That is the question David Holmes at Monash University asked in his Feb
20th 2014 article in the Australian ezine The Conversation.
There is an obvious trend toward environmental premise in science
fiction. In the 2009 World SF Convention in Montreal, I sat on a panel with Tom Doherty of Tor Books, who
shared that, “We want to see a hero who
works to achieve an environmentally sustainable world through innovation and
creative technology.” I was delighted to hear that Tor was officially embracing
a new kind of hero and associated paradigm for storytelling; one based on
intelligent innovation, creativity and cooperation and sound environmental
stewardship.
Climate change is just one—albeit a global—environmental issue
referred to by Doherty. Several years before Doherty’s statement, British
nature writer Robert Macfarlane submitted that writers could play a crucial
role in helping us to imagine the impact of climate change. Macfarlane was
referring to the power of storytelling in forming and influencing a society’s changing
paradigm.
Around the same time that Doherty made his statement,
environmentalist Bill McKibben shared that, “Global Warming has still to
produce an Orwell or a Huxley, a Verne or a Wells, a Nineteen Eighty-Four or a War
of the Worlds, or in film any equivalent of On the Beach or Doctor
Strangelove.” In his article, Holmes identified the urgent need “for a
narrative form that can communicate the seriousness of climate change to a
broad public.”
Part of the challenge is in first defining and acknowledging this
literature as its own genre or sub-genre. In 2013 Wired Magazine defined climate
fiction as a “subgenre of dystopian fiction set in the near future, in which
climate change wreaks havoc on an otherwise familiar planet.” Wired noted that cli-fi has already attracted
well-known literary authors, including Ian McEwen, Barbara Kingsolver and
Margaret Atwood.
Climate fiction is best described as a sub-genre of the
science fiction genre, itself a powerful literature of metaphor, with the
highest potential to raise awareness about major social—and
environmental—issues.
Many have dismissed science fiction as escapist literature (Atwood
was herself guilty of this
Critic Frederic Jameson suggests that, “Science fiction is in its
very nature a symbolic meditation on history itself.” The genre explores
premise based on current scientific and technological paradigms and associated
cultures and beliefs. What if that went on unchecked?...What if we decided to
end this or ignore that?... These are conveyed through various predictive
visions from cautionary tales (e.g., Atwood’s Oryx and Crake) to dystopias (e.g., Huxley’s Brave New World). Where realist fiction makes commentary on our
current society, science fiction (and climate fiction as one of its sub-genres)
takes that commentary into the realm of consequence by showing it to us in
living color.
Regarding dystopian cli-fi, Margaret Atwood wrote in the Huffington
Post that, while earlier dystopic novels focused on oppressive and deceptive
political regimes, “now [dystopias are] more likely to take place in a challenging
landscape that no longer resembles the hospitable planet we've taken for granted.”—in
a world of our making.
Mary Shelley’s 19th Century Frankenstein (1818) explored humanity’s fear of the monster of
difference and change; Orwell’s Nineteen
Eighty Four (1948) was a post-war commentary on the danger of a
totalitarian world where order was maintained through mind-control and
propaganda; Huxley’s post-WWI Brave New
World (1932) portrayed a supposed utopia built on stability through genetic
manipulation at the expense of creative chaos; Ray Bradbury’s post-WWII
Fahrenheit 451 explored the control of humanity through imposed ignorance. Fiction
of the past two decades has shifted to reflect our emerging concerns with
technology, corporate deceit, overpopulation and global environmental calamity.
A short list of eco-fiction and climate fiction written or filmed
in the last several decades includes: Ecotopia
by Ernest Callenbach; The Drowned World
by J.G. Ballard; Oryx and Crake
trilogy by Margaret Atwood; Flight
Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver; Solar by Ian McEwan; Back to the Garden by Clara Hume; Not a Drop to Drink by Mindy McGinnis; Odds against Tomorrow by Rich Nathaniel; Children of Men; The Day
After Tomorrow; Waterworld; and Avatar.
My eco-SF thriller Darwin’s Paradox examines
humanity’s co-evolution with technology and nature in a climate-changed world.
I have been coaching writers to publication for over two decades
and currently teach how to write science fiction at the University of Toronto
and George Brown College. I’ve noticed that in a short time, an ever-larger
proportion of student writers are exploring an environmental premise for their
novels with imaginative sub-genres emerging. In my latest class, several students
have independently classified their works as eco-punk, eco-action, environmental
thriller and urban eco-fantasy.
If an altered climate provides the overall premise of climate
fiction, then its theme must relate to humanity’s part in it. If climate
fiction—like science fiction—does not do this, then it is relinquishing the
most potent aspect of its genre-purpose: to incite action as a result of being
brought to awareness. Some will argue that simply being brought to awareness is
sufficient. I submit that all too often what this engenders is alarm and
powerlessness. There’s nothing worse than a story that does not provide
epiphany, reconciliation, and opportunity for purposeful action. I don’t mean
polemic either; I am talking about opportunity for change through a resolving
story arc.
Which brings us back to the question posed by David Holmes. My
answer is a resounding yes: eco-fiction can save the planet—IF it
provides direction and the opportunity for resolution and triumph. Otherwise,
it’s just a disaster story; something to endure. Literature can provide a loud
clarion call for action, change and evolution. It always has. Think of how the
cautionary tales of Huxley, Orwell, Heinlein, Bradbury and Atwood nurtured the
seeds of dissent and change. Now think of how a single book—Silent Spring by
Rachel Carson—helped spawn the American environmental movement of the 1960s.
Environmental fiction is growing in
prominence because it needs to. Writers from all around the world are
responding to this global need and leading the wave of change. It starts with
genre identification.
Below is a list of my own environmental fiction.
Environmental Fiction by Nina Munteanu:
ANGEL OF CHAOS: readers explore genetics, bio-engineering, biomimicry as well as the effects of climate change in Canada's southern Ontario. Readers learn about how plagues and viruses spread and behave and their role as aggressive symbionts in impacted ecosystems.
DARWIN'S PARADOX: readers explore not only about Darwin's paradox, but how damaged ecosystems behave. Readers learn about the fractal relationship between cells, individuals and communities and habitats, about phenomena like creative destruction, fractal ecology, ad co-evolution, not to mention intelligent viruses and the role of technology in natural evolution. For more on this book, read this review in Speculating Canada: "Patient Zero and the Post-Human".
SPLINTERED UNIVERSE: readers explore niche-partitioning and natural altruism in wild animals and Nature generally in this galactic trilogy; readers explore commensalism and compassion in Nature; they learn about behaviour modification of animals in captivity vs. in the wild and so much more. For more about this trilogy, you can read this review in Speculating Canada: "Alien Ecologies"
NATURAL SELECTION: in my collection of short stories readers explore GMO, bio-technology, aggressive co-evolution, and political ramifications of climate change
For more on my thoughts on the role of ecology in speculative fiction you can read my interview on Speculating Canada.
Nina Munteanu is an
ecologist and internationally published author of novels, short stories and
essays. She coaches writers and teaches writing at George Brown College and the
University of Toronto. For more about Nina’s coaching & workshops visit www.ninamunteanu.me. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for more about her writing.
