A new genre, born from novels and movies about climate change, has surfaced. "Cli-fi," short for "climate-change fiction,” are novels and movies set in the present or the near future that put the true story of climate change in fictional settings and scenarios. They help us better understand our climate not with scientific statistics nor government charts but by engendering raw emotions with stories that are relatable.
I coined the cli-fi term to serve as a platform for writers and film directors who create art about the biggest existential threat humankind has ever faced. We need novels and movies that go beyond abstract predictions and statistics to show the moment-by-moment reality of a possibly painful future, and the tragic price we may have to pay for our passionate devotion to all the wrong things.
Art can make a difference.
In the fight to stop climate change before it gets out of hand, art can help change attitudes. Novels such as Barbara Kingsolver’s “Flight Behavior” and Nathaniel Rich’s “Odds Against Tomorrow” are shouts from the rooftop. Kingsolver explores the impact that global climate change has on one small rural community; Rich sets his book in a future immersed in ecological disaster and focuses on what worst-case scenarios might look like. Both are about people wrestling with forces larger than themselves.
Cli-fi movies have roots in the 1970s. Two good ones are often mentioned as precursors to the cli-fi genre: “Silent Running,” made in 1972, is an environmentally-themed film set in a future in which plant life has become extinct; “Soylent Green” (1973), starring Charlton Heston, features a dystopian future world suffering from greenhouse effects.
More recently, films such as “The Day After Tomorrow” (2004) and the upcoming climate dramedy “Chloe and Theo” (2015) impact us in the place where emotions and intellect meet. “The Day After Tomorrow” depicts a scientist’s journey to find his son while catastrophic weather events propel the Earth into an Ice Age. “Chloe and Theo” tells a story about an Inuit who leave his tiny Arctic village and travels to New York with an important message for world leaders: My world is melting. Help. (Watch a clip from the movie here).
At a recent screening of the cli-fi comedy "Chloe and Theo" at a World Bank function in Washington, Martin Katz, the president of Prospero Pictures, participated in a panel discussion about the power of cinema to connect with people over serious issues. "Can film be an agent for social change? Can the arts be an agent for social change?" Katz asked. "Can anything but the arts be an agent for social change? I can’t think of how to change people’s perception or behavior except for the arts. That’s why governments who don’t want people’s behavior to be changed censor the arts."
"You need the big story that comes from films. Then you need to give tools to people to make them able to make a change"@martinfkatz #TakeOn
— Connect4Climate (@Connect4Climate) 15 abril 2015
While climate change can be a scary and overwhelmingly difficult topic that people want to avoid, as Manjana Milkoreit at Arizona State University has said, storytelling in movies like ''Chloe and Theo'' can bring the harsh realities of climate change home to world audiences, and world leaders. I’m pleased Cli-fi is catching on, with media coverage in the New York Times, the Guardian, and the Sydney Morning Herald. Cli-fi is a global meme.
Why are we seeing a rise of interest in the cli-fi genre?
It's in the air. With all the daily news stories and TV programs about climate issues and sea level rise and coastal flooding in the future, we’ve shifted from stories about sci-fi to cli-fi. It's been a big challenge for me, but an inspiring and meaningful one, to try to use science issues mixed with art to try to issue a wake-up call about global warming with a new genre term. And the feedback I have received from people in many countries—Brazil, India, Mexico, Germany, Denmark, France—tell me that the messages are resonating. I believe humankind is facing the most critical threat to our continued existence as a species ever.
By nature, I’m a worrier. But I wake up every day full of hope and optimism, believing cli-fi can play an important role as a warning flare. Cli-fi novels and movies are not just for entertainment or weekend escapes in packed multiplexes, but also for serious thinking and planning. If we care about future generations—and I do, deeply—we must confront these issues now, and art has the power to wake people up.
About the author: Dan Bloom is the editor of The Cli-Fi Report at cli-fi.net and blogs about climate issues and the arts at pcillu101.blogspot.com Nominations for the 2015 annual awards program, The Cli-Fi Movies Awards, or "The Cliffies" are now being accepted at email: danbloom@gmail.com. To see last year's winners and the categories, go to http://korgw101.blogspot.com.
