Cli-Fi Is All the Rage [View all]

[marmar]

By Kieran Cooke / Climate News Network


LONDON—It’s some time in the not too distant future. The American mid-west has turned into a dust bowl. Birds are dropping out of the sky. Cities are encapsulated in domes so that people can breathe clean, if recycled, air.

Billions of refugees, victims of drought and famine, are on the move. The streets are full of violent gangs and human traffickers. Pandemics are breaking out.

Welcome to a new literary genre—climate fiction, or cli-fi.

Some of it might be sensational, some of it not exactly great literature, and some downright depressing, but there’s little doubting cli-fi’s growing popularity.

Cli-fi—along with its elder brother sci-fi—is now considered part of modern literature’s classification system. Though some titles make only a passing reference to climate change, while others are more concerned with murder, mayhem and sex than with global warming, others are more thoughtful, science-based works. ...................(more)

http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/cli-fi_is_all_the_rage_20151226