Stanley Robinson, Richard Powers, Paolo Bacigalupi, and Barbara Kingsolver.

Bloom used the term to describe his novella Polar City Red, a post-apocalyptic story set in Alaska in 2075 that follows climate refugees. The book did not sell well. The term "cli-fi" became more widely used in mainstream media in April 2013, when the Christian Science Monitor and NPR reported on a new literary movement involving books and films about human-caused climate change. Bloom criticized the lack of recognition for his role in creating the term in these reports. In 2014, Scott Thill wrote in HuffPost that Bloom made the term more well-known in 2009, inspired by the blend 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 changes in Earth's climate caused by the Earth's axis tilting. In his book Paris in the Twentieth Century, written in 1863 and set in the 1960s, the city experiences a sudden and long-lasting drop in temperature that lasts for three years.

Laurence Manning's 1933 novel The Man Who Awoke is considered an important example of science fiction that focuses on the environment. The story follows a man who wakes up in different future times and learns about Earth's damaged climate, caused by using too many fossil fuels, rising global temperatures, and cutting down forests. People in the future call 20th-century humans "the wasters." They no longer rely on heavy industry or shopping and instead live in small villages powered by trees that have been specially grown to meet their needs. Isaac Asimov said The Man Who Awoke helped him understand the "energy crisis" 40 years before it became widely known in the 1970s.

Several books by British author J. G. Ballard explore climate-related disasters. In The Wind from Nowhere (1961), strong, constant winds destroy human society. In The Drowned World (1962), melting ice caps and rising sea levels caused by the sun's energy lead to a future world. In The Burning World (1964, later called The Drought), a drought caused by pollution from industry disrupts the water cycle.

Frank Herbert's 1965 novel Dune, set on a desert planet, is seen as an early example of climate fiction because it focuses on nature and environmental protection.

Octavia E. Butler's Parable of the Sower (1993) imagines a near-future United States where climate change, unfair wealth distribution, and greedy companies lead to extreme chaos. In this book and its sequel Parable of the Talents (1998), Butler shows how unstable times and leaders who use fear to control people make society's problems worse, especially racism and sexism. She wrote the book to think about how today's actions might shape the future.

As people learned more about how burning fossil fuels increases carbon dioxide in the air, the idea of "global warming" became known to the public. Susan M. Gaines's Carbon Dreams (2000) was one of the first novels to tell a story about climate change caused by humans, set in the 1980s. Michael Crichton's State of Fear (2004), a thriller, became popular but was criticized by scientists for saying climate change is not real. Sigbjørn Skåden's Fugl (2019), a Sámi novel in Norwegian, connects environmental destruction with a story about colonialism.

Margaret Atwood wrote a trilogy of dystopian books: Oryx and Crake (2003), The Year of the Flood (2009), and MaddAddam (2013). In Oryx and Crake, Atwood describes a world where social inequality, genetic technology, and climate change lead to a major disaster. The main character, Jimmy, lives in a world divided into areas where wealthy people live safely and areas where poor people live in polluted, crowded places.

In 2016, Indian writer Amitav Ghosh said climate change is not often written about in modern fiction, even though it is widely discussed. In The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable, Ghosh said that if books fail to address climate change, they are part of a bigger failure in how people think about the crisis. In The Anthropocene Unconscious: Climate Catastrophe Culture, critic Mark Bould argued that modern art and literature often focus on disasters, weather, and natural forces.

By the 2010s, climate fiction became more popular and received more attention. Josephine Livingston of The New Republic wrote in 2020 that the past decade saw a big increase in serious climate fiction, with some publications dedicating entire sections to the genre. She mentioned books like Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer and Odds Against Tomorrow by Nathaniel Rich as examples.

In African literature, books that focus on climate change have recently gained attention as part of modern African writing. 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 are noted for their work in this genre.

Prominent examples

Kim Stanley Robinson, a well-known science-fiction writer, has written about climate change for many years. His Science in the Capital trilogy includes Forty Signs of Rain (2004), Fifty Degrees Below (2005), and Sixty Days and Counting (2007). These books are set in the near future. Robert K. J. Killheffer wrote in Fantasy & Science Fiction that Forty Signs of Rain shows how science and politics work together and encourages readers to address climate change. Robinson’s book New York 2140 (2017) describes a coastal city that is partly underwater but has adapted to climate change in its culture and environment. His novel The Ministry for the Future is set in the near future and follows a group that works to protect the rights of future generations.

British author J. G. Ballard used climate change as a setting in his early science-fiction books. In The Wind from Nowhere (1961), strong, constant winds destroy civilization. The Drowned World (1962) shows a future where melted ice caps and rising sea levels, caused by solar radiation, create a landscape that reflects the characters’ hidden desires. The Burning World (1964) describes a strange mental environment caused by drought from pollution disrupting rainfall.

Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006) is set after an unknown disaster. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2007. Though it does not mention climate change directly, The Guardian listed it as one of the best climate change novels. Environmentalist George Monbiot called it “the most important environmental book ever written” for showing a world without life.

Michael Crichton’s State of Fear (2004) tells a story about scientists and others creating fear about global warming. Crichton believed in questioning global warming claims. His book describes eco-terrorists causing disasters to scare people about climate change. It argues that climate change activism is based on a deliberate effort to cause panic. A BBC News review said Crichton’s books focus on “science gone wrong.”

Ian McEwan’s Solar (2010) follows a physicist who finds a way to fight climate change by creating energy from artificial photosynthesis. Jeanette Winterson’s The Stone Gods (2007) is set on a planet called Orbus, which is running out of resources and suffering from climate change. People on Orbus hope to move to a new planet called Planet Blue.

Other books that explore climate change include:
– Fallen Angels (1991) by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Michael Flynn: A group that fears technology reduces greenhouse gases, but this action stops a coming ice age.
– Mother of Storms (1994) by John Barnes: A nuclear explosion releases dangerous ocean compounds, causing sudden climate changes.
– The Swarm (2004) by Frank Schätzing: Strange ocean events are caused by an unknown underwater species fighting human harm.
– Far North (2009) by Marcel Theroux: Climate change makes the world mostly uninhabitable, but scientists may have made the problem worse by trying to stop global warming.
– Arctic Drift (2008) by Clive Cussler and Dirk Cussler: A thriller about efforts to stop global warming, a possible war between the U.S. and Canada, and a mysterious mineral linked to the Northwest Passage.
– Devolution of a Species by M.E. Ellington: The Earth is seen as a living organism fighting humans.
– The Carbon Diaries: 2015 (2009) by Saci Lloyd: A teenager in London records life after a major storm and carbon rationing.
– Flight Behavior (2012) by Barbara Kingsolver: Focuses on the effects of global warming on monarch butterflies.
– Norwegian author Maja Lunde’s Climate Quartet: Includes The History of Bees (2015), The End of the Ocean (2017), Przewalski’s Horse (2019), and a fourth book. These stories explore pollinator decline and climate change through human experiences.
– The Butterfly Effect (2018) by Rajat Chaudhuri: A dystopian story about genetic experiments and disasters.
– The New Wilderness (2020) by Diane Cook: Set in North America after climate change harms the environment. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
– Bewilderment (2021) by Richard Powers: Explores climate change and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and longlisted for the National Book Award. It was chosen for Oprah’s Book Club.

Stories about climate disasters appear in many science-fiction books. For example, The Wind from Nowhere (1961) shows civilization destroyed by strong winds, and The Drowned World (1962) describes rising seas caused by solar radiation. The Burning World (1964) later called The Drought shows a human-made drought from pollution.

Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower (1993) and Parable of the Talents (1998) imagine a future where climate change, inequality, and corporate greed cause chaos. Butler explores how political leaders and social issues worsen problems like racism and sexism. She wrote the books to think about the future and the choices people make today.

Margaret Atwood’s dystopian trilogy Oryx and Crake (2003), The Year of the Flood (2009), and MaddAddam (2013) shows a world where social inequality, genetic technology, and climate change lead to disaster.

Other examples

• Heat (1977), by Arthur Herzog, US
• The Sea and Summer [Drowning Towers] (1987), by George Turner, Australia
• The Crystal World (1988), by J. G. Ballard, UK
• The Ice People (1998) and The Flood (2004), by Magee Gee, US
• Earth (1990), by David Brin, US
• A Friend of the Earth (2000), by T.C. Boyle, US
• Floodland (2001) and Aurora (2011), by Marcus Sedgwick, US
• Exodus (2002) and sequels, by Julie Bertagna, US
• Flood (2008) and Ark (2009), by Stephen Baxter, US
• The Windup Girl (2009), Ship Breaker (2010), The Drowned Cities (2012), The Water Knife (2015), and Tool of War (2017), by Paolo Bacigalupi, US
• Empire Builders (2011), by Ben Bova, US
• 2312 (2012), by Kim Stanley Robinson, US
• Odds Against Tomorrow (2013), by Nathaniel Rich, US
• The Bone Clocks (2014), by David Mitchell, UK
• The Collapse of Western Civilization (2014), by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, Columbia University Press, US
• Memory of Water (2015), by Emmi Itäranta, Finland
• Gold Fame Citrus (2015), by Claire Vaye Watkins, US
• American War (2017), by Omar El Akkad, US
• The Water Cure (2018), by Sophie Mackintosh, UK
• The Last Children of Tokyo (The Emissary) (2018), by Yoko Tawada, Germany/Japan
• 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 Deluge (2023), by Stephen Markley
• The Girl who Rode the Unihorn (2024), by mìcheal dubh
• Juice (2024), by Tim Winton
• Fairhaven (2024), by Jan Lee and Steve Willis
• Wild Wise Weird (2024), by Quan-Hoang Vuong.

Anthologies and collections

• Welcome to the Greenhouse (2011) – United States edition, edited by Gordon Van Gelder
• Loosed Upon the World: The Saga Anthology of Climate Fiction (2015) – United States edition, edited by John Joseph Adams
• Drowned Worlds (2016) – United Kingdom edition, edited by Jonathan Strahan
• Possible Solutions (2017) – United States edition, written by Helen Phillips. Many of the short stories are about climate change.
• Bruce Meyer, an author, editor, and creative writing professor at Georgian College, edited a 2017 anthology about "changing ocean conditions, the loss of many species, genetically modified organisms, increasing food shortages, mass migrations of refugees, and the overconfidence in provoking Mother Earth herself." He calls this type of writing "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) – A collection of short stories about climate and the environment, written by authors from the Global South.
• The Routledge Anthology of Climate Fiction, Volume One (2024) – Edited by Bill Gillard. This collection argues that climate change literature began earlier than most people think, as early as the 1870s when science-fiction writers and artists explored the effects of industrialization.

Influence

Many journalists, literary critics, and scholars have guessed about how climate fiction might affect the beliefs of people who read it. So far, three scientific studies have looked into this question.

One experiment found that reading short climate fiction stories had small but meaningful positive changes in how people thought about global warming, right after they read the stories. However, these changes became less important after one month. The researchers pointed out that the effects from reading a story once in a controlled setting might not show the full impact of reading climate fiction in real life, where people often read longer stories, like novels, and may read them more than once.

A survey of readers showed that people who read climate fiction are usually younger, more likely to support environmental policies, and more worried about climate change than people who do not read it. The survey also found that climate fiction helps concerned readers remember how serious climate change is, and it encourages them to think about future environmental problems and how climate change affects both humans and animals. However, the actions people took after becoming more aware showed that awareness alone is not enough if there are no clear messages about what steps to take. Some readers also reported that climate fiction might make some people feel very negative emotions about climate change, which could make it harder to encourage action or persuade others.

A study focused on the popular novel The Water Knife found that stories set in a future where the environment is ruined can help readers learn about unfairness in climate change and understand the struggles of people affected by it, including those who must leave their homes because of climate problems. However, the study also found that stories about a bad future might lead some people to support extreme or traditional solutions to climate change. Based on this, the study warned that not all climate fiction promotes positive change, even though many authors, critics, and readers hope it will.