UPDATE MARCH 11: IPS [Inter Press Service], an international news service, runs this oped on "Cli-Fi and academia make a good mix as college classrooms go cli-fi" - LINK to IPS site: LEDE: ''From Columbia University in New York to the University of Cambridge in Britain, college classrooms are picking up on the “cli-fi” genre of fiction, and cinema and academia is right behind them......While authors are penning cli-fi novels — with movie scriptwriters creating cli-fi screenplays to try to sell to Hollywood — classrooms worldwide are now focusing attention of the rising genre of literature and cinema.''
http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/03/cli-fi-reaches-into-literature-classrooms-worldwide/
Welcome to the The Cli-Fi Cafe. Have a seat, the waitstaff will be with your shortly. Meanwhile, this (below, see MENU) is what we have been overhearding lately. And if you have overheard some good things about cli-fi, drop us a line or leave a tip in the comments below. The waitstaff will be happy to receive them.
MENU
1. FAIR DINKUM: ''Can Cli-Fi save us from ourselves? With the grim prospects of climate change, a new genre of narratives can address our cultural anxiety, attitudes and provide comfort for future generations.''
Over heard at the table near the window overlooking the Pacific Ocean: debut Australian novelist -- ''ANCHOR POINT'' -- ALICE ROBINSON's very good Op-Ed on #clifi genre and its relationship to the Australian landmass and history
http://bloomsinthenews.blogspot.tw/2015/02/an-interview-with-australian-cli-fi.html
2. THE ONLY AND ONLY: "We're seeing more cli-fi themes in popular entertainment because they give substance to an ominous uncertainty that affects every one of us. And because, month by month, the recognition that we’re in real trouble is more and more widespread. In ''POLLY'' I’ve presented the radically altered climate along the (future) East Coast as a set of given features of the terrain that Polly must navigate. There’s some narrative irony in the fact that Polly and Leon give little thought to the tragically ruined landscape. Its traits are just dismal aspects of the only world they’ve ever known. So the shock caused by a long-deteriorating climate arises only in the reader, not in the characters." [Overheard at Don Bredes' table near the door.] RE:
Polly and the One and Only World -- a YA cli fi novel by Don Bredes]
3. NEXT CAB OFF THE RANK: ''Australian author James Bradley [in his new cli-fi novel ''Clade''] has found a way to balance the bigger picture with the pattern of human life and love, which continues in all its forms despite the imperceptible yet inexorable change happening all around.'' [Overheard at a table near the kitchen.]
4. CHARLIE FROST: "If you ask me, Cli-Fi is not yet popular. The first time I heard about a work of cli-fi was the movie 2012. This movie goes through the events of an average American family who wants to survive with the wealthiest and most influential people in the world. The character Charlie Frost played by Woody Harrelson is a theorist who has been predicting all the disasters happening in the movie for years, but no one listened to him. This is like the cli-fi writers and movie directors right now. They are foreseeing the potential danger to our planet. Nobody believed Charlie Frost in 2012 because everyone though he sounded crazy and unstable. Everyone believed that these catastrophes couldn’t actually happen, and I think that is what people think of cli-fi books and movies.'' [A long conversation overheard at Table 4.]
5. MAKING A DIFFERENCE: ''I agree with you that Cli-Fi is not a very popular genre as of now. I did not even realize that it was an official genre until I started taking a class on cli fi at my university. I think that it is going to take a couple years and some really big works to come out for it to start making a big difference. I think that we might be able to get to the point where cli-fi is more effective in a few years. Hopefully.'' [Overheard adjacent to Table 4]
6. ALICE ROBINSON, DROPPING BY FROM AUSTRALIA: - ''Writing and publishing, as well as other cultural records, like film, afford us the opportunity to send a message through the years. Even if cli-fi can’t save us from ourselves, there is a measure of comfort in the notion that future generations will read the texts we are producing now. My hope is that, in doing so, they will come to understand that the perilous realities they are grappling with were already troubling to us. A tragedy we could imagine, if not avoid, long before it came to pass.''
7. ALICE, also told us: ''It is unlikely that cli-fi alone can temper the significant impacts of climate change on our already compromised lands. But it does furnish me with some cautious comfort to consider that the novels and stories we write now, depicting imagined climatically altered futures, might help prepare us, at least emotionally if not literally, for what comes next.''
8. COLLEGE STUDENT AT TABLE 8: ''I also agree that cli-fi is not a very popular genre yet, and in fact of my friends at college have never heard of it, until I told them I am taking a class on cli fi, but I think it can grow. We have seen the changes it has made in the film industry especially. That does carry some weight, though most of climate fiction seems to be in copy form. I hope that people will start to realize how big of a deal this is and change their way of life.''
9/ BROOKE STEWART, visiting from Oregon: ''I totally agree that Cli-Fi is not yet popular. I asked two of my closest friends and one of the questions I asked was, “Have you ever experienced Cli-Fi in a book or story?” Both said “no” and said that they hadn’t even hear of Cli-Fi until I told them about it. I think that Cli-Fi is a great tool that we could use to educate people about global warming and it’s consequences, however, we need to make it known to the public that it exists first.''
10. THE CONVERSATION CONTINUES:
''While I agree that cli-fi is not an uncommon genre, I believe that this is because our society is currently focused on a future apocalyptic culture. It’s almost as if society has lost hope in all future scenarios. The only positive futuristic movie that I can think of is “Back to the Future,” which is ironic because the second installment of the series is set in 2015. The focus of being in the future is all of the technology advancements that have been made, namely hover crafts, futuristic wardrobes, etc. There isn’t much of a negative connotation with the future.
Whereas when I think about movies today that are set in the future, “2012,” “I Am Legend,” “Avatar,” there is always a negative conflict with how society has developed. Whether it be that there is some sort of disease that spreads, as in “I Am Legend,” or that we have to practically create an entire new world, as in “Avatar,” there’s always a blame on humanity for doing something wrong.
So, even though I believe that cli-fi is not prevalent in today’s movies and literature, I think that it is definitely an issue that is indirectly brought to the table for discussion through the topic of an apocalyptic future.''
11. ''1984'' hits 2015 -- Counter table, people gasping as someone gushes:
5. MAKING A DIFFERENCE: ''I agree with you that Cli-Fi is not a very popular genre as of now. I did not even realize that it was an official genre until I started taking a class on cli fi at my university. I think that it is going to take a couple years and some really big works to come out for it to start making a big difference. I think that we might be able to get to the point where cli-fi is more effective in a few years. Hopefully.'' [Overheard adjacent to Table 4]
6. ALICE ROBINSON, DROPPING BY FROM AUSTRALIA: - ''Writing and publishing, as well as other cultural records, like film, afford us the opportunity to send a message through the years. Even if cli-fi can’t save us from ourselves, there is a measure of comfort in the notion that future generations will read the texts we are producing now. My hope is that, in doing so, they will come to understand that the perilous realities they are grappling with were already troubling to us. A tragedy we could imagine, if not avoid, long before it came to pass.''
7. ALICE, also told us: ''It is unlikely that cli-fi alone can temper the significant impacts of climate change on our already compromised lands. But it does furnish me with some cautious comfort to consider that the novels and stories we write now, depicting imagined climatically altered futures, might help prepare us, at least emotionally if not literally, for what comes next.''
8. COLLEGE STUDENT AT TABLE 8: ''I also agree that cli-fi is not a very popular genre yet, and in fact of my friends at college have never heard of it, until I told them I am taking a class on cli fi, but I think it can grow. We have seen the changes it has made in the film industry especially. That does carry some weight, though most of climate fiction seems to be in copy form. I hope that people will start to realize how big of a deal this is and change their way of life.''
9/ BROOKE STEWART, visiting from Oregon: ''I totally agree that Cli-Fi is not yet popular. I asked two of my closest friends and one of the questions I asked was, “Have you ever experienced Cli-Fi in a book or story?” Both said “no” and said that they hadn’t even hear of Cli-Fi until I told them about it. I think that Cli-Fi is a great tool that we could use to educate people about global warming and it’s consequences, however, we need to make it known to the public that it exists first.''
10. THE CONVERSATION CONTINUES:
''While I agree that cli-fi is not an uncommon genre, I believe that this is because our society is currently focused on a future apocalyptic culture. It’s almost as if society has lost hope in all future scenarios. The only positive futuristic movie that I can think of is “Back to the Future,” which is ironic because the second installment of the series is set in 2015. The focus of being in the future is all of the technology advancements that have been made, namely hover crafts, futuristic wardrobes, etc. There isn’t much of a negative connotation with the future.
Whereas when I think about movies today that are set in the future, “2012,” “I Am Legend,” “Avatar,” there is always a negative conflict with how society has developed. Whether it be that there is some sort of disease that spreads, as in “I Am Legend,” or that we have to practically create an entire new world, as in “Avatar,” there’s always a blame on humanity for doing something wrong.
So, even though I believe that cli-fi is not prevalent in today’s movies and literature, I think that it is definitely an issue that is indirectly brought to the table for discussion through the topic of an apocalyptic future.''
11. ''1984'' hits 2015 -- Counter table, people gasping as someone gushes:
"If you live in Florida, you won't hear the words "climate change," "global warming," or "sea level rise," at least from the state's Department of Environmental Protection.'' via Reuters News report.
