Cli Fi

[Anne]

Prompted by a post by Viddaloo mentioning The Road in relation to catastrophic methane release, this is a thread to discuss Cli Fi, or Climate Fiction.

There's quite a lot online about the subject. I'm no expert, but this article by Rodge Glass in the Guardian (and some of the subsequent discussion) seems worth a look.

Whereas 10 or 20 years ago it would have been difficult to identify even a handful of books that fell under this banner, there is now a growing corpus of novels setting out to warn readers of possible environmental nightmares to come. Barbara Kingsolver's Flight Behaviour, the story of a forest valley filled with an apparent lake of fire, is shortlisted for the 2013 Women's prize for fiction. Meanwhile, there's Nathaniel Rich's Odds Against Tomorrow, set in a future New York, about a mathematician who deals in worst-case scenarios. In Liz Jensen's 2009 eco-thriller The Rapture, summer temperatures are asphyxiating and Armageddon is near; her most recent book, The Uninvited, features uncanny warnings from a desperate future. Perhaps the most high-profile cli-fi author is Margaret Atwood, whose 2009 The Year of the Flood features survivors of a biological catastrophe also central to her 2003 novel Oryx and Crake, a book Atwood sometimes preferred to call "speculative fiction".

Engaging with this subject in fiction increases debate about the issue; finely constructed, intricate narratives help us broaden our understanding and explore imagined futures, encouraging us to think about the kind of world we want to live in.

[viddaloo]

Thanks, Anne. It ought to be an interesting, yet short–lived genre.

[Pmt111500]

I guess this might be a good starting point, from the older thread: http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,185.0.html

Margaret Atwood with Oryx and Crake and Year of the Flood
Paolo Bacigalupi with The Wind-up Girl (and adult novel) and Ship Breaker (a teen novel)
Barbara Kingsolver with Flight Behaviour
Ian McEwan with Solar
Kim Stanley Robinson's 'Antarctica'
Cloud Atlas (the book, not the movie)
'The sands of Sarasvati', 'Lithium6' and 'God's Little Finger' by R.Isomäki (Crichtonesque (ha, what a word) finnish novelist)
Polar Star" by Martin Cruz Smith
Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow

Many of which do have also other themes in them.

some others also mentioned there.

[Laurent]

I loved René Barjaval when I was young. I don't know about this one thought.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ice_People_%28Barjavel_novel%29

[Anne]

Thanks, Pmt, I'd missed that thread. A lot of catching up to do.

Tbh, there's been a lot more Fi than Cli in what I've read up till now and in a way it's a bit disappointing. The Road, for example, is concerned only with the aftermath and we are left guessing what may have led up to it. (Something pretty weird, if nothing is sprouting green years later.) It is easier to position The Road in a tradition of how people might behave in unfamiliar places, as with The Tempest or Lord of the Flies.

I'd like to read something with some science in it.

[RunningChristo]

A highly interesting genre indeed!

Lots of Sci-fi books tend to mention "what did go wrong on mother earth", like much of A. C C. Clarkes fiction. Also Kim Stanley Robinsons Mars Triology do mention the rising sealevel on earth as the glaciers melt "all of a sudden", doing havoc to the worlds great seaside Citys!

The articles below mention a few classics, among others J. G. Ballards "The Drowned World" from 1962!

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/01/education/using-the-arts-to-teach-how-to-prepare-for-climate-crisis.html?_r=1

http://guardianlv.com/2014/04/climate-change-and-cli-fi-novels/

[viddaloo]

Tbh, there's been a lot more Fi than Cli in what I've read up till now and in a way it's a bit disappointing. The Road, for example, is concerned only with the aftermath and we are left guessing what may have led up to it. (Something pretty weird, if nothing is sprouting green years later.) It is easier to position The Road in a tradition of how people might behave in unfamiliar places, as with The Tempest or Lord of the Flies.

I'd like to read something with some science in it.

Well, if you haven't yet read Frank Schätzing's blockbuster and unlikely bestseller novel «The Swarm», now is the time to buy it on e and read up (the paper version is too damn heavy for one hand to read). For the CliFi genre, this is my absolute favourite till now.

[Anne]

Well, if you haven't yet read Frank Schätzing's blockbuster and unlikely bestseller novel «The Swarm», now is the time to buy it on e and read up (the paper version is too damn heavy for one hand to read). For the CliFi genre, this is my absolute favourite till now.

Thanks for the recommendation. The thing that kept me reading The Road was the brilliance of the writing. I get a bit twitchy with the plodders unless it's an absolutely gripping plot. And I like my Cli Fi to be plausible. This book also gets a good score on Good Reads so, despite its Hitchcockian title, earns a place on my tottering pile...

[viddaloo]

I'd say it's almost too plausible. I remember while reading it, I almost forgot I had a girlfriend

Several earth scientists who exist in reality and whom Schätzing asked for scientific advice for the novel, play actual parts in the novel plot. This is cool, because you can actually email them after reading the book and ask them about this or that (real–world) climate danger.

[Chuck Yokota]

"A change in the Weather" by Raymond Welch

A Change in the Weather follows the Russell family during the tenth anniversary of the disappearance of the polar ice cap, from March 2028 through May 2029. The Arctic has inverted from heat reflector to heat sink, and the jet stream has broken from its age-old trajectory to whip the globe like an unattended fire hose. Rainfall patterns shift seasons, location, and intensity the world over. Agriculture fails. The international economy collapses. Terrorism surges.

In the ensuing panic, the United States embraces President Roland Strauch, a Biblical literalist who heads the American Homeland Party and its armed militia, the Order of the Eagle and Cross.

Each member of the Russell family does what he or she thinks is right in an America where democracy and Christianity struggle to survive. What each thinks is right couldn't be more different.

[RunningChristo]

Just borrowed "The Drowned World" by J. G. Ballard at the local library  Take placein a futuric world anno 2142 when the icecaps have more or less melted away...

[ghoti]

Years ago I read a detective mystery set in the near future UK which was clearly post-climate change. The climate change part wasn't specifically mentioned other than making it clear that the UK was flooding sufficiently to lead to the movement of towns and people to the highlands.

I can't remember who the author was nor the title which is really annoying. England had several years of massive flooding long after I'd read this reminding me of the book and making me wish my library maintained records of past borrowing.

The interesting aspect of Cli Fi in this was it wasn't the point specifically but a statement about the large impacts of ignoring climate. The future settings of novels don't have to be apocalyptic to be effective reminders to pay attention to what we are doing.

[Pmt111500]

Just borrowed "The Drowned World" by J. G. Ballard at the local library  Take placein a futuric world anno 2142 when the icecaps have more or less melted away...

Ha!, I just borrwed the sequel "The Drought" since the first one wasn't available right then . The plot is that pollution will hinder evaporation from the oceans and seas and most of the rivers and lakes will run dry...

[viddaloo]

Anyone on this board writing clifi?

[Lynn Shwadchuck]

The Channel 4 series "Utopia" deals with a cabal of Big Pharma scientists who decided thirty years ago that the only solution to the coming chaotic future would be a 90-95% population cull. (There was a dark thread here a few months ago where F Tinoli wanted to discuss how to go about this.)

Interestingly, the few mentions of the reasons for the coming dark times were cited to be resource and soil depletion and the end of oil. The cabal is decidedly evil, so perhaps the writer decided not to mention climate change, which might have complicated the predictions.

Anybody watching Season 2? I'm just going to start it.

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/utopia/on-demand/53616-001

[Lynn Shwadchuck]

Here's a writer who's trying:

Benjamin Dancer has written Patriarch Run.

He saw my review* of Blood Meridian on Goodreads and asked me to read and review his novel. Another character like the scientist in Oryx and Crake, who thinks the best thing for the human race is total collapse. This one has a piece of software that will destroy the power grid across the US.

Quite a good read, especially for a buck on Amazon. (The e-book)

*https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1025056368?book_show_action=false

[Laurent]

A doomed Earth of science fiction may well become a reality.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2014/sep/01/doomed-earth-science-fiction-climate-reality

[Theta]

Anyone on this board writing clifi?

At the moment I am writing (or trying to, fighting against procrastinating the writing) a six part short story about a climate change induced collapse of civilisation called Runaway.

I only have the first part finished and available for reading and am still working on the second part.

The captions and links to the available parts can be found below if you or anyone else wants to have a read:

Holiday's End: http://runawayseries.blogspot.ie/2013/07/holidays-end.html

Enrollment

Fallout

Anoxia

Dreamscape

Nowhere

[viddaloo]

Anyone on this board writing clifi?

At the moment I am writing (or trying to, fighting against procrastinating the writing)

Tell me about it! Very easy to. My excuse at the moment is a fairly good one, though: I'm doing my research. One of my favourite authors, who's also written a few famous eco–novels, claims in interviews that the research is the fun part, and the actual writing of the story more of a hassle.

[wili]

You guys are inspiring me. I may just have to give it a go.

[Pmt111500]

I've done some short vignettes fe.   this one relating to future climate, prehistory (and climate), sometimes set on scifi-setting, but no longer pieces. the timescales are just too long for me to associate characters to a story.

[clificentral]

I happen to know a little about the cli fi genre, and am available to answer any qusetions about the genre, who's writing it and where it's headed. For starters, see : NEW YORK TIMES OPED:
ROOM FOR DEBATE:
Can Cli Fi Save the World?
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/07/29/will-fiction-influence-how-we-react-to-climate-change

THE NEVILS: CLI FI AWARDS 2020
http://korgw101.blogspot.com

#CLIFI hashtag PHOTO link:
http://klima101.blogspot.com/2014/05/cli-fi-hashtag-cley-in-ukifi-created-by.html

TIME magazine on CLI FI
May 19, 2014:
http://time.com/92065/godzilla-into-the-storm-and-more-summer-cli-fi-thrillers/


WIKIPEDIA on ''CLI FI''
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cli_fi

[clificentral]

Thanks, Anne. It ought to be an interesting, yet short–lived genre.

Viddaloo, Carolyn Kormann at the New Yorker said much the same thing -- ''won't last very long"  -- last summer in her blog on the rise of cli fi at the New Yorker magazine. It might be short lived it might be long lived. Time will tell. BTW, Anne and Viddaloo, I coined the term and have steered the meme into the pages of  NPR, The Guardian, the FT, TIME mag and the New York Times and a few more news stories coming soon this fall. Cli fi is going to last much longer than you give it credit for, just wait and see. SMILE. and PS: Viddaloo, re THE ROAD is was not about climate or methane, in an interview McCarthy said the story came to him in a dream he had about  comet strike hitting Earth and the fears he had for his young son if such a thing ever happened. It reads like a cli fi novel, i loved it too, the prose is amazing, but it was not about climate change at all or methane. But it set the standard for powerful novels, yes.

[clificentral]

Anyone on this board writing clifi?

There's  a Facebook members group page called CLI-FI CENTRAL at the FB platform run by Paul Collins in the UK with over 300 members now, all interested in either writing cli fi, reading cli fi or researching cli fi from academic POV. Google his name and Facebook.com

[clificentral]

BTW, re if you haven't yet read Frank Schätzing's «The Swarm», now is the time to buy it on e and read up (the paper version is too damn heavy for one hand to read). For the CliFi genre, this is Viddaloo's absolute favourite till now, he said. and yes SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOVIE the film will appear next year. YES!

[clificentral]

A reporter friend of mine is writing an article this week for an article next week in a magazine in Holland -- ''Vrij Nederland'' -- and the article is geared towards the
People's Climate March in NYC, the UN-summit, and Naomi Klein's new
non-fiction book about Climate Change.

 Somewhere in there the reporter said she hopes to mention the need for ''stories''.
and she said ''Danny, a question for you: You've been at this for awhile now. There
are a number of books, and good ones, out there which fall in the cli
fi genre----are you still looking/hoping for that one piece of fiction
which will have a huge impact (like On The Beach or Uncle Tom's Cabin)
and which will galvanize the movement?''

SO I answered her this way and she will likely just use once sentence or two from all this but there was my reply to her: "I do believe that literature still has power to impact individual
societies as UNCLE TOM's CABIN by Harriet Beecher Stowe did in the USA
in 1852 with her powerful novel that was anti-slavery and which
"helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War" to free the slaves in
America, according to some literary historians and civil rights
activists. That was slavery in the USA.''

''In 1957, Australian-British writer Nevil Shute published ON THE BEACH,
a novel about the impact of nuclear war and was set in Australia and
the entire world, so his novel had a global impact for many years.
 "Stories" -- and the stories within  novels -- still have the power
to impact readers (and national leaders and politicians) even today,
and the reason I am so deeply involved with trying to raise the
profile of cli fi literature today is that i really do believe that
there is a novel out there, as yet unpublished, even as yet unwritten
but gestating in some writer's brain even now and will be written in
the next ten years, a global cli fi novel in English or Dutch or
German or Finnish or Spanish or Portuguese that will have the same
kind of explosive WAKE UP CALL impact that UNCLE TOMS CABIN and ON THE
BEACH DID. I believe this. I feel it in my heart. I can also see
people reading it soon. But I don't know who the writer will be or
what the title will be or when it was be published, but I feel such a
novel will touch readers hearts and minds, deeply, and cause all
national leaders worldwide to WAKE UP to the climate issues we are
faciing as a global commnity.''

''If so, why? ''Why do I feel this way? It's a gut feeling. I've been
thinking about this all my life! ''

And do you think that is possible in this day and age, the reporter asked me. "Yes, I really
do feel a powerful climate-change-themed novel can wake up the world,
even today. Yes, there is a lot that works against this now, with 500
TV stations and hundreds of distracting websites and Youtube video
jokes and comedy routines, -- we do live in a very distracted world --
but I still have a vision of an important novel waking the world up,
this time about the very real threats that global warming and climate
change pose for the next 30 generations of human beings.''


''Dear Reporter in Holland -- of course, i know you can't use all this. so good editor that
you are, if you do have space, USE whatever soundbites works best for
your piece, one sentence sure. choose the best words. SMILE'' -- danny

[viddaloo]

Thanks, Anne. It ought to be an interesting, yet short–lived genre.

Viddaloo, Carolyn Kormann at the New Yorker said much the same thing -- ''won't last very long"  -- last summer in her blog on the rise of cli fi at the New Yorker magazine. It might be short lived it might be long lived. Time will tell. BTW, Anne and Viddaloo, I coined the term and have steered the meme into the pages of  NPR, The Guardian, the FT, TIME mag and the New York Times and a few more news stories coming soon this fall. Cli fi is going to last much longer than you give it credit for, just wait and see. SMILE. and PS: Viddaloo, re THE ROAD is was not about climate or methane, in an interview McCarthy said the story came to him in a dream he had about  comet strike hitting Earth and the fears he had for his young son if such a thing ever happened. It reads like a cli fi novel, i loved it too, the prose is amazing, but it was not about climate change at all or methane. But it set the standard for powerful novels, yes.

Thanks for that info re: The Road. In my view, it's still a clifi novel, as the cause of the eco collapse is not stated and might just as well have been major hydrate releases.

Did you really coin the term?! Wow. My half-joking comment that it would be short-lived was based on the readership going extinct, if worst case scenarios are near correct. In Norway we call that 'Galgenhumor' (gallows humour).

[viddaloo]

BTW, re if you haven't yet read Frank Schätzing's «The Swarm», now is the time to buy it on e and read up (the paper version is too damn heavy for one hand to read). For the CliFi genre, this is Viddaloo's absolute favourite till now, he said. and yes SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOVIE the film will appear next year. YES!

This could very well be the Cli Fi book you've been waiting for. We'll see when it becomes a movie and breaks the language (and culture) barriers.

«Better than sex» was my comment while reading The Swarm. My timing for saying that could have been better, however (right after sex). 

[LRC1962]

Thanks, Anne. It ought to be an interesting, yet short–lived genre.

I have read sci-fi since I have been very young. Cli-fi maybe now designated as a branch on its own, but it had been lumped into sci-fi for the most part. Although usually thought of in terms of geoengineering. I must say that clifi has become a focal point in resent years I do think that geoengineering as a whole should be the bigger issue in scifi/clifi. As we know in real life everything that happens impacts everything else.

[opensheart]

I had a idea-writing fit today and came up with the following mildly entertaining  post.  Since it is kinda Cli-Fi and meant to be more humor than serious, this thread seemed a better place to post it than some other places.

I've heard that the act of observing something can affect the results.  In that vein,  all of the cataclysmic natural events are now under such observation that none of them can happen.

Case in point.  Arctic Sea Ice.  There was so much attention gathered from the 2007 and 2012 record melts, that any further record setting melts will be held off for some time.

2015 will be another boring year where the ice refuses to melt as much as people think it should for the circumstances.  2016 will be another such disappointing year.   Yes the minimum will be less,  It may even tie the record.   But considering how conditions were conducive to a record melt it will be a disappointment.  And no amount of re-analysis will be able to break the statistical tie.

But all eyes will be on 2017.  It will be the 5th year.   2007 to 2012 was 5 years,  so 2017 should be a record smashing melt.  The Arctic Sea Ice blog will explode with record activity.   The sea temps will be record high.   The Air will be record warm.   The high pressures will be record highs and the artic cyclones will be record cyclones.   But the ice will not disappear.  The entire Arctic Ocean will be covered in 16% ice but no less.   And the minimum will come in at an attention crushing 3rd or 4th lowest.

By that time or shortly thereafter, the majority of the climate change believers will lose their faith.   No matter how high CO2, Methane, are other GHG's are, the planet will just not be responding.   Even when China cleans up their air, and all the aerosols fall from the sky, temps will not go up.    In fact even the El Nino prophets will go silent as yet another perfect El Nino set up goes bust.    Obviously the earth's climate sensitivity is much lower than we thought.

At which point, the IPCC will disband and even Box,  Hansen and  Shakhova won't complain much when climate change research is slashed to zero.  Skeptical Science will surrender their symbolic Climate Change Laser Pointer to WUWT.   Humanity and its scientists will find other more interesting pursuits. 

Then after the last satellite as gone quiet, after the last polar research station is shut down, after the last GHG measurement is taken, and no one bothers to graph global temperatures anymore.   Then and only then will everything start busting loose.   Global temps will sour by double digits.  “Tropical” storms will rival Jupiter’s Great Red Spot.   The Hadley Cells will collapse.  Every ice sheet with disintegrate.  Every source of co2 and methane will burst forth.  Methane sink holes will open as far south as Kansas.   Hydroxyls will disappear.  All large bodies of algae fill water will belch forth clouds, not of rain but of toxic gasses.

Civilization will hang in the balance.  Depending not on geoengineering, or worldwide carbon emission reductions, but on whether humanity can re-establish enough intense, long term, worldwide observation and statistical analysis to stop climate change dead in its tracks, before Mother Nature wipes out humanity's capacity to do so.

All that to say, that no matter how discouraging, or obvious that its never going to happen at disaster movie speeds, we all have to work together to keep up the good fight of climate observation and analysis to keep  the climate monster down to a routine and manageable level.

[viddaloo]

Umm, OK. A bit far-fetched, perhaps? Must say I'm a sucker for plausible narratives. Yet what you suggest is de-facto geoengineering: Just put up some sats and photograph the ice, and all's well.

Wish it was that simple!

[viddaloo]

Girl treks to Vermont in post apocalyptic novel

[ccgwebmaster]

I've heard that the act of observing something can affect the results.  In that vein,  all of the cataclysmic natural events are now under such observation that none of them can happen.

I think you'll find it applies more at very small scale levels, eg quantum mechanics. And even then I think it's more a statement of the limitations of human measurement technologies (ie we interfere with a tiny system by observing it) than anything else.

Speaking from experience, observing a car crash (when I was younger) didn't seem to helpfully influence the outcome (beyond that I hit the brakes and bled off a lot of my speed prior to impact, I suppose).

I do think people tend to subscribe to overly simplistic narratives though - "methane doom" "tipping point of ice loss" etc - there are very many elements working in parallel in a very complex system, and I'm not sure it's safe to assume any single one element will be dominant precisely. If we understood the system well enough to truly perceive the future, one would think we would also avoid it.

[Clare]

Yes I know this book probably doesn't fit the Cli-fi description quite! I'm mostly too much of a scaredy cat for a lot of scifi generally these days, probably burdened with an over-active imagination which likes to make things seem very real. So this sort of adventure is about my limit.
I haven't read this author before but was attracted by the book's title: 'Arctic Drift'.

Plot from Wikipedia:The plot begins in the year 1847, when the Franklin Expedition becomes stranded trying to find the Northwest Passage. They experience a harsh winter. The men are seemingly going mad. Their stranded boats (Erebus and Terror) are loaded with a mysterious, unidentified silvery metal. The story switches to the present day. There is an ongoing quest to save the earth from Global Warming. All of the world's scientists are looking for a solution. Some people are trying to thwart these efforts. The NUMA team, headed by Dirk Pitt, Al Giordino and Dirk Pitt's children, Dirk Junior and Summer, are trying to find a way to stop Global Warming. Their quest leads them to investigate a series of mysterious asphyxiations. They soon realize that the solution they are looking for is hidden in the heart of the Arctic; in an old forgotten ship. They will need to solve a centuries old mystery to save the earth.

2 aspects of it that appealed were firstly that it is set close to the present but problems associated with climate change are becoming apparent, including problems with energy supplies & a v jumpy politicians & military leading to the events as they play out in the story seeming v plausible to me.

The other part is that it was so topical with one of the Franklin ships being found while I was reading! And at a location, when I checked the maps, that is v close to where they are searching in the story...

[Neven]

That reminds me of this blog post I posted on the ASIB after being asked a question by an aspiring writer: Research for a novel

[Clare]

Your memory is much better than mine, yes I do remember that...now!
This 'Arctic Drift' book is from 2008.

But 'ships being trapped in ice' is a major theme in Polar history so not surprising authors might incorporate such things. And a number of authors now seem to incorporate aspects of history into their novels, even those set in the present. (Also it can be a useful literary device to have your cast of characters confined in some way!)

The same from Antarctica with the story of Shackleton's Endurance being crushed in the ice but also, and maybe less well known is the story of his ('Forgotten') men stranded on the other side of the continent when the Aurora broke its moorings & itself became trapped in the ice for ~ a year. The Canterbury Museum has 'treasures' from that ship including playing cards the men made to while away the time. And things were much more wretched for those stranded with limited supplies on shore! They said they spent the winter hunkered down like 'troglodytes' in a section of the cold hut.



"Wikipedia:
Shackleton set sail from London on his ship Endurance, bound for the Weddell Sea in August 1914. Meanwhile, the Ross Sea party personnel gathered in Australia, prior to departure for the Ross Sea in the second expedition ship, SY Aurora. Organisational and financial problems delayed their start until December 1914, which shortened their first depot-laying season. After their arrival the inexperienced party struggled to master the art of Antarctic travel, in the process losing most of their sledge dogs. A greater misfortune occurred when, at the onset of the southern winter, Aurora was torn from its moorings during a severe storm and was unable to return, leaving the shore party stranded.
The Aurora was carried out to the sea, stranding the men that were setting up the depots. It was not until 12 February 1916 that the ship escaped from the ice, making it back to Dunedin, New Zealand on 3 April. And returned to rescuse the 7 of 10 survivors in January 1917"

[Clare]

New CliFi novel out by a well known NZ writer:
"MiSTORY"

"In this gripping novel, underpinned by wide research, award-winning author Philip Temple tells a tale of life at mid-century and reveals what the future may hold if we ignore the threats that face us and carry on with ‘business as usual"

http://philiptemple.com/fiction/mistory.html

Reviewed here:

http://hot-topic.co.nz/mistory-2/#more-13769

http://www.odt.co.nz/lifestyle/magazine/311338/deepening-disquiet

Off to track it down, shows up in the catalogue at the local library

[viddaloo]

British Eco Horror special on yesterday's Radio Ecoshock

ES_141210_LoFi.mp3

[viddaloo]

— This Is What Our Hellish World Will Look Like After We Hit the Global Warming Tipping Point

[wili]

I wasn't sure where to put this story; perhaps we need a 'Stranger than CliFi" thread??

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/12/24/peru-uncontactedtribe.html

Raid on Peru village by uncontacted tribe may be related to climate change

    Although there has been a series of incidents that saw members of uncontacted tribes emerging from the jungles in small numbers in recent years, the size of the all-male group that raided Monte Salvado was unusual, officials said according to the Guardian.

    “We’ve never heard reported such a large movement of uncontacted people,” Lorena Prieto, director of Peru’s office of Peoples in Isolation and Initial Contact, told the Guardian. Prieto was helping to coordinate the evacuation.

    Balbuena said climate change may have triggered the latest incident, as it has caused abrupt drops in temperatures in that area of the southeast Amazon.

I didn't realize there were that many uncontacted tribes in South America.

[viddaloo]

Turning Pages: How climate-change fiction is heating up

Prepare to meet thy doom, but don't hold thy breath. Today's fiction is bringing us many an apocalypse, but it happens in slow motion over decades. The world ends with a long drawn-out whimper.

It wasn't always like this. In the Cold War era and its aftermath, everything ended in explosions, and surviving humans eked out a bleak existence in a blasted irradiated landscape, a setting that still turns up in novels such as Cormac McCarthy's The Road. But now we're saying a very long goodbye, and in books known as climate-change fiction, or cli-fi, novelists are looking at not just one future but a whole series of end times.

[Ymir]

Lots of interesting recommendations here, read the Guardian article a while ago.

The Drought and The Drowned World by Ballard are enjoyable, quick reads, he's proving to be one of the most prescient novelists of the last fifty years or so. I recently read The Death of Grass, written in the early Fifties by John Christopher, a highly resilient and adaptive virus devastates world grain and rice supplies, beginning in China. It spreads to the UK and civilisations more or less disintegrates overnight, apocalyptic narratives are almost passé nowadays but this is all the more shocking for being written in fifties stilted "stiff upper lip, what" prose.

[viddaloo]

Hi, Ymir, and welcome to the forum! 

I'm currently watching an old favourite movie that's been turned into a TV series — 12 Monkeys — that is sort of cli–fi, depending on your definition. Some environmental fringe group releases a deadly virus, and people from the future surviving the plague try to go back to undo the bug.

Anyone seen this? Thoughts on the successfulness of the series adaption?

[Ymir]

Thanks viddaloo, is there enough mileage for a series? I've not seen the Fargo adaptation either.

I recently discovered London has a post apocalyptic book club, looking at their reading list, it's a big and very genre "genre".

[viddaloo]

Ymir, I watched the latest episode the other day, and it sort of "jumped the shark" for me. Became too much TV–series, I guess, the bad kind (12 Monkeys). Kind of hoping it was a one–off.

Besides, I agree with you that "very genre" genres are a bad thing, for instance very specific or similar book covers etc. I'm sort of opposed to the idea that the reader knows what he'll get. Takes much of the fun out of reading, like knowing the lovers will get each other in the end and live happily ever after

[Ymir]

Sorry, I actually meant to write "very general genre", damn autocorrect.

I agree that overly specific genres are a bit weird. They become like a kind of sexual fetish.

[solartim27]

I have just read "The Water Knife" by Paolo Bacigalupi.  It examines the societal decay in the water starved western US.  A bit graphic in some parts, but gives a nice view of the poor vs mega rich, and inter-state rivalry.  I liked the concept of the 'clear-sac', your personal urine-water reclamation bag.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23209924-the-water-knife

[Sigmetnow]

@MartianMovie: A special message from Mark Watney. #TheMartian #MarsAnnouncement
https://t.co/60wJUzlJue

https://twitter.com/martianmovie/status/648567180229935104

How to engage the public in science and progress....

What "The Martian" movie gets right (and wrong) about science
http://time.com/4055413/martian-movie-review-science-accuracy-matt-damon/

NASA's Mars PR Machine Goes Into Overdrive
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-01/nasa-s-mars-pr-machine-goes-into-overdrive

[solartim27]

Any writers out there?
Climate change science fiction contest: win $1000 and publication
http://boingboing.net/2015/10/23/climate-change-science-fiction.html

[Pmt111500]

R.Isomäki's latest "The Shadows of Kurgan" (don't know if it's been translated yet) definitely belongs here, includes a pretty good description of the development of Canfield Ocean. The writer is in habit of following the speed of the plot and not of the reality, so this happens likely way faster in the book than in reality. One of the better ones from this novelist.