Tag: climate change

To Cli-Fi or not to Cli-Fi, that is the question. Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous science fiction or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them?

Yes, a somewhat bastardised version of Shakespeare’s famous soliloquy. Yet if you take a moment to deconstruct it, the answer to why many authors are picking up and running with the Cli-Fi mantra is apparent.

Cli-Fi was coined by journalist Dan Bloom and he champions the propagation of the term through cli-fi.net, an academic and literary Facebook group – Cli-Fi, Climate Change & Literary Criticism, and other social media channels.

It is well established that science fiction offers authors and readers the opportunity to enter worlds of possibility. Science fiction has never been restricted by the word ‘science’. On the contrary, science fiction explores morality, social constructs and the edges of human behaviour. It is no surprise then, as we face climate change, the greatest dilemma to have challenged our species, that creative minds would act to both express their dismay but also to offer hope and possibility beyond what is considered in the media or around the water cooler.

I started writing my novel ROAD TO NOWHERE in 1996 as a reaction to stories of global warming in the news. It struck me as alarming then, that as a species we were being very slow to act. It alarms me even more now. I remember learning about greenhouse gasses in primary school and being taught about the life cycle of the sun and what life would be like for people at its different stages. These early encounters with popular science stayed firm in my mind and somehow colluded with many other ideas to form this book.

ROAD TO NOWHERE doesn’t sit easily within the Sci-Fi genre. It’s part thriller, conspiracy, satire, philosophical exploration and there is even a touch of romance. There is sex in there too, because for many people sex and desire are overpowering forces often never understood or controlled.

Cli-Fi brings all the competing genres within my book together and sums up what it is about. For me, that is an exploration of the fundamental duality of our species. Our determined headlong drive into self-destruction polarised by an opposing instinct for self-preservation and survival.

By exploring climate change in fiction, authors can take fellow human beings through an experience they have not considered. Isn’t that the function of all fiction?

By coining the term Cli-Fi, Dan Bloom brings works together that exist across the world of literary fiction. The aim is simple. We want to save the planet and we want to save our species and we want to save those we love and we want to save ourselves. It can feel powerless when observing history unfold, watching the proverbial train wreck before your eyes with no means in your power to change it.

Cli-Fi gives us that means. With the feeling of powerlessness, the ability to share ideas becomes essential. Words change minds and minds change reality.

As a writer, there are many stories I want to explore, but for the moment I can’t look away from the big glob of murky uncertainty before me. I must deconstruct it, I must make sense of what we are collectively doing. Is it too much to hope that along the way, I and other authors, might bring a few readers along with us? The conceit of the writer is all I can offer. At the very least if you don’t change your mind I hope I entertain you to the end. I suddenly feel like one of the members of the quartet on the Titanic, offering a melodic knowing tune as the boat sinks into the deathly cold waters. Regardless I will continue to Cli-Fi because frankly, I don’t know what else I can do.

Evan Shapiro
Author – Road To Nowhere

I have an itchy spot on my right calf. It’s probably mild eczema. I have seen the doctor who has referred me to a skin specialist but I’m yet to follow-up on that appointment. Dr Google says it could be one of eighteen conditions. I’m ruling out some of the nastier probabilities on the basis that there are no other symptoms and if it was something really nasty then I’d probably actually feel sick or it would have gotten a lot worse by now. In the meantime, I don’t always notice it but occasionally it gets insanely itchy and I find myself scratching the hell out of it. My sensible voice says, 'don't scratch, go and find out what it is and get it treated'. The sooner the better as the unknown can often be more problematic than the known.

 

So that’s my leg, and apart from it registering itchy sensations, it’s strangely giving me a little perspective. I mean, it’s itchy, it’s been itchy for a year and yet I’m so slow to act. Like everyone, I’m so caught up in everything else I’m doing that I keep telling myself I don’t have time to see a doctor. It’s just an itch and everything will be ok, surely? Well I actually do think it will be ok, but what if I do nothing and in another year it isn’t just an itch? While I continue to do nothing about it, my annoying itch makes me think, ‘Is the increase in global temperatures just the world’s itchy leg? Why do we ignore the obvious until it’s too late to do anything about it?

 

I’m calling the specialist today and making that appointment. I can’t expect anyone else to listen to my resolutions if I don’t act on them myself. I don't want to lose the argument with myself and wind up not having a leg to stand on. Perhaps you have something of your own you should be getting checked? The world does, and while we are very busy living our lives we are missing the obvious. If we don’t take care of ourselves and where we live then this whole thing is going to be over much faster than any of us might like to think. Forget about not having a leg, I'd really like to keep having a world to stand on. 

 

Evan Shapiro
Author – Road To Nowhere