Climate change in literature
Encyclopedia
Anthropogenic climate change
is an emerging topic in literature
, increasingly taken as a major theme or element of plot.
is a 2006 book by Al Gore
released in conjunction with the film An Inconvenient Truth
. Based on Gore's lecture tour on the topic of global warming
this book elaborates upon points offered in the film. It "brings together leading-edge research from top scientists around the world; photographs, charts, and other illustrations; and personal anecdotes and observations to document the fast pace and wide scope of global warming."
Storms of My Grandchildren
is climate scientist James Hansen
's first book, published by Bloomsbury Press in 2009. In the book, Hansen argues that burning of fossil fuel
s is changing our climate and that the Earth
is in "imminent peril". He suggests that millions of species, and humanity itself, are threatened. The title of the book, Storms of My Grandchildren, refers to the ferocious and extreme weather events "that will greet the next generation if the unmitigated use of fossil fuels continues".
Merchants of Doubt
is a 2010 book by Naomi Oreskes
and Erik M. Conway
. Oreskes and Conway, both American science historians, identify some clear parallels between the climate change debate and earlier controversies over tobacco smoking
, acid rain
and the hole in the ozone layer. They argue that spreading doubt and confusion was the basic strategy of those opposing action in each case. In particular, Fred Seitz, Fred Singer
, and a few other contrarian scientists joined forces with conservative think tank
s and private corporations to challenge the scientific consensus on many contemporary issues.
Requiem for a Species
is a 2010 book by Clive Hamilton
which explores climate change denial
and its implications. Hamilton has written about climate change
for 15 years, and contends that the "world is on a path to a very unpleasant future and it is too late to stop it". Hamilton argues that to believe anything else is to deny the climate change truth and engage in wishful thinking, yet people continue to resist the truth about climate change.
(1991), by Larry Niven
, Jerry Pournelle
, and Michael Flynn, set in a world in which attempts to stem global warming have created an ice age
, and science and science fiction are discredited.
Mother of Storms
(1994), by John Barnes
, describes a catastrophic, rapid climate and weather change brought on by a nuclear explosion releasing clathrate compound
s from the ocean floor, based on the clathrate gun hypothesis
.
Exodus (2002) and Zenith (2007) novels for young adults by Julie Bertanga, are both set in a flooded world in which surviving migrants are making their way to Greenland
. "Aurora" (forthcoming) will be the third book in the trilogy.
The Carbon Diaries: 2015
by Saci Lloyd is set in a future where power is scarce and the UK has just begun carbon rationing. The story is told in diary form by Laura Brown, a teenager living in London
in the aftermath of The Great Storm.
In Far North (2009) by Marcel Theroux
, the world is largely uninhabitable due to climate change. However, the novel implies that scientists got it wrong, and it was humans’ action to combat warming which irrevocably altered the global climate.
State of Fear
(2004) by Michael Crichton
is a techno-thriller concerning eco-terrorists who attempt mass murder to support their views. Global warming and climate change serve as a central theme to the novel, and in Appendix I of the book, Crichton warns both sides of the global warming debate against the politicization of science
The protagonist in Ian McEwan
's latest novel, Solar
(2010) is a climate scientist.
The narrator in the black comedy, "Glass House" (1989, 2011) by M F Smith (Michael F Smith
), is a geology professor involved in an ineffectual government committee responsible for mitigating the effects of catastrophic climate change.
is a collection of brutal and celebratory poems structured primarily using the Noah narrative, in which are listed highly endangered animals.
In May 2009, British poet Melanie Challenger and John Kinsella from Australia wrote a dialogue in poems, hosted by the RSA Arts & Ecology website. The exchange came about because both decided that they could not fly for environmental reasons, and such reasons supply the themes of the poetry.
Feeling the Pressure - Poetry and the Science of Climate Change is an anthology of new work published by the British Council Switzerland in February 2008. The book includes new work by many of Britain's leading poets, all writing about or around climate change and its implications for the world.
The threat of rising waters is present throughout Sean O'Brien's 2007 collection, The Drowned Book.
[Earth Shattering] is one of the most comprehensive anthologies to-date of environmental poetry, including several poems engaging with the climate change topos.
The Contingency Plan
(2009) by Steve Waters
is a diptych of plays first performed at the Bush Theatre in London. They are set in the near future, at a time during which severe tidal surges begin to submerge parts of coastal Britain.
Climate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
is an emerging topic in literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
, increasingly taken as a major theme or element of plot.
Non-fiction
An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About ItAn Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It
An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It is a 2006 book by Al Gore released in conjunction with the film An Inconvenient Truth. It is published by Rodale Press in Emmaus, Pennsylvania, in the United States.Based on Gore's lecture tour on the topic...
is a 2006 book by Al Gore
Al Gore
Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election....
released in conjunction with the film An Inconvenient Truth
An Inconvenient Truth
An Inconvenient Truth is a 2006 documentary film directed by Davis Guggenheim about former United States Vice President Al Gore's campaign to educate citizens about global warming via a comprehensive slide show that, by his own estimate, he has given more than a thousand times.Premiering at the...
. Based on Gore's lecture tour on the topic of global warming
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
this book elaborates upon points offered in the film. It "brings together leading-edge research from top scientists around the world; photographs, charts, and other illustrations; and personal anecdotes and observations to document the fast pace and wide scope of global warming."
Storms of My Grandchildren
Storms of My Grandchildren
Storms of My Grandchildren is climate scientist James Hansen's first book, published by Bloomsbury Press in 2009. The book is about threats to people and habitability for life on earth from global warming.-Themes:...
is climate scientist James Hansen
James Hansen
James E. Hansen heads the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City, a part of the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. He has held this position since 1981...
's first book, published by Bloomsbury Press in 2009. In the book, Hansen argues that burning of fossil fuel
Fossil fuel
Fossil fuels are fuels formed by natural processes such as anaerobic decomposition of buried dead organisms. The age of the organisms and their resulting fossil fuels is typically millions of years, and sometimes exceeds 650 million years...
s is changing our climate and that the Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
is in "imminent peril". He suggests that millions of species, and humanity itself, are threatened. The title of the book, Storms of My Grandchildren, refers to the ferocious and extreme weather events "that will greet the next generation if the unmitigated use of fossil fuels continues".
Merchants of Doubt
Merchants of Doubt
Merchants of Doubt is a 2010 book by the American science historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway. It identifies parallels between the climate change debate and earlier controversies over tobacco smoking, acid rain and the hole in the ozone layer...
is a 2010 book by Naomi Oreskes
Naomi Oreskes
Naomi Oreskes is an American science historian, and Professor of History and Science Studies at the University of California San Diego. She has worked on studies of geophysics, environmental issues such as global warming, and the history of science...
and Erik M. Conway
Erik M. Conway
Erik M. Conway is the historian at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. He is the author of several books....
. Oreskes and Conway, both American science historians, identify some clear parallels between the climate change debate and earlier controversies over tobacco smoking
Tobacco smoking
Tobacco smoking is the practice where tobacco is burned and the resulting smoke is inhaled. The practice may have begun as early as 5000–3000 BCE. Tobacco was introduced to Eurasia in the late 16th century where it followed common trade routes...
, acid rain
Acid rain
Acid rain is a rain or any other form of precipitation that is unusually acidic, meaning that it possesses elevated levels of hydrogen ions . It can have harmful effects on plants, aquatic animals, and infrastructure. Acid rain is caused by emissions of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen...
and the hole in the ozone layer. They argue that spreading doubt and confusion was the basic strategy of those opposing action in each case. In particular, Fred Seitz, Fred Singer
Fred Singer
Siegfried Fred Singer is an Austrian-born American physicist and emeritus professor of environmental science at the University of Virginia...
, and a few other contrarian scientists joined forces with conservative think tank
Think tank
A think tank is an organization that conducts research and engages in advocacy in areas such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, and technology issues. Most think tanks are non-profit organizations, which some countries such as the United States and Canada provide with tax...
s and private corporations to challenge the scientific consensus on many contemporary issues.
Requiem for a Species
Requiem for a Species
Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth about Climate Change is a 2010 book by Australian academic Clive Hamilton which explores climate change denial and its implications. It argues that climate change will bring about large-scale, harmful consequences for habitability for life on Earth...
is a 2010 book by Clive Hamilton
Clive Hamilton
Clive Charles Hamilton AM FRSA is an Australian public intellectual and Professor of Public Ethics at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics and the Vice-Chancellor's Chair in Public Ethics at Charles Sturt University. He is the Founder and former Executive Director of the The...
which explores climate change denial
Climate change denial
Climate change denial is a term used to describe organized attempts to downplay, deny or dismiss the scientific consensus on the extent of global warming, its significance, and its connection to human behavior, especially for commercial or ideological reasons...
and its implications. Hamilton has written about climate change
Climate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
for 15 years, and contends that the "world is on a path to a very unpleasant future and it is too late to stop it". Hamilton argues that to believe anything else is to deny the climate change truth and engage in wishful thinking, yet people continue to resist the truth about climate change.
- Scorcher: The Dirty Politics of Climate Change
- Climate Code Red: The Case for Emergency Action
- Why We Disagree About Climate ChangeWhy We Disagree About Climate ChangeWhy We Disagree About Climate Change: Understanding Controversy, Inaction and Opportunity was written by Mike Hulme and was published by the Cambridge University Press in 2009. As of May 2011 it has sold over 11,000 copies and was jointly awarded the 2010 Gerald L Young Prize for the best book in...
- Greenhouse Solutions with Sustainable EnergyGreenhouse Solutions with Sustainable EnergyGreenhouse Solutions with Sustainable Energy is a 2007 book by Australian academic Mark Diesendorf. The book puts forward a setof policies and strategies for implementing the most promising clean energy technologies by all spheres of government, business and community organisations...
Fiction
Fallen AngelsFallen Angels (science fiction novel)
Fallen Angels is a Prometheus Award-winning novel by science fiction authors Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Michael Flynn published by Jim Baen. The novel was written as a tribute to science fiction fandom, and includes many of its well-known figures, legends, and practices...
(1991), by Larry Niven
Larry Niven
Laurence van Cott Niven / ˈlæri ˈnɪvən/ is an American science fiction author. His best-known work is Ringworld , which received Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards. His work is primarily hard science fiction, using big science concepts and theoretical physics...
, Jerry Pournelle
Jerry Pournelle
Jerry Eugene Pournelle is an American science fiction writer, essayist and journalist who contributed for many years to the computer magazine Byte and has since 1998 been maintaining his own website/blog....
, and Michael Flynn, set in a world in which attempts to stem global warming have created an ice age
Ice age
An ice age or, more precisely, glacial age, is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers...
, and science and science fiction are discredited.
Mother of Storms
Mother of Storms
Mother of Storms is a 1994 science fiction novel by John Barnes. It was nominated for three major science fiction awards.-Plot summary:In the early 21st century, the earth suffers from a giant hurricane spawned by the release of clathrate compounds, as the result of a nuclear explosion...
(1994), by John Barnes
John Barnes
-Sportsmen:*Jack Barnes , English professional footballer*John Barnes , Jamaican-born England footballer*John Barnes , Australian rules footballer...
, describes a catastrophic, rapid climate and weather change brought on by a nuclear explosion releasing clathrate compound
Clathrate compound
A clathrate, clathrate compound or cage compound is a chemical substance consisting of a lattice of one type of molecule trapping and containing a second type of molecule...
s from the ocean floor, based on the clathrate gun hypothesis
Clathrate gun hypothesis
The clathrate gun hypothesis is the popular name given to the hypothesis that rises in sea temperatures can trigger the sudden release of methane from methane clathrate compounds buried in seabeds and permafrost which, because the methane itself is a powerful greenhouse gas, leads to further...
.
Exodus (2002) and Zenith (2007) novels for young adults by Julie Bertanga, are both set in a flooded world in which surviving migrants are making their way to Greenland
Greenland
Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...
. "Aurora" (forthcoming) will be the third book in the trilogy.
The Carbon Diaries: 2015
The Carbon Diaries: 2015
- Plot :It's the year 2015, a time when global warming has begun to ravage the environment. In response, the United Kingdom becomes the first country to mandate carbon rationing-a well-intentioned plan that goes tragically awry...
by Saci Lloyd is set in a future where power is scarce and the UK has just begun carbon rationing. The story is told in diary form by Laura Brown, a teenager living in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in the aftermath of The Great Storm.
In Far North (2009) by Marcel Theroux
Marcel Theroux
Marcel Raymond Theroux is a British novelist and broadcaster. He wrote The Stranger in The Earth and The Confessions of Mycroft Holmes: a paper chase for which he won the Somerset Maugham Award in 2002. His third novel, A Blow to the Heart, was published by Faber in 2006. His fourth, Far North was...
, the world is largely uninhabitable due to climate change. However, the novel implies that scientists got it wrong, and it was humans’ action to combat warming which irrevocably altered the global climate.
State of Fear
State of Fear
State of Fear is a 2004 techno-thriller novel by Michael Crichton concerning eco-terrorists who attempt mass murder to support their views. The novel had an initial print run of 1.5 million copies and reached the #1 bestseller position at Amazon.com and #2 on the New York Times Best Seller list for...
(2004) by Michael Crichton
Michael Crichton
John Michael Crichton , best known as Michael Crichton, was an American best-selling author, producer, director, and screenwriter, best known for his work in the science fiction, medical fiction, and thriller genres. His books have sold over 200 million copies worldwide, and many have been adapted...
is a techno-thriller concerning eco-terrorists who attempt mass murder to support their views. Global warming and climate change serve as a central theme to the novel, and in Appendix I of the book, Crichton warns both sides of the global warming debate against the politicization of science
The protagonist in Ian McEwan
Ian McEwan
Ian Russell McEwan CBE, FRSA, FRSL is a British novelist and screenwriter, and one of Britain's most highly regarded writers. In 2008, The Times named him among their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945"....
's latest novel, Solar
Solar (novel)
Solar is a novel by British author Ian McEwan, first published on 18 March 2010 by Jonathan Cape, an imprint of Random House. It is a satire about a jaded Nobel-winning physicist whose dysfunctional personal life and cynical ambition see him pursuing a solar-energy based solution for climate...
(2010) is a climate scientist.
The narrator in the black comedy, "Glass House" (1989, 2011) by M F Smith (Michael F Smith
Michael F Smith
Michael F Smith is an Anglo-American computer scientist and businessman. He currently is a visiting professor at University College London, U.K...
), is a geology professor involved in an ineffectual government committee responsible for mitigating the effects of catastrophic climate change.
Poetry
-273.1 (2005) by British poet Peter ReadingPeter Reading
Peter Reading was an English poet and the author of 26 collections of poetry. He is known for his choice of ugly subject matter, and use of classical metres. The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry describes his verse as "strongly anti-romantic, disenchanted and usually satirical"...
is a collection of brutal and celebratory poems structured primarily using the Noah narrative, in which are listed highly endangered animals.
In May 2009, British poet Melanie Challenger and John Kinsella from Australia wrote a dialogue in poems, hosted by the RSA Arts & Ecology website. The exchange came about because both decided that they could not fly for environmental reasons, and such reasons supply the themes of the poetry.
Feeling the Pressure - Poetry and the Science of Climate Change is an anthology of new work published by the British Council Switzerland in February 2008. The book includes new work by many of Britain's leading poets, all writing about or around climate change and its implications for the world.
The threat of rising waters is present throughout Sean O'Brien's 2007 collection, The Drowned Book.
[Earth Shattering] is one of the most comprehensive anthologies to-date of environmental poetry, including several poems engaging with the climate change topos.
Plays
One Nineteen by Tim Stimpson is set in disastrous flooding in the UK, due to climate change. The entire script is spoken through media reports, which create a parallel narrative of events.The Contingency Plan
The Contingency Plan
The Contingency Plan is the overall title of a pair of plays by the British playwright Steve Waters. It premiered from 22 April to 6 June 2009 at the Bush Theatre, with a cast including Geoffrey Streatfeild...
(2009) by Steve Waters
Steve Waters
Steve Waters is a British playwright. His work includes World Music and The Contingency Plan . He will also be partaking in the Bush Theatre's 2011 project Sixty Six where he has written a piece based upon a chapter of the King James...
is a diptych of plays first performed at the Bush Theatre in London. They are set in the near future, at a time during which severe tidal surges begin to submerge parts of coastal Britain.