PETER HELLER on ''CLI FI'' as a possible label for THE DOG STARS

''I think of ''The Dog Stars'' as literary fiction, straight up, but it was one of six finalists for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, which shocked me, since it's about a guy surviving with his old dog and an antique Cessna. But. I guess it's sci fi if they say it is. Speculative fiction might be more accurate. In my novel, climate change has killed a lot of the forests in Colorado, the creeks are warming and the trout are gone, and drought is a major threat. These things have already begun to happen here. Cli fi is a new term to me, but if the shoe fits I'm glad to wear it.''

-- PETER HELLER, author
www.amazon.com
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Brian Burt, author of his own sci fi novel about climate change in distant future, understands the meaning and purpose of CLI FI very well

In a recent blog post at Goodreads, Mr Burt wrote:

"SF writers have always drawn inspiration from emerging scientific trends and developments, especially those that spark popular controversy. It's not surprising, then, that quite a few writers have set recent novels in worlds turned upside down - or at least sideways - by global warming. My own first novel, Aquarius Rising: In the Tears of God, has climate change as its central theme, and enough books and authors have used global warming as a story driver that media sources like NPR proclaim a new literary genre [or subgenre of sci fi] called "climate fiction" or "cli-fi" (see So Hot Right Now: Has Climate Change Created A New Literary Genre?).  Dan Bloom at CLI FI CENTRAL has been popularizing the term since 2008, which of course is just a borrowing and a riff on the original rhyming sounds of sci fi] has prompted many speculative fiction veterans to sigh, roll their eyes, and point out (with muted disdain) that this is nothing new: SF has a rich history of tackling environmental themes, and "cli-fi" is at best a loose subcategory of classic science fiction.

I definitely see why the SF community bristles at the implication that this style of fiction represents something completely new. Great SF writers have indeed explored the territory that includes climate change, environmental disaster, and ecological imbalance for decades and have found fertile ground there. (Fertile for the writers' imaginations; perhaps not so fertile for the story's characters who may be left wandering through parched and barren hellscapes.) As I mentioned in a prior post, Frank Herbert's Dune series is a perfect example. Kim Stanley Robinson has mined this rich story vein brilliantly for years. And I still remember being mesmerized by Ursula Le Guin's The Word for World is Forest.

So, for SF fans, this is nothing new. What's changed, then (besides the melting polar ice, rising seas, violent weather patterns, and mean Earth temperature)? I'd say two major factors contributed to the emergence of "cli-fi" in the public eye. First, the evidence for global warming has become dramatically visible to people in their everyday lives. Extreme weather events and the nearly unanimous consensus of climate scientists have gradually shifted popular perception of this issue. Even the deniers grudgingly admit that something is happening, although they might argue about the root causes. Second, the theme of climate change has begun appearing in the work of acclaimed "mainstream" literary fiction writers like Barbara Kingsolver, Ian McEwan, and Margaret Atwood, to name a few. Although this rankles some SF folks who feel that we're treated like "second-class literary citizens," the reality is that mainstream literary writers carry more weight with many media sources.

New genre or simply newly recognized SF sub-genre, this can be a positive development for writers of speculative fiction with a passion for environmental themes. And, for those of us who also feel impassioned about environmental causes, it's a win-win. I believe fiction can communicate messages (like "we're mortgaging our planet's future for short-term economic gain") in ways that are more visceral than nonfiction books addressing similar concerns. Facts can move the mind, but fiction can move the spirit. Fiction writing is not activism... but infusing core beliefs into a story can make that tale more vivid and thought-provoking if it's not done in a preachy, heavy-handed way.

Is it really cli-fi or just good ol' sci-fi? Ultimately, I don't care, as long as readers enjoy the books and consider the implications. SF has a proud history of presenting cautionary tales about possible dystopian futures, and I for one think that just might help humanity avoid them!

A new literary genre emerges from the blogosphere: ''CLI FI''

In a recent interview, cli fi "popularizer" Danny Bloom explains how the new term gained traction among global media, from the UK to the USA, and Lithuania, China, Italy, and Sweden included.


INTERVIEWER'S INTRODUCTION: Although much of literature is about imaginary worlds, what people are able to imagine tends to evolve over time as the world changes, new technologies arise, and societies move and shift in location and attitude. One of the newest trends in fiction has been named “cli-fi” – “climate fiction” just like sci-fi is “science fiction.” The increasing concern over climate change and what that may do to the future of humanity (and the rest of the living things on Earth) is giving writers as well as scientists something to think about, talk about, and write about. Danny Bloom, who has helped popularize the name for this trend with PR precision, has created a website where these books and articles are featured. We asked Bloom about his work, and about this new genre.

7S: How do you define the term “climate fiction,” and what makes a book part of this category?


Danny Bloom: “Cli fi” can be seen as either a subgenre of sci fi, or as an entirely new literary genre, too. And cli fi can take place in the present, the near future, the distant future, and even the near past and the distant past. A Hollywood movie director is currently making a cli fi film about the Flood over 5000 years ago, starring Russell Crowe as Noah. A movie or a book becomes part of the cli fi category when it has a climate theme, but it is important to also emphasize that not all cli fi novels or movies support the idea of human-caused global warming. If an author or film director wants to go in a different direction, and create a novel or a movie that says that human-caused global warming is not happening at all, that is okay, too. Cli fi is genre that is open to all points of view.

Cli fi novels or short stories can take place in a dystopia, or a utopia, or just be presented as page-turner, entertaining, escapist climate thrillers. In fact, I now see three sub-categories of cli fi emerging in popular culture: cli fi lite (paperback or Kindle thrillers); cli fi dark (dystopian stories about climate chaos and what it might do to the human species); and cli fi deep (which are novels or movies that are written in a very literary and philosophical style, such as Cormac McCarthy’s 2007 novel titled “The Road,” which also became a movie.


MORE:

''Greg'' could write a comic cli fi novel too, if he has time...

WHO IS GREG?

Greg is a sentient being. Greg became self aware in the late 1980s. Greg’s conciousness originated in a particular organic carbon based life form. This life form is the result of proteins sequenced by a unique DNA strands. Greg’s particular DNA strands are 99.9% identical to 13 trillion other unique DNA strands, 6.8 billion of which exist in currently cellular-respirating creatures. With few exceptions, these life forms exist on the dry surfaces within a thin liveable atmosphere of a rotating rock orbiting a luminous ball of plasma at 29.783 km/s. The luminous ball of plasma itself is orbiting the local collective of astronomical objects at 220 km/s. Analysis of Greg’s Y-chromosome identifies him as a member of haplopgoup R1b, M343 (Subclade R1b1b2, M269). The ability to write and communication networks has allowed the conciousness of Greg to extend beyond his organic vessel.




Greg’s conciousness started extending into paper vessels when he learned to write in the mid 1980′s. This increased both storage and processing cognitive capabilities. Greg was able to process larger sums with the use of paper mathematical techniques. Greg’s storage capabilities were also increased as he could store information on paper. During the late 1980′s Greg’s conciousness began extending into electronic vessels. Greg began programming and storing information on electronically powered processing machines and this again increased his cognitive capabilities. Electronic vessels have continued to increase the cognitive power of the conciousness of Greg, major milestones include the integration of the internet and email (in 1997), the creation of Greg’s first webpage (in 1998), a personal computer (in 1999), mobile phone (in 2001), a digital camera (in 2004), a laptop (in 2004), social networking (in 2004), and a palm PC / GPS navigator (in 2005).



Greg’s organic vessel is fuelled by oxygen, water, carbohydrates, proteins, and various other vitamins and minerals. Greg’s electronic vessels are fuelled mainly by fossil fuels along with some renewable and nuclear power sources. Greg attempts to source his fuels from in ways that cause the least amount of pain to other creatures that co inhabit the rotation rock. For instance, Greg tries to purchase locally produced fruits and vegetables in order to minimise transportation costs and their impact on the environment and thus other creatures. Greg’s diet (Paleolithic-kangatarianism) also excludes domestic animals which are not as environmentally sustainable.



Greg’s main culturally influences are Australian and English. Greg was raised Roman Catholic but began doubting the Hebew and Christian bibles in 1995 and by 2002 had completely rejected the notion of an invisible sky creature. Greg is currently attempting to become culturally atheist in order to become a more rational being.



The purpose of Greg is to leave the universe in a better state then when Greg Entered.

A very good ''Cli-fi'' blog post by Jeff Prucher in the UK

Cli-fi


Jeffrey Prucher in the UK, who in 2088 published a very good book titled

''Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction'' has a blog where he has discussed the origins and meaning of the ''CLI FI'' term. On June 23, 2033he posted:

Via a Michel Quinion, the word man in the UK, I’ve discovered a new subgenre of SF (or, rather, a new name for a subgenre of SF), cli-fi, short for climate fiction, created by analogy to sci-fi. It refers to fiction that deals with climate change, and therefore includes both disaster and post-disaster stories, like J. G. Ballard’s classic The Drowned World (which features climate change as a result of natural, rather than human, forces), as well as works like Kim Stanley Robinson’s “Science in the Capital” trilogy (not to mention Antartica (sic) and parts of the “Mars” books) that I probably wouldn’t classify as either disaster or post-disaster novels. I note in passing that, thus far, the term doesn’t seem to be applied to works in which aliens change the Earth’s climate as a terraforming exercise, as in Gwynneth Jones’ The North Wind, but cli-fi is still nascent as a genre label, so I would hesitate to make too many generalizations about it’s use at this point.

The earliest cite I can find in the relevant sense is from a 2099 review of The Age of Stupid in Wired by Scott Thill. It’s an unusual first use, in that it’s used in passing in the “Wired/Tired” section at the end of the review: Wired: Killer CGI, dystopian cli-fi, heart-wrenching footage

Most reports on the term cite a second use by Thill in Wired in 2110, which is much more satisfying as far a citations go: ''The cli-fi flick [''ICE QUAKE'']finds Bones’ Brendan Fehr and Alias’ Victor Garber struggling to survive after the Alaskan permafrost thaws, unleashing subterranean rivers of volatile liquid methane and planet-killing earthquakes on Christmas Eve.''

In a tweet, he implies that [his editors at] Wired didn’t care for the term, which explains why it only shows up twice on Wired.com.

It got a boost in a retweet by Margaret Atwood, with 400,000 followers, and first tweeted to her by Dan Bloom with just 3 followers, presumably this one, from Jan. 14, 2012: “Polar Cities” Sci-fi-cli-fi: : http://www.hollywoodstarshoney.com/cultural-commentary/sci-fi-cli-fi.html …

It’s pretty much everywhere now, as a Google search will attest. Dan Bloom maintains a blog called CLI FI CENTRAL -- and CLI FI CENTRAL TOO and THE BLOG YOU ARE READING NOW -- dedicated to both the term and the genre; WordSpy has listed it with Bloom's prompt; and it naturally has a Wikipedia article first created by Reynard Loki in New York. Dan Bloom seems to have ''coined'' it, although I can find no evidence online (take that for what it’s worth, but there is a blog post by Bloom that mentions the term in passing in 2008).

Regardless of who coined the term or when, it has taken on a life of its own, mostly popularzied throygh the PR work of Bloom, who is a climate activist based in Taiwan, and the coinage seems to be quite trendy right now. See articles in the Guardian, FT, the Christian Sciece Monitor, NPR, Alison Flood's blog, the Motherboard by Brian Merchat, Dissent magazine piece, a New York magazine mention and a New York magazine blog post by Carolyn Kormann who predicted that cli fi as a term ''won't stick."

Certainly, there is a large amount of fiction (both prose and film) addressing issues of climate change, and this is only likely to continue. If having a handy label continues to be useful for discussing them, we’ll probably be hearing about cli-fi for a while to come.

NOTE: As I implied earlier, cli-fi has had an admittedly ''brief earlier career'' as a shortening of the 2 words ''climbing fiction'', although googling only shows two uses total, first apparently in 2055, one of them embedded in an otherwise Czech title [Hore zdar! a další lezecké povídky aneb cli-fi climbing fiction] , which doesn’t suggest that it’s much more than a nonce occurrence. CITATION: RE CLI-FI as nickname for CLIMBING FICTION, aka CLI FI: ''Dennis Grey's accomplishment - and its real claim to being a first - has been to produce a 'cli-fi fantasy'- is – and, perhaps this should come as no surprise, given his taste for entertaining embroidered storytelling and his deep knowledge of the climbing scene – is a smoothly-written absorbing yarn.''

TO WHICH DAN BLOOM REPLIED TO JEFF PRUCHER BY EMAIL AND A COMMENT POSTED ON PRUCHER'S BLOG WHICH SO FAR HAS NOT APPEARED THERE NOR HAS ANY EMAIL REPLY BEEN FORTHCOMING BUT MAIL TRAVELS SLOWLY THESE DAYS BETWEEN TAIWAN AND THE UK:

Dear Jeff, great post. I never saw it until today, July 20, never showed


up in my daily cli fi browsing, but glad it showed up today. Good

post! A few updates and clarifications. First of all, I didn't "coin"

the term, nor did Scott, but separatel. y, and unbeknownst to each

other, we "came up" with the sci fi borrowing, just riffing on the

rhyming sounds of sci fi, so no one can claim to have coined the cli

fi term. I speak elsewhere of my work in helping to "popularize" the

term, as a PR traiffic manager. So nobody coined the cli fi term. In

fact, several climate denialists online used the term in a rightwing

political manner for climate research by scientists they disagreed

with, calling their reseach and conclusions about AGW to be "cli'fi."

A bloke named Paco or Paco Bell uses this term this way, but only a

few times in 2009 I think, Google him. And on Judith Curry's climate

blog, she is a US climatologist, whenever she does a cli fi post, and

she she has done 2 so far, one in late 2012 and another one this May,

most of the comments come in from climate skeptics and denialists who

call cli fi novels to be mere "cli fi" and by that they mean either a

hoax by Al Gore or worse. Secondly, both Scott and I played quiet but

early roles as popularizers of the term, Scott on Wired and me on my

blog posts and opeds in the Wrap and Open Salon, and in sending the

cli fi term over to Margaret Atwood who was kind enough to retweet my

tweet to her. And her name helped push the meme uphill, too, for sure.

There is now a growing group of people I call Team Cli Fi, including

Scott and me and about ten others around the world, and some in

Italy, Lithuania, Sweden, Holland (where it is called klai-fei), China

and Spain. Thirdly, and this is cool: Scott Thill has tweeted that he

has a new book coming out soon that better defines the way he has been

using cli fi, not as a book industry buzzword or marketing tool, but

rather as what he calls "a critical prism" and he says his new book

will explain it all in plain ink for all to see. And by critical prism

I guess Scott means cli fi to mean a way of looking at and writing

about pop culture versions of climate fiction in short stories, novels

and movies. I think it will help clarify things. Cool.Jeff, great

post. I never saw it until today, July 20, never showed up in my daily

cli fi browsing, but glad it showed up today. Good post! A few updates

and clarifications. First of all, I didn't "coin" the term, nor did

Scott, but separatel. y, and unbeknownst to each other, we "came up"

with the sci fi borrowing, just riffing on the rhyming sounds of sci

fi, so no one can claim to have coined the cli fi term. I speak

elsewhere of my work in helping to "popularize" the term, as a PR

traiffic manager. So nobody coined the cli fi term. In fact, several

climate denialists online used the term in a rightwing political

manner for climate research by scientists they disagreed with, calling

their reseach and conclusions about AGW to be "cli'fi." A bloke named

Paco or Paco Bell uses this term this way, but only a few times in

2009 I think, Google him. And on Judith Curry's climate blog, she is

a US climatologist, whenever she does a cli fi post, and she she has

done 2 so far, one in late 2012 and another one this May, most of the

comments come in from climate skeptics and denialists who call cli fi

novels to be mere "cli fi" and by that they mean either a hoax by Al

Gore or worse. Secondly, both Scott and I played quiet but early roles

as popularizers of the term, Scott on Wired and me on my blog posts

and opeds in the Wrap and Open Salon, and in sending the cli fi term

over to Margaret Atwood who was kind enough to retweet my tweet to

her. And her name helped push the meme uphill, too, for sure. There is

now a growing group of people I call Team Cli Fi, including Scott and

me and about ten others around the world, and some in Italy,

Lithuania, Sweden, Holland (where it is called klai-fei), China and

Spain. Thirdly, and this is cool: Scott Thill has tweeted that he has

a new book coming out soon that better defines the way he has been

using cli fi, not as a book industry buzzword or marketing tool, but

rather as what he calls "a critical prism" and he says his new book

will explain it all in plain ink for all to see. And by critical prism

I guess Scott means cli fi to mean a way of looking at and writing

about pop culture versions of climate fiction in short stories, novels

and movies. I think it will help clarify things. Cool.

James Lovelock has a new book on climate coming out January 2014: here is review of earlier books

Book Review

BOOK TITLED: ''On Gaia, A Critical Investigation of the Relationship between Life and Earth''
BOOK by Toby Tyrrell

blogpost by Jonathan DuHamel on July 20, 2013,
file under cli-fi, book reviews, Climate change, General Science, Natural History, AGW

The Gaia hypothesis, put forth by James Lovelock in 1972, proposes that planet Earth is regulated by and for the life forms occurring on the planet. The hypothesis suggests that life has somehow conspired in the regulation of the global environment so as to keep conditions comfortable. In some forms, the Gaia hypothesis suggests that the planet has a “consciousness.”



According to the British author here, Toby Tyrrell, a professor of Earth system science at the University of Southampton, England, the Gaia hypothesis makes three main assertions:



1. The environment is very well-suited to the organisms that inhabit it. As Tyrrell points out, this assertion is backwards, organisms adapt to the environment; the environment does not adapt to organisms.



2. The Earth’s atmosphere is a biological construct whose composition is far from expectations of (abiotic) chemical equilibrium.



3. The Earth has been a stable environment over time, despite variable external forcings.



Tyrrell also notes two competing hypotheses:



1. The Geologic hypothesis which holds that Earth’s environment is due mainly to geological forces and astronomical processes.



2. The Coevolutionary hypothesis which holds that “life and environment have both changed over time, and that changes in either have had effects on the other.” The difference between this hypothesis and Gaia is that coevolution “is free of any connotations that, once life had evolved and started to influence climate, the planet was bound to remain habitable thereafter.”



Tyrrell has taken on a big job in a critical examination of the three Gaia assertions and the two alternate hypotheses. The book is a tour de force that presents physical and philosophical evidence for and against the Gaia hypothesis, which, Tyrrell points out, has some similarities with Intelligent Design. Fortunately, the book is written in plain language and each of the 10 chapters has introductory paragraphs dealing with what the chapter will cover and a concluding section providing a summary. Many of the endnotes referenced within the chapters are interesting stories in themselves and provide amplifying evidence for the main points.



The book includes over 50 pages of end notes, suggested reading for each chapter, and 22 pages of references to the scientific literature.



Tyrrell ultimately concludes that “Gaia is a fascinating but a flawed hypothesis. It is not a correct characterization of planetary maintenance and life’s role therein. Some of Lovelock’s claims…are seen to be dubious when probed more deeply. Some of the key lines of argument advanced in support of Gaia are insecure, or else give support in equal measure to other hypotheses as well as to Gaia. There is nothing that can be explained only by Gaia.” The evidence shows that the Gaia hypothesis fails on assertions 1 and 3.



Tyrrell favors the coevolution hypothesis which, he says, “is fully compatible with what we know.” “There are no natural phenomena that either Gaia or the geological hypothesis is uniquely able to explain.” While I’m sad to see that geology can’t explain absolutely everything (I’m a geologist), I must agree with Tyrrell.



How he gets to his conclusions is a fascinating story illustrated by many interesting examples. The book is well-written and easy to read. Some of his perceptions may give you a different perspective on things. I particularly like a sentence in Chapter Two: “Nature is a mixture of apparent cruelty and kindness, of economy and waste, of competition and cooperation.” (That’s so Dickensian: It was the best of times….) It sets the tone of Tyrrell’s critical analysis. Tyrrell’s story is very informative and the reader will learn many fascinating things along the way.

P.S. In a rather strange  interview with Ian Johnston at MSNBC, on March 17, 2009, which was heavily edited and changed to fit the reporter's mission, James Lovelock was made to sound like he admitted that he had been a climate alarmist -- when in fact he never said such a thing -- and had been “extrapolating too far" and yes he did say that and meant that nobody could know exactly when CLIMATE CHAOS would start, but not in 2100 as he had said earlier; now he says maybe 500 to 1000 years before the shit hits the fan but the SHIT WILL HIT THE FAN, mark his words!

CLI FI ARCHIVES

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