All products featured on Wired are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links.
Extreme weather events, changes in precipitation levels, species migration and extinction—climate change promises so many fun things. But why wait? See what that world will be like tomorrow by hopping on the climate fiction train today. Popularized by writers like Paolo Bacigalupi and Margaret Atwood, cli-fi takes climate predictions to their logical conclusions and explores how people might survive in a completely messed up world. Delve into that growing genre community by exploring the resources below, perhaps with a nice cup of tea.
Follow @MargaretAtwood on Twitter
Queen Atwood has often discussed the value of writing about climate change in fiction. (If you haven’t read her MaddAddam trilogy, drop everything but your e-book. Fall into a world of radical genetic engineering and climate change, where a jungle overflows with glowing green rabbits and a few human survivors wander the wilderness.) Her Twitter feed is a trove of interviews, literary and science news, environmental activism, and breezy jokes. Here’s a cheer she posted for Pope Francis after his encyclical: “Go! Go! Where? Where? We gotta #green #Pope, Over there!”
Follow @EcoFiction on Twitter
For straight-up recs, this feed spreads the word about climate change and nature-themed lit and art. On the home site you can scroll through the growing database of cli-fi and other eco-fiction tropes. And if all the talk of apocalypse gives you a sad, try solarpunk, an optimistic sub-genre in which technology helps us escape climate dystopia. Start with The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin.
Explore asknature.org
Maybe you want to write your own novel, complete with strange creatures and technologies. I give you asknature.org, a database about how nature works. Q: How do polar bears stay warm? A: Clear, hollow, transparent hairs direct sunlight to dark pigmented skin and blubber that store the heat. The upper layer of white fur prevents heat and infrared rays from escaping. If you’re writing a climate opus, recast that adaptation into white onsies that spies can wear to slip through infrared detection. And that’s just one suggestion on the polar bear page. Mix, match, and enjoy.
Listen to the “After Water” Series on Soundcloud
Treat your ears to this collection of stories about the future of the Great Lakes region. WBEZ brought writers and scientists together to explore the science of water resources, and the writers then produced short pieces describing the region decades from now when fresh water could be scarce. The first story, by author Nnedi Okorafor, is set in Chicago’s South side: A girl finds comfort swimming with blue, bioluminescent fish in the polluted Rainbow Beach waterfront. The opening splash of water will have you hooked.
Read “Where the River Runs Dry” by David Owen
In the May 25 issue of The New Yorker, Owen follows the Colorado river south down its entire length, tracking the ever more desperate water crisis as he goes. Take the mouth of Colorado River—it no longer exists, bottoming out in the desert as a creek so narrow you can step over it. Between that and the arcane but essential discussion about water rights, it sounds like an excerpt from The Water Knife to us, too. The gap between climate fiction and climate non-fiction is apparently much smaller than we would like to think.
