Emergence of the Literature of Climate Change

The "other" ERE. Societal aspects of the ERE philosophy. Emergent change-making, scale-effects,...
7Wannabe5
Posts: 9372
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 9:03 am

Emergence of the Literature of Climate Change

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Just a few years ago there was very little modern literary fiction that incorporated the theme or reality of climate change. This is now changing:

https://lithub.com/how-contemporary-nov ... n-fiction/
https://lithub.com/telling-tales-of-cli ... -weigh-in/
I think novelists, poets, filmmakers, and others play a very important translational role. For me, storytellers help translate climate science into imaginative possibilities hinted by what’s observationally verifiable. In part, we create, as Stan had said, a kind of advanced preview, and I think we also help to elucidate meaning. People can be compelled by art to ask moral questions about what has been allowed to happen to our world and what might come next. They may come to understand why climate truth makes existential difference to many lives—human and non-human. Good fiction, which can only be meaningful if it is truthful, makes already real climate science even more real by helping to show why it matters so much.
I am gathering and reading my way through a stack of the books written or mentioned by the authors interviewed in the articles above:

"A Children's Bible" by Lydia Millet takes place in the very near future. The protagonist is a GenZ/GenA child of young affluent GenX former college chum parents. She is running wild with a group of her peers at an upscale summer house rented by "the parents" when the SHTF. I highly recommend this novel which circles around and off the question of "What are you going to tell the kids when they ask you why you let it happen?"

"America War" by Omar El Akkad is set in late 21st/early 22nd century America, during and after the Second Civil War in which the South secedes in defiance of federal ban of all fossil fuel usage. Though the novel imagines one very particular possible future, its observations on the collapse of overall and individual social functioning in time of war and resource scarcity are universal, and the post-empire-era U.S. it describes is frighteningly believable. Highly recommend.

Anyways, now that climate change/resource scarcity has firmly gained footing in the world of literary fiction which is (highly optimistic estimate) maybe read by 5% population, the question is when will a popular movie based on one of these books be produced?

User avatar
unemployable
Posts: 1007
Joined: Mon Jan 08, 2018 11:36 am
Location: Homeless

Re: Emergence of the Literature of Climate Change

Post by unemployable »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Sat Sep 04, 2021 2:34 pm
"What are you going to tell the kids when they ask you why you let it happen?"
"Well the most effective alternative was for you never to have been born. Is that what you prefer?"

We've had post-apocalyptic movies for decades btw, many of which allude to climate change/resource depletion having happened, so I'm not so sure this is so "emerging", unless that's not high enough culture for you.

daylen
Posts: 2528
Joined: Wed Dec 16, 2015 4:17 am
Location: Lawrence, KS

Re: Emergence of the Literature of Climate Change

Post by daylen »

unemployable wrote:
Sat Sep 04, 2021 2:45 pm
We've had post-apocalyptic movies for decades
Which tends to substitute climate change with hoards of zombies due to their concrete and anthropocentric attraction in the market. Though, in one of the most popular shows "GoT", they at least bring the storm with them.

7Wannabe5
Posts: 9372
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 9:03 am

Re: Emergence of the Literature of Climate Change

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@unemployable:

I think the difference is not level of culture, but level of allusion. The conversation I linked actually goes on about how the distinction between literary fiction and science fiction is artificial and not helpful. Obviously, there was a good deal of post-apocalyptic literary fiction written during the Cold War era. and there were also popular movies based on Ehrlich's 1968 best seller "The Population Bomb" The fact that these apocalyptic fiction of previous eras never quite became reality is also evidence which is frequently offered by those tending towards more inclined towards believing that our ingenuity and/or luck as a species will save us once more. i may be wrong, and although I greatly respect your input and I remain Level Orange enough to relish debate, it is my impression that Jacob would like this sub-forum to start from some position beyond this argument. i was just trying to exhibit growing intersection between two different realms of Mastery like unto the diagrams in Jacob's presentation.

jacob
Site Admin
Posts: 15907
Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2013 8:38 pm
Location: USA, Zone 5b, Koppen Dfa, Elev. 620ft, Walkscore 77
Contact:

Re: Emergence of the Literature of Climate Change

Post by jacob »

NOTE: If this thread devolves into politics, it's gonna die (again).

I've heard the cli-fi term before. I'd distinguish clifi (and the books below) from scifi in the sense that at least the climate science is reasonably realistic even if other things (say, weaponry or other yet-to-be-invented or can't-be-invented tech) are not
Of books I can think of
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B084FY1NXB/ (near term climate, you)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ABLJ0A4/ (near term climate, you)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KT7YTO6/ (medium climate future, your newly born's grandchildren)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07BWQJBJC/ (medium climate future, your newly born's great-great grandchildren)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08JK87Q7L/ (far climate future, when causes have been reduced to myths describing another era)

The Dark Mountain Project is still the go-to-site in terms of exploring what all this means for humanity's understanding of itself on a collective and individual basis. They use poetry and fiction as well.
https://dark-mountain.net/

Of movies I can think of
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_(film) [near term climate during the intro, you]
(I'm not that much of a movie person...)

Part of the problem is that climate change in terms of action is kinda boring. It's like making a movie about diabetes---long complex and boring. It'll only work according to how deep the audience appreciates how wicked the problem is. For example, for the uninformed Syriana is a muddled, confusing, non-sequtiur that invites getting blamed as "propaganda by the other team". Whereas those very few who have some interest in Great Game geopolitics will find is depressingly fascinating and worth rewatching to appreciate just how much it all ties together.

chenda
Posts: 3289
Joined: Wed Jun 29, 2011 1:17 pm
Location: Nether Wallop

Re: Emergence of the Literature of Climate Change

Post by chenda »

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/ ... -have-come

I think you would like this one @7wannabe5 and it has a certain gritty believability.

luxagraf
Posts: 215
Joined: Tue Nov 26, 2013 4:32 pm
Contact:

Re: Emergence of the Literature of Climate Change

Post by luxagraf »

Jacob links to them, but I'd second Paolo Bacigalupi, esp. The Windup Girl.

Dream of Freedom
Posts: 753
Joined: Wed Aug 29, 2012 5:58 pm
Location: Nebraska, US

Re: Emergence of the Literature of Climate Change

Post by Dream of Freedom »

Those who were children in the 90s might remember Captain Planet taking pollution back down to zero on the TV.

I doubt it's a great setting for fiction though. A big part of the fun in fiction is imagining yourself the hero. The thing is ordinary people aren't the hero with climate change. Quite the opposite in fact. So you're making them feel bad about themselves which isn't a good way to sell your work.

Western Red Cedar
Posts: 1205
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 2:15 pm

Re: Emergence of the Literature of Climate Change

Post by Western Red Cedar »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Sat Sep 04, 2021 2:34 pm
the question is when will a popular movie based on one of these books be produced?
Snowpiercer was the first to come to mind. Not sure if that qualifies as a popular movie but I thought it was well done. It was interesting to see the director explore some of the same themes in Parasite. The Hunger Games was really popular, but I don't recall climate change playing a huge role (if any) in the story. Resource scarcity was certainly a theme though.

There are other movies, not necessarily based on books, like The Day After Tomorrow and Waterworld.

7Wannabe5
Posts: 9372
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 9:03 am

Re: Emergence of the Literature of Climate Change

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Thank you for the recommendations. I have read and enjoyed most of the Kim Stanley Robinson and Paolo Bacigalupi* novels linked above. Kingsnorth is already on my list, and I will add McDonagh.

"Literary fiction" does come off as somewhat pretentious, but "literature" can also sometimes be used to mean anything in written form, so I was attempting to make clear this distinction. From 1977 to 2003, I was a literary fiction reading machine**. When I worked at the largest bookstore in the most educated city in the U.S., I was the go to person for literary fiction recommendations, because of my breadth of reading in this genre. So, it is a field with which I have some familiarity.

I didn't do a very good job describing what I have recently observed. In 2019, well after I had joined this forum and become reasonably knowledgeable about climate change and resource depletion after reading Smil, Scranton, Kunstler, Meadows, Greer, Alexander, Orlov, Hall etc. etc. etc. , I decided to treat myself to a selection of bright and shiny new novels from the NYT 2018 Notable Books list. I'm not wanting to make this discussion political, but relevant note would be that the NYT is generally deemed to be at least slightly left leaning, so not actively in denial of climate change/resource depletion. Obviously, many novels are not set in the "here and now", but most of the recently written novels I semi-randomly picked up and read in 2019 were inhabited by intelligent, well-educated, thoughtful characters living in present day, highly developed settings. What I observed was that zero percent of these characters were concerned with climate change/resource depletion. It was absent in their fictional universes and their internal dialogues. What I am suggesting is that this likely will not be the case if/when I randomly select works of literary fiction to read off of the 2022 NYT Notable Books list. I would also suggest that completely evading the topic in a serious novel, or even lighter work, meant to be timely and realistic will eventually be as difficult as evading any mention of war in a novel written in 1942. Even a locked-room puzzle cozy mystery set in 1942 would have a soldier missing a train as part of the plot to be unraveled, and even a comic novel about a bad divorce set in 2030 will have a grid blackout after a climate change influenced storm as another banana peel the protagonist slips upon.


*"The Windup Girl" is why I started referring to the relatively affluent Boomer generation men I usually date as Calorie Kings. It is not always easy being old GenX female :lol:

** Midlife crisis shifted me towards non-fiction.

chenda
Posts: 3289
Joined: Wed Jun 29, 2011 1:17 pm
Location: Nether Wallop

Re: Emergence of the Literature of Climate Change

Post by chenda »

James Wesley Rawles, who I believe runs a prepper blog, wrote a novel called 'Patriots' about some people who flee a collapsed government. It's big on bibles, barbed wire and guns (he really likes his guns) and they go around executing communists and waging war against the UN who decide to invade North Dakota or something. In other words it's total trash from start to finish but it's oddly sort of enjoyable. Kinda like watching an interminable Brazilian soap opera and you still want to find out who hid the body in the boat house.

7Wannabe5
Posts: 9372
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 9:03 am

Re: Emergence of the Literature of Climate Change

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@chenda:

I downloaded free sample of "Patriots." I wouldn't describe it as "trash", doesn't quite rise to the standard of "literary fiction." :lol: However, I agree that it is an oddly compelling read. His style is kind of like an extremely factually detailed objective intelligence report morphed with police radio transcript and facebook level gossip or character insight. The free sample covers the first 3 chapters of the book, and I might be wrong, but I don't think I encountered a single metaphor. Yet, I might choose to read further, shamelessly waiting to gawk at an anticipated 5 car pile-up, if the entire book magically dropped in my lap.
Against Kevin's advice, Dan Fong bought a double-edged Sykes-Fairbairn British commando knife. Kevin warned him it was an inferior design. he preferred knives that could be used for both utility purposes and for combat. He observed that the Fairbourn's grip was too small, and that the knife's slowly tapering tip was likely to break, particularly in utility use.
I also finished "The Wall" by John Lanchester. This work of literary fiction is set about 20 to 40 years in the future, after The Change has occurred, on a cold island nation, now completely walled against desperate refugee Others. In this future world, young adults must spend two years in guard duty on the wall. The protagonist is one of these youth, and the novel describes his personal development towards more adult (complex) perspective as he experiences a number of traumatic events. Highly recommend. I also highly recommend John Lanchester's other novels, especially "Fragrant Harbor."
Home: the place where when you have to go there, they have to take you in. Somebody had said that. But once you had spent time on the Wall, you stop believing in the idea that anybody, ever, has no choice but to take you in. Nobody has to take you in. They can choose to, or not.

chenda
Posts: 3289
Joined: Wed Jun 29, 2011 1:17 pm
Location: Nether Wallop

Re: Emergence of the Literature of Climate Change

Post by chenda »

@7wannabe5 ha, yes indeed. The double standards of 'the group' really were irritating though. They brag about their Christian values yet have no qualms about engaging in summary executions and stringing up bodies with warning signs around their neck. Although I suppose it's not an unrealistic scenario either.

There was a post-apocalyptic tradition in the 19th century, driven by a reaction against industrialisation. 'After London' by Richard Jefferies was published in 1885 and depicts some unspecified catastrophe where the whole city has been covered by a huge lake (which is oddly prescient) The pollution and urban squalor has all disappeared, and Jefferies, who grew up in pre-sewage system London is not unhappy about it. Tolkien's hobbit shire was written in a similar vein, a rural utopia threatened by the forces of modernity.

I wonder if China is developing a similar literary tradition.

7Wannabe5
Posts: 9372
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 9:03 am

Re: Emergence of the Literature of Climate Change

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@chenda:

I added “After London” to my list. It does seem to me that there is a “danger” in mixing together desire for return to pastoral or fresh open frontier or age of the warrior utopian fantasy with narrative based on scientific reality. Also the fine line between “we are too many” and “you are too many” can sometimes be ignored more easily in mythical terms than mathematical terms. Kind of like how the first rule of writing a romance novel is “kill the parents.”

IOW, it might be important to have frank open discussions about all the different possible ways life might be better with fewer other humans around, before considering narratives based on very real possibility SHTF scenarios. For instance, I’m thinking “Dude, if you’re going to write a novel about life after the collapse, don’t kill your protagonist’s pre-collapse wife off in a plague and then have him rescue a new wife who is 20 years younger.” I mean most everybody has got a little bit of residual “let it burn” in their psyche, but letting it out does the opposite of selling the science or demonstrating the gravity of the problem.

OTOH, humans feeling too crowded, forced into narrow niche, rule-bound, piled upon in ever-growing hierarchical pyramid or repressed into passive-aggression is also part of the overall system. And it might even prove to be more critical trigger than CO2 levels, but probably not while video games and pizza are still readily available.

Hristo Botev
Posts: 1734
Joined: Tue Jul 17, 2018 3:42 am

Re: Emergence of the Literature of Climate Change

Post by Hristo Botev »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Mon Sep 06, 2021 3:11 pm
It does seem to me that there is a “danger” in mixing together desire for return to pastoral or fresh open frontier or age of the warrior utopian fantasy with narrative based on scientific reality. . . .
This may not be what you're talking about (I've not been following this thread terribly closely), but one of the main (primary?) themes I took from Kingsnorth's The Wake was contrasting the pre-industrial pastoral/Eden sort of utopia (in that book, it was pre-Norman England) with the very real reality that someone (here, the Normans) is always going to want to take that Eden from you by force.

You can take some comfort in the fact that drastic and violent change is nothing new for humanity, I guess; and that the story of man trying to get back into proper balance with nature is as old a story as humanity itself. I mean, just read the Old Testament.

But, then you read Alexandria. And you can't help but think: "yeah, this time is different." But then again, maybe not. Obviously, Kingsnorth in Alexandria was re-telling, or re-casting, or at least drawing parallels with the story of the The Flood.

chenda
Posts: 3289
Joined: Wed Jun 29, 2011 1:17 pm
Location: Nether Wallop

Re: Emergence of the Literature of Climate Change

Post by chenda »

Hristo Botev wrote:
Tue Sep 07, 2021 10:39 am
This may not be what you're talking about (I've not been following this thread terribly closely), but one of the main (primary?) themes I took from Kingsnorth's The Wake was contrasting the pre-industrial pastoral/Eden sort of utopia (in that book, it was pre-Norman England) with the very real reality that someone (here, the Normans) is always going to want to take that Eden from you by force.
Julian Rathbone's 'The Last English King' is written in a similar vein (its a great read if you like historical fiction) Its a very long theme in English history. Radicals and reformers seeking to legitimise and validate their ideas by claiming (or even believing) they were restoring what had once existed in Anglo-Saxon times. There is sometimes a thread of truth to it amongst a lot of implausibility.

But I agree climate change literature is rather different, a warning of the future rather than a paean to the past, maybe closer to end times mythology. Kyle Harper writes in The Fate of Rome:
Each of the great environmental convulsions in the Roman Empire provoked unpredictable spiritual reverberations...In the sixth and seventh centuries, the concatenation of plague and climate deterioration spawned an age of eschatology, within Christianity, Judaism, and that last offspring of late antiquity, Islam...Materially and imaginatively the ascent of Islam would have been inconceivable without the upheavals of nature
Apparently both the Bible and Koran are big on apocalyptic thinking and warning that end times are imminent. Signs of a 'profound collective distress' in the 6th century can also be found as far apart as Chinese Buddhism and Norse Mythology.

7Wannabe5
Posts: 9372
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 9:03 am

Re: Emergence of the Literature of Climate Change

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@Hristo:

I have not yet read Kingsnorth (on my list), so I can't speak to his works. In simplest terms what I was trying to convey is that wanting to return to a historical past that was somehow better is a very common human longing or fantasy. It is also true that at all times in the past humans lived with lower average energy use per capita and lower average population density.
From the first United States censue (in 1790) to the most recent one (in 2000), enumerated population rose from 3.9 million to nearly 300 million. In 1790 for each American there were, on average, almost 7 hectares of national environment (roughly equivalent to 115 football fields) in which to live, from which to extract a living, and into which life's end-products could be deposited. By 2000, despite territorial expansion, this per capita share had shrunk to about one-fourteenth as much, or an average of a little over 3 hectares (between 6 and 7 football field equivalents) per person. However, unlike the tiger which is no larger today than its 1790 ancestor, industrial man is ecologically a "larger" animal than pre-industrial man, as data below will show. So 3- plus hectares per capita now has to provide far more and absorb far more than did each 57 hectares in 1790. It should be no surprise, then, that life in modern industrial America has to be more regulated (less free) than life in 1790 America."
- "Bottleneck: Humanity's Impending Impasse" - William Catton.

It is also true that the current human population on average is burning through resources at an unsustainable (barring technological miracles still to come) rate. Therefore, choosing to reduce average burn rate could be a solution AND not choosing to reduce average burn rate may hasten future collapse to lower average burn rate. So, the future, whether by choice or natural consequences, may very well be the like the past in that average human burn rate will be lower.

Therefore, an imaginative novel set in post-collapse world likely describe some ways in which the lower-energy future is like the lower-energy past. For instance, people are eating more turnips in isolated Britain or people are once again using draft horses and baking cornbread in the Midwest. Is is also true that in most any situation, human beings are going to experience their share of joys and sorrows. So, any attempting-to-be-realistic novel set in the low energy future would also illustrate this reality. The problem I was trying to describe, is when a novelist (consciously or unconsciously) crosses over the line to portraying the post-collapse, low-energy future as being better because it will be like some fantasy about the historical past. The reason why I think this might be a problem is because it lends fuel to the sort of arguments set forth in books like "Austerity Ecology and the Collapse-Porn Addicts: A Defense of Growth, Progress, Industry, and Stuff" by Leigh Phillips, especially if the reason why life is portrayed as better in an imagined post-collapse, low energy future is because a lot of humans have died, so average hectare territory per human, and thus freedom from regulation has increased. The post-apocalypse freeway may be full of potholes and rusting abandoned vehicles, but it's all mine!

Even those with much more gentle agrarian or living lightly in nature imaginative visions of the lower-energy future, often seem to be evading the required kill-off math. We are twenty years on from the above quote from " Bottleneck" and the U.S. obviously enjoys lower population density than most of the inhabitable planet. Give or take for productive shore and river areas, we are now down to around 1 inhabitable/arable/productive hectare (around 2.5 acres = around 2 football fields) of land per human globally. For most of human history, we subsisted as foragers. It is absolutely un-possible for humans to subsist as foragers at current average global population density. It's cool when a modern human demonstrates being able to live off of foraging in a moneyless experiment, but absolutely can't be expanded to 9 billion humans doing it. By 1790, England was already down to around 4 acres per human. The forests had been decimated and coal usage had become a necessity. So, the mixed agrarian model of 18th century England was unsustainable at population density that was half the current global density. IOW, there was no way to go back in time technologically without killing off or exporting some of the population. So, any novel that imagines a future with lower energy usage per capita and 8 to 10 billion humans living on the planet, can't simply imagine reversion to lower-tech agrarian past. Either some of the humans have to go or some of the technology must be retained or newly invented. And, it just bothers me when authors manage the "killing off" of the rest of the humans* who won't fit in back-to-low-tech-future in a cavalier manner.

*I am also bothered by not infrequent cavalier handling of "most of the women-folk back to baking cornbread."

Hristo Botev
Posts: 1734
Joined: Tue Jul 17, 2018 3:42 am

Re: Emergence of the Literature of Climate Change

Post by Hristo Botev »

@7w5: Thank you for that; a lot to think about there. FWIW, I don't think Alexandria runs afoul of any of the criteria you've outlined for what bothers you about some post-collapse novels, far from it (I'd still start with the Wake and then the Beast, as those novels frame Alexandria).

Lately I have been coming back to thinking that, from the perspective of the stories we tell ourselves (see Dark Mountain Project), yes, cc is different, but also no, cc isn't really different. From my Judaeo-Christian perspective, Eden represents humans being in proper relationship with God, and I don't think it's insignificant that the garden imagery of Eden has us in proper balance with the rest of God's creation. And the story of humanity (again, from my J-C perspective) has been the story of humanity falling out of relationship with God (i.e., being kicked out of Eden), and then trying to get back. From the tower of Babel, and the Flood, Cain and Abel, to Christ's sacrifice, to the Church and Christendom, etc.

So, to quote C.S. Lewis (I think), CC is just one more symptom of "the disease of Being a Fallen Man."

So, what to do? It's been awhile since I read Laudato Si, but IIRC, Pope Francis properly focuses on preserving humanity, and minimizing human pain and suffering as much as possible, not so much on some vague and abstract notion of "saving the planet." And preserving humanity means doing everything we can to avoid "the 'killing off' of the rest of the humans who won't fit in back-to-low-tech-future in a cavalier manner."

7Wannabe5
Posts: 9372
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 9:03 am

Re: Emergence of the Literature of Climate Change

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@Hristo:

Yeah, even non-practicing Unitarian permaculture-philosophy proponents such as myself obviously cling to something like "Back to Eden." Apparently, there is as of yet only one known permaculture speculative future novel.

https://medium.com/permaculture-3-0/whe ... a07bb0c2ea

Another growing genre is solar-punk or eco-punk The authors of this genre optimistically imagine futures largely based on renewable energy.

https://solarpunkanarchists.com/2016/05 ... solarpunk/

I probably lean a bit more towards solar-punk than your median permaculture devotee. Who wouldn't want solar powered flying monkeys to pick the highest fruit off of heirloom apple tree?

Miss Lonelyhearts
Posts: 176
Joined: Tue Oct 08, 2013 12:53 am

Re: Emergence of the Literature of Climate Change

Post by Miss Lonelyhearts »

“Beautiful World, Where Are You” anticipates though doesn’t entirely evade the real substance of this response. Alice writes to Eileen: “I agree it seems vulgar, decadent, even epistemically violent, to invest energy in the trivialities of sex and friendship when human civilization is facing collapse. But at the same time, that is what I do every day.” She goes on to say: “After all, when people are lying on their deathbeds, don’t they always start talking about their spouses and children? And isn’t death just the apocalypse in the first person?”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/07/book ... ooney.html

Post Reply