Digital Object Identifier
How can stories help ordinary people understand a problem as giant as global climate change? This research paper looks deeply at the underlying meanings inside modern climate fiction ('Cli-Fi') books and films to discover answers. We argue that looking at Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future alongside Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower reveals a major split in how we envision the future. Robinson contends that we need to address the planet's issues through the implementation of large-scale government initiatives, international regulations, and extensive technological projects. Conversely, Butler posits that ordinary individuals must collaborate from the grassroots level within small local communities to endure, as large institutions are likely to falter under pressure. Using clear ideas from researchers like Paul Crutzen, Timothy Morton, and Rob Nixon, we examine how storytelling makes the slow, invisible dangers of environmental damage visible to readers. We also look at two popular movies, Snowpiercer and Wall-E, to show how films use visual images and emotion to have a quick impact, whereas books give us more room to analyse complex laws and economic ideas. Ultimately, these stories are not just warnings about the future; they give us practical ideas on how to organise our society so we can survive a changing planet.
Dr Atima Singh. “Climate Fiction (Cli-Fi) and the Anthropocene: Literature in the Age of Climate Emergency.” The Criterion: An International Journal in English, vol. 17, no. 3, June 2026, pp. 308-317. DOI, https://doi.org/10.66376/criterion.v17.n3.20.
Open Access · CC BY 4.0 · Crossref DOI ·
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