Bummer: Climate (scam) Fiction Is Almost Non-Existent

Meh. It gets mentioned in some of the science fiction and horror stories in passing. Creates a quick eye roll and then it moves on

Climate change is almost invisible in modern fiction, study finds

Climate change is reshaping the world in real time, yet somehow it barely registers in the stories we tell about the world.

A new study finds that more than 90 percent of short stories published over the last decade in The New Yorker, one of America’s most respected literary magazines, never seriously grapple with climate change or any other major environmental crisis.

It’s the kind of finding that makes you wonder what fiction thinks is actually worth writing about right now.

The study was led by Rice University and Colby College. The researchers zeroed in on The New Yorker specifically.

The magazine is just as known for its sharp climate journalism as it is for its literary fiction – which made the near-silence in its short stories all the more striking.

Well, hey, maybe writers just aren’t that interesting in writing climate scam fiction? Maybe they see no money in it? Do we need to force them to write it?

Study lead author Matthew Schneider-Mayerson is an associate professor of English and creative writing at Rice and director of the university’s Program in Environmental Studies.

“In addition to ecological and geophysical impacts, climate change exacerbates economic, political, and social problems,” said Schneider-Mayerson.

“Domestic and global concerns – rising fascism, economic inequality, mass migration, and more – rightly draw the attention of the media, storytellers, and people around the world.”

“Yet climate change will amplify these challenges and make it more difficult to respond to them. Avoiding, marginalizing, and minimizing the climate and nature crises in popular storytelling makes unimaginably catastrophic futures more likely.”

The study doesn’t stop at the numbers. It pushes into a much thornier question about what writers, editors, and publishers owe readers during a crisis this large.

“What qualifies as a ‘good story’ in the midst of a climate crisis that threatens everything we hold dear?” Schneider-Mayerson asked.

“Our results suggest that contemporary fiction is failing to even acknowledge what is happening to and around us. If literature continues to largely ignore the climate and nature crises, it is, at best, distracting readers from the real world and, at worst, deluding them about it.”

Maybe stories that people enjoy reading qualify as good stories, eh?