I am a student of climate fiction, and not surprisingly so, since I write climate fiction. I’ve long rejected the easy story of apocalypse, and not because such stories are uninteresting or a failure as a fun read, but because such stories most often have little to do with the subject of climate other than as a premise for the crisis. Likewise, I’m not a big fan of far-future stories that show mankind changed in response to the climate crisis, while the stories don’t bother to do the work of showing how the change comes about.

Let’s Set the Stage

Climate change is an astonishing event in our human culture. We have altered the climate of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and have already locked in more changes to the climate over the next many centuries. The reasons for our alteration of fundamental Earth systems make sense in that the fossil fuel-based energy provided to societies and their economies has pushed human development forward even as, supported by the energy abundance, the population numbers have exploded. The combination of huge energy use and ever-larger population numbers over the last two hundred years is the mechanism behind climate change.

It is an impressive achievement, really.

The problem is that the resulting change in the Earth’s climate is itself impressive, but darkly so, since we’re altering the stable climate of the last 10,000 years that supported the dominance of humans. The benefits of such a stable climate are now disappearing, increasingly being replaced by significant disadvantages. We’ve exhausted our species’ advantage from burning fossil fuels to power growth and population. In fact, we find ourselves facing a future that presents growing disadvantages for us in the form of horrendous heat waves, devastating deluges, deadly droughts, surging seas, damning diseases, and massive meteorological disasters.

Another important point to keep in mind is that we’ve known of these consequences for many decades. There’s a report titled The Greenhouse Effect, produced by J.F. Black, Scientific Advisor, Products Research Division, Exxon Research and Engineering Company, dated June 6, 1978. This report closely matches—scarily so—the rises in average global temperatures we’re now seeing and expect to see going forward. This is hardly the first such understanding of the greenhouse gas/global warming effect concluded by the fossil fuel corporations themselves in studies starting back nearly three-quarters of a century ago.

In fact, there are a shocking number of earlier studies on greenhouse gases and warming that began in the 1820s with Joseph Fourier identifying the atmosphere’s heat-trapping “greenhouse effect.” This was followed by Eunice Foote’s (1850s) experiments showing CO2’s powerful heat absorption, and John Tyndall’s (1859) confirmation of gases like CO2 and water vapor absorbing infrared heat. In 1896, Svante Arrhenius first calculated that human CO2 emissions could significantly raise Earth’s temperature, linking industrial activity to climate change, a concept later refined by Charles Keeling’s (1950s-60s) precise CO2 measurements.

Look up “Early 20th century newspaper stories about burning coal and the greenhouse effect.” Here’s the AI Search Summary you’ll find (I’ve left the links live):

Early 20th-century newspapers, notably in 1912, published short, syndicated articles linking coal combustion to increased atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and future global warming. These reports, such as a famous August 1912 piece, accurately predicted that burning coal would act as a “blanket” to raise Earth’s temperature within a few centuries. [1, 2, 3]

Key Historical Clippings

• • 1912 Climate Change Article: Originally published in March 1912 in Popular Mechanics, and later in Australian/New Zealand newspapers (e.g., The Braidwood Dispatch and Mining Journal and Rodney and Otamatea Times) in August 1912, this report was titled “Coal Consumption Affecting Climate” or similar.
  • What it Stated: The 67-word article noted that furnaces were burning 2 billion tons of coal annually, adding roughly 7 million tons of CO2 to the atmosphere yearly. It explained that this CO2 acts as a “blanket” that raises temperature, predicting, “This effect may be considerable in a few centuries”.
  • Scientific Context: This was not the first instance of such reporting. It followed pioneering work by scientists like Svante Arrhenius, who predicted this effect in 1896, and earlier studies by H.A. Phillips in 1882. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]

Keep in mind that a number of the big fossil fuel corporations had commissioned their own studies in the 1970s and 1980s, although we don’t know the exact count, and probably won’t until the discovery phases of liability cases against the fossil fuel corporations take place and are made public. Unless, of course, SCOTUS rules that fossil fuel companies are protected against liability lawsuits, and remember, SCOTUS has done this for the gun companies.

Climate Change is a Fantastic Story in the Real World

A recent Substack post in Climate Fiction Writers League, “Imagination, Mythology, and the Return to Earth, by Steve Stine, author of I, Enoch, May 05, 2026, is unfortunately typical of what is found in this Substack. The intro to the post is as follows:

Steve Stine talks about mythology in fiction. His sci-fi novel I, Enoch, is about a race to save the world from the prospect of a sixth mass extinction. Enoch embarks on a dangerous mission with the help of ancient patrons and in the company of those with special knowledge of Earth’s hidden secrets. 

The first thing that set me off is Stine’s use of the manned moon mission as an example of the age of science, setting Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon in opposition to mythic storytelling. “And yet, what we gained that day in the annals of space exploration, we lost in the age-old story-telling traditions that bestowed upon the moon a mythic quality. For countless generations and throughout the world, the moon played a lead role in shaping cultures, aligning belief systems, and influencing human behavior.”

Good to know, I guess. It turns out that the moon is made of straw, not cheese, and that it’s the old straw man in the moon. Stine waxes nostalgic on the role the moon once played in human imagination, and bemoans that now, somehow, we’ve lost what for the ancients was the understanding that “…not knowing [is] fertile ground for story-telling.” There’s mention of the Age of Reason, and Voltaire, David Hume, and Thomas Paine come up, along with their complaints about myths. Stine comments, “…[T]he substance and purpose of mythology suffered a full-frontal assault by those bent on placing science at the centre of our cultural transformation.” The straw man argument here is that “not knowing” and science are oppositional, and if not knowing” is essential for story-telling, then somehow, amid all the test tubes and data sets, we’ve lost the ability to tell a story. “Today, the word ‘myth’ is synonymous with a falsehood,” Stine then claims. Well, it can be, but myth has other meanings and hewing only to the falsehood definition is itself false. Let’s turn to a product of science (and imagination!) to test definitions. Here is the Google AI summary of the definition of myth:

A myth is a traditional, often sacred narrative explaining a culture’s worldview, beliefs, or natural phenomena, typically featuring gods or heroes in a remote era. While commonly misconstrued as a “false story,” a myth acts as a symbolic, foundational truth for a community, rather than a literal historical account. [1, 2, 3]

Key Definitions of Myth:

• • Sacred Narrative: A story of ostensibly historical events that explains a culture’s practices, beliefs, or natural phenomena (e.g., creation myths).
  • Cultural Worldview: A story that defines a group’s identity, often involving divine or supernatural beings, which is revered as true and authoritative within that culture.
  • Common Usage (False Belief): A popular but unsubstantiated belief or false notion (e.g., “the myth of racial superiority”). [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Key Characteristics:

• • Anonymous Origin: Usually told without a known author, passed down through generations.
  • Symbolic Truth: Myths are often metaphorically or symbolically true, even if factually false.
  • Functions: They serve to answer fundamental questions (creation, death) and justify social systems and rites. [1, 2, 3, 4]

Myth vs. Related Terms:

• • Myth vs. Legend: Legends are usually based on historical figures or events, though often exaggerated, whereas myths operate in a, “primordial,” or non-specific time involving gods.
  • Myth vs. Folktale: Folktales are told for entertainment or moral instruction rather than being considered sacred or strictly true. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Myths, Storytelling, and the Modern Age of Climate Fiction

I understand Stine’s interest in supporting the concept of myth—his book, I, Enoch, presents the following description on Amazon:

I, Enoch is an enthralling journey into a world where ancient secrets and modern ambitions collide. Enoch, the protagonist, stands as a guardian of lost truths and protector of the marginalized, battling against forces that hold dominion over the planet. In a race to save the world from the prospect of a sixth mass extinction, Enoch embarks on a dangerous mission with the help of ancient patrons and in the company of those with special knowledge of Earth’s hidden secrets. As he delves deeper, Enoch confronts not only external adversaries but also internal dilemmas about justice, knowledge, and power. This tale weaves together mysticism with gritty realism, creating a tapestry rich with philosophical questions and the perennial quest for understanding one’s purpose. As Enoch wrestles with his responsibilities and the consequences of his actions, the reader is invited into a vividly crafted universe that challenges the conventional boundaries between history and myth, between what is known and what is imaginable. This book promises to leave readers pondering their own place in the history of humankind and the universe.

To be fair, I’ve not read the entire book, just samples from the book as well as descriptive copy, so maybe I’m using I, Enoch as my own straw man.

Storytelling exists across many modalities, where myth, in the word’s various connotations, is but one. I happen to like Carl Jung’s sense of archetypes within the human mind and Joseph Campbell does a great job tying the history of myths into literature. Heck, I took a course as an undergraduate called “Myth in Literature,” where I got to read Eric Neumann’s The History of Consciousness, for pete’s sake, so I’m no anti-myth guy, honest. I also don’t see myth and science as opposites, not when it comes to human imagination and storytelling. What sticks in my craw is the propensity of novels calling themselves climate fiction that focus on fantasy, and that includes altered species or fairies or demi-gods, or far-future distant or dystopian worlds, or radical changes in human nature often focused on gender issues or BIPOC, all the while too often fitting into hyper-genre writing markets instead of having climate change the central focus. There are many fantasy, romance, thriller, or science fiction novels that have some “climate” orientation or other, but that clearly don’t address the clear issues of climate change, either in cause or solution. We’re burning fossil fuels and heating the planet. Isn’t this time and place of crucial threat to the world an interesting enough story? Who needs allegory when the menace and what needs doing to address it is staring us right in the face?

To be clear, there are many excellent climate fiction works. Think Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future; Nicky Singer’s The Survival Game; Richard Powers’s The Overstory; Jenny Offill’s Weather; Omar El Akkad’s American War; Arthur Jeon’s Snowflake; Nick Fuller Goggin’s The Great Transition; Paul E. Hardisty’s The Forcing; Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Water Knife; Stephen Markely’s The Deluge; Chuck Colin’s Altar to an Erupting Sun; and J. Underwood’s The Bell Lap, to name some. But out of the 160-plus “climate fiction” novels I’d noted in building a Goodreads list (an effort I abandoned in late 2024 due to the sheer volume and size of the task), the sort of climate fiction I prefer remains a small minority.

And sure, it is a matter of taste, in part. But what sets climate fiction apart from other categories? Might it not be the topic and focus on where we are now and how we address climate change? Any category that is too inclusive ends up losing value as a category. Novels that turn to deus ex machina may be fun, but there’s not much of a real climate change solution being investigated in such stories. Fantasy can be a fun read and teach the reader about the human condition, but unless it is actively focused on climate change, does it fit into the category of climate fiction? Myths and allegories and social criticism can be edifying, and romances and thrillers and crime novels can be entertaining, but maybe climate fiction should directly address climate change and what we might imagine doing about the problem.

There’s this idea of “thrutopia” in climate fiction which I define as climate fiction that shows where we are in the world of changing climate and how we get to where we’re going. I like to quote the old Down Easter joke, “You can’t get there from here,” but getting from where we are today to the world we are heading to—solutions successful or not—seems likely the real focus for climate fiction.

The post Climate Fiction and Myth in Climate Fiction first appeared on David Guenette.

In some climate fiction the recreation of mankind is the necessary solution to the climate crisis, while climate action progress such as significant carbon emission reductions is not sufficient. Examples of these stories of reformed humans include degrowth or return to nature, including stories taking the lead from indigenous cultures. Other examples might focus on the West turning elsewhere for archetype substitutions or some other significant alternative cultural shift. Alongside these themes, hopeful climate fiction frequently relies on radical social restructuring. These stories often pivot toward non-normative gender dynamics, BIPOC perspectives, or spiritual awakenings as the primary drivers of change. Yet other types of climate fiction include some shift in economic model or political makeover, predominantly in the abandonment of capitalism.

Unfortunately, when it comes to helping people understand how one can approach the problem of climate change and push for solutions, many stories have a fundamental gap between today’s world and the depicted later world. The telling point is that such stories are not grounded in the present and presuppose a major cultural break. It may be that such stories can show us a world that may truly be helpful and compelling at some point. For us presently caught up in the crisis of climate change, however, these stories do not reflect today’s world, since manifesting new worlds, good or not, require time passing because cultural transformation is typically a slow process.

The challenge, however, is that the pressing nature of the climate crisis means that we do not have the time to wait for a new world to appear, if climate change storytelling wants to be efficacious in contributing to solutions today.

No Gain in Degrowth Stories

Degrowth is an absurd expectation and climate fiction that posits degrowth as a solution to our current climate crisis is absurd, at least in any way other than as a parable. Certainly, shifting away from conspicuous consumption is a healthier way to live in the world. It is also true that our still-raging engine of consumer culture broadcasts the extractive economic model down to the level of the individual. Nonetheless, stories showing the pressure on the world planetary boundaries reduced by reducing human population is simply an apocalyptic tale cleaned up, corpses hidden from the scenes. There are already far too many stories portraying degrowth scenarios, as any reader of zombie plagues novels knows, or some other catastrophic pandemic, perhaps. There is the old stand-by of post-nuclear holocaust stories and the updated version of EMP tales. Then there are the ‘fast collapse’ storylines: asteroids, inexplicably fast-rising seas, or the cracking of the Earth. These narratives rely on widespread disaster to bring about a precipitous decline in mall visits and Amazon deliveries.

We have policies designed for accounting the price of carbon in consumer, business, and industrial goods, such as carbon taxes or fees. Creating a world that has fewer humans in it to ease the carbon burden the Anthropocene has produced is unnecessary. You want plastic straws? Then pay for them at a more realistic price, not an artificially low price that results from ignoring externalities of fossil fuel use. This applies across many domains. EVs versus ICVs is just one example, and god help us, great public transportation is also a part of the same domain. We also have a clear understanding of how changes in zoning can lead to smarter density and smaller carbon costs. We know that we can manage huge amounts of unused electrical capacity instead of building more gas plants, and we have companies already providing the technologies and services. We have laws and the means to make laws that hold fossil fuel corporations accountable for harm. We have elections that rid the governing structures of undue influence that disproportionally favors the small number of ultrawealthy at all others’ expense.

But a movement exists within climate fiction that seeks similarly radical world-building—fortunately, often with a lower body count. Even with the emergence of the “Thrutopia” concept of climate fiction, which purports to shift climate storytelling into a teachable methodology and the promotion of solution-focused narratives, there remains a reluctance to present worlds that doesn’t require a fundamental transformation of reality.

Wait, What Do You Mean by “Efficacy of Climate Change Storytelling”?

The result from a Google search on “efficacy of climate fiction” turns up a lot:

Climate fiction (cli-fi) serves as a potent, though mixed, tool for environmental engagement, capable of increasing short-term concern, empathy, and emotional connection to climate issues. While it can drive, in some studies, increased political efficacy and specific climate actions (e.g., increased donations, higher likelihood of seeking information), it often triggers negative emotions, such as anxiety or despair, which may lead to disempowerment rather than action. 

There are views that climate fiction can transform scientific data into relatable narratives, and in so doing expand the reader’s understanding of climate issues even while encouraging emotional or empathetic responses. One concern, of course, is that these emotional reactions can be negative, such as anxiety or despair that result in inaction.

Can beliefs about climate change and action about it be encouraged through climate fiction? The jury is still out, with conflicting studies making the case yea or nay. For some reason that is beyond me there is the view that climate fiction may be “particularly effective in developing climate literacy among children and encouraging them to think critically about environmental issues.” Whether such consequences are long-term or ephemeral—whether with children or the rest of us—remains unproven.

And what’s up with YA and MG climate fiction books? I understand that children and youngsters are anxious and quite possibly likely to come to help address climate change, but the need for action is now. We are already past the point of any climate resolution back to normal. If we count on children growing up in order to start in on the problem, there will likely be a whole different level of problem, and besides, isn’t it incumbent for the grownups to act?

The question of the efficacy of climate fiction to help more people consider the problem of climate change or learn more about it or raise the level of action is an interesting one. But why should we expect this from climate fiction if most stories jump to some far future, displaying worlds we can’t recognize as our own? I’ve got no problem with good writing of any sort, whether for kids or adults. How can climate fiction claim ‘efficacy’ when it ignores the practical steps we actually can to take today?

I used “efficacy of climate fiction” as my search string. The following AI Summary I found to be of special interest to me because it so spookily well-summarizes my own efforts with The Steep Climes Quartet:

Common Themes and Techniques:

• • Hope vs. Fear: The most effective stories often blend both, balancing the grim realities with possibilities for action.
  • Relatability: By placing characters in familiar settings facing climate-induced changes, it helps readers to better understand the potential impacts on their lives.
  • Future Imaging: It allows readers to imagine potential solutions and scenarios, encouraging a more proactive mindset. 

Feel free to do your own reading. Here’s just a sample of page 1 of search result links on the topic (I skipped around and page 20 in the search results was still going strong!):

• • The Influence of Climate Fiction | Environmental Humanities, by M Schneider-Mayerson, 2018
  • On the False Promise of Climate Fiction, Emma Pattee, 2023
  • The Curious Case of Climate Change Fiction – C21 Literature, by H Bolze, 2026
  • Climate fiction is a vital tool for producing better planetary …, by I Malpas, 2021
  • “Beyond Dystopia: The effect of reading hopeful climate fiction …, by B McWilliams, 2024
  • Fiction builds political efficacy and climate action, by L Page, 2022
  • Can Fiction Really Change the World?, by T Lash, 2023
  • “The Influence of Climate Fiction: An Empirical Survey …, by M Schneider-Mayerson, 2018
  • Why I Don’t Like Climate Fiction, Substack · Climate Fiction Writers League, by D.A. Baden, 2025
  • Approaching Climate Change Through Fiction? The Effects …, by JR Winkler,·2025

The Climate Fiction Writers League and Thrutopia

You shouldn’t be surprised that The Climate Fiction Writers League, which was founded in 2020 by Wren James and has a Substack by the same name, talks about climate fiction. In December of 2025, I wrote “Climate Fiction, Optimism, and Realism,” that largely focused on an article on Literary Hub, that explored the concepts raised in a just-published anthology called Climate Imagination: Dispatches from Hopeful Futures, and this essay was written by Joey Eschrich, who is the co-editor of the anthology. I liked what I read and set out to read the anthology itself.

The two editors have more recently published an article on Climate Fiction Writers League Substack. The essay is titled “Imagining a Writer’s Toolkit for Hopeful Climate Futures.” I did buy and read the anthology. It is a curious mix of academic essays and short stories. The academic aspect isn’t surprising, considering that both Joey Eschrich and Ed Finn both work at the Center for Science and the Imagination at Arizona State University; Ed is the center’s founding director and Joey is the managing editor.

Something else that surprised me is that the stories contained therein tended toward worlds not all that recognizable as the present one, including one novelette that was post-Niger fictional civil war that included magical realism elements. On the other hand, the short story “City of Choice,” by Gu Shi, caught my eye because it served a reasonable extrapolation of the use of AI in city planning for dealing with chronic flooding problems, but that story was technologically a bit far afield.

So, what’s my complaint? I’ll refer back to one of the search results listed earlier, Why I Don’t Like Climate Fiction, Substack · Climate Fiction Writers League, by D.A. Baden, which helped spark another recent post of mine, this one titled “Let’s Talk About Climate Optimism and Hope That We Can Write About Doing Something About Climate Change.” There’s another one or two CFWL posts by other writers that I referenced in the post, too, including one on the concept of “Thrutopium” climate fiction titled “Thrutopian Writing – a new genre for a new world,” by Manda Scott, published in May 2024, which starts this way:

Ursula le Guin spun us a challenge, and we’re doing all we can to foment resistance and change: ‘we’ who are writers, podcasters, poets, scriptwriters, bloggers of regenerative farming; those who are engaged in alternative politics, community food projects or land banks; co-housing groups experimenting with sociocracy, co-operative architecture practices, zero-carbon cities, or bio-regional banks experimenting with ideas that could yield a whole new global reserve currency….

My complaint? ‘Thrutopia’ has expanded to cover books that stray far from practical solutions. It seems to count ‘remaking the human species’ as a viable climate strategy—an idea that does little to address the crisis as it manifests in the real world today. I mean, yeah, better humans, better economic models, better moral perspectives can reshape the world but is this really going to happen before the continuing carbon emissions remakes the world, and certainly not for the better?

I believe that reconnecting with nature—whether through indigenous wisdom or simple exposure—is valuable. But frankly, turning down the planet’s thermostat is the more pressing goal. Whether it depicts a utopia or an apocalypse, fiction that ignores the near-term work makes it less likely we will ever reach that happy future—or avoid our worst nightmares.

I was listening to The 7am Novelist and its January 6, 2026 “Roundtable: Can Climate Fiction Move the Needle?” The Substack is by Michelle Hoover, and this particular roundtable had four authors participating. Here’s a bit more background, from the transcript:

…Ash Davidson. She’s the author of Damnation Spring. Wren James, creator of the Climate Conscious Writers Handbook and founder of the Climate Fiction Writers League. Emma Petit [sic], a climate journalist, author of the novel Tilt and the person who coined the term Climate Shadow. Tim Weed, author of The Afterlife Project, a finalist for the Prison Climate Literature Award. And Kate Woodworth, author of Little Great Island and creator of the Grassroots Climate Change Initiative, Be the Butterfly.

At one point, Wren James says:

We don’t really have that collective vision right now of what we want the future to be or what we want governments to spend money on doing, whether that’s free public transport and train lines and all those kinds of things. We kind of have vague ideas that we need to go to green energy.

But the specifics, we don’t know what a city would look like if it was a green city. Sci-fi writers and futuristic writers have the job of creating those stories to create this vision of the future that we then know what we want to push our governments to make.

I beg to disagree. There’s plenty of work being done on greening cities and expanding and improving public transportation and what we want the government to spend money on. There’s been all kinds of tremendous work undertaken, from solar/wind/batteries all the way to cultured meat. The Electrotech Revolution is here. If climate fiction authors don’t know about those efforts, then those efforts don’t get incorporated into their fiction and thus the “promotion of solution-focused narratives” falls short. As people better understand the world of the humanly possible, then their political support is encouraged and made that much more effective. One thing I know is that the right political action taken sooner rather than later makes the future world of reduced global warming consequences the best story.

That’s how climate fiction gets through.

The post Is Climate Hope Fiction Hopeless? first appeared on David Guenette.