Check out this article on climate change and literature that recently appeared in The Australian, a major online and print news outlet. The writer addresses some of the questions that we have been discussing together so far this term and writing about on this blog, including whether “cli-fi” is its own genre, whether literary fiction can change minds and affect people’s choices, whether literature can help us “repossess” and think through the future. This passage from the article stood out to me as particularly powerful:
“Genuine imaginative engagement with the meaning and effects of climate change demands writers do more than imagine devastated worlds and drowned cities. We need to find ways of representing not just the everyday weirdness of a world transformed by climate change, but also the weirdness of the everyday, to find ways of expressing the way climate affects not just the natural world but our own worlds, our own imaginations.”
Do you think any of the stories we have read so far have done a good job representing “not just the everyday weirdness of a world transformed by climate change, but also the weirdness of the everyday”?
It’s refreshing to hear news and read an article about climate change that isn’t in the US. The fact it’s all around the world, even Australia, makes it more real. After reading your article it is interesting thinking about your question and although I don’t feel I have the answer, it’s a strong rhetorical question.