AustLit

Several major Australian novels about climate change imagine a warmed planet. This is a timely survey of these cautionary tales. There is also a long tradition of Australians, settlers, and Indigenous people writing about the land and the sea, about how our climate shapes our communities and our future, and about how colonisation and industrialisation too often destroys our environment. This outline begins to locate, question, and frame the insights of many past and present Australian authors about changing climatic conditions.

Climate Change Narratives in Australian Fiction is a monograph by Dr Deborah Jordan, a cultural historian, writer, and independent scholar.

Explore Climate Change Narratives in Australian Fiction.

Within the Climate Change in Australian Narratives research project, this exhibition explores the intersection of extinction and ecological themes in Australian literature through the figure of the thylacine, more commonly known as the Tasmanian tiger. Transformation—of landscapes, beings, and stories—is a central theme of this project.

This project was developed by Samantha Schraag as part of the Masters of Writing, Editing and Publishing, and includes an illustrated essay and bibliographic dataset.

Explore Thylacines and the Anthropocene.

Black Summer (2019-2020): A Climate Change Fictions sub-project.

This is not a critical engagement with the Black Summer bushfires and other bushfire writing in Australia: it is, rather, a set of pathways into bushfire writing, a way of gathering together the disparate ways in which Australians have written about fire.

The main focus is Black Summer: you will be able to access a series of curated lists on different types of writing about the bushfire season on 2019-2020, from children's books to autobiographies, or access the full list of works with 'Black Summer' as a subject.

Explore the project.

(Image credit: Gospers Mountain bushfire, 6 January 2020, CC4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.)

As Fiona Armstrong (La Trobe), Anthony Capon (Monash), and Ro McFarlane (U. Canberra) argued in The Conversation in March 2022, 'our war with the environment is leading to pandemics':

We clear forests and remove habitat, bringing wild animals closer to human settlements. And we hunt and sell wildlife, often endangered, increasing the risk of disease transmission from animals to humans. The list of diseases that have jumped from animals to humans (“zoonotic diseases”) includes HIV, Ebola, Zika, Hendra, SARS, MERS and bird flu.

While COVID-19 in the Australian Arts is a distinct research dataset in its own right, it also shares the concerns of Climate Change in Australian Narratives, in that the pandemic and human-induced climate change are closely entwined.

Explore COVID-19 in the Australian Arts.

(Image credit: via Pixabay.)

This project seeks to highlight the variety of climate change (cli-fi) short stories being written by Australian authors. In the introduction to the anthology Ecopunk! Speculative Tales of Radical Futures, editor Cat Sparks argues that ‘climate change is happening now, and we need a literature of now to address its issues as glaciers melt, corals bleach, typhoons kill and forest fires rage. Climate fiction highlights the hard-impacting economic and interpersonal realities of climate change, encouraging us to understand it as a problem we have brought upon ourselves and that changes to our economic and energy systems are required if we are to survive it’ (20). This project was compiled and written by Chloë Cooper.

Explore Climate-Change Short Stories.

Children's Literature and the Environment is a bibliographic dataset of works for children and young adults where discussions of environmental waste, climate change, species endangerment, ecocitizenship, and the effects of globalisation on the environment are major concerns. It takes the form of a series of richly detailed online exhibitions and information trails

Compiled and written by Amy Cross, and led by Professor Kerry Mallan, Martin Borchert, and Dr Cherie Allan, Children's Literature and the Environment was funded by the Faculty of Education and the Division of Technology Information and Learning Support at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) and published by AustLit.

Explore Children's Literature and the Environment.

Below is a list of novels by international authors featuring climate change.

Note: links open in a new tab.

10:04 Ben Lerner, 2015, single work novel

In the last year, the narrator of 10:04 has enjoyed unexpected literary success, has been diagnosed with a potentially fatal heart condition, and has been asked by his best friend to help her conceive a child, despite his dating a rising star in the visual arts. In a New York of increasingly frequent super storms and political unrest, he must reckon with his biological mortality, the possibility of a literary afterlife, and the prospect of (unconventional) fatherhood in a city that might soon be under water.

A Friend of the Earth T.C. Boyle, 2001, single work novel

In the year 2025 global warming is a reality, the biosphere has collapsed, and 75-year-old environmentalist Ty Tierwater is eking out a living as care-taker of a pop star’s private zoo when his second ex-wife re-enters his life.

American War Omar El Akkad, 2018, single work novel

A second American Civil War, a devastating plague, and one family caught deep in the middle—a story that asks what might happen if America were to turn its most devastating policies and deadly weapons upon itself.

Arctic Drift Clive Cussler and Dirk Cussler, 2009, single work novel

Oceanographer Dirk Pitt traces a lost ship’s mysterious cargo to a scientific discovery that could reverse the dangers of climate change.

Arctic Rising Tobias Buckell, 2012, single work novel

Global warming has transformed the Earth, and it's about to get even hotter. The Arctic Ice Cap has all but melted, and the international community is racing desperately to claim the massive amounts of oil beneath the newly accessible ocean.

Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy Jeff VanderMeer, 2014, series novel

Area X - a remote and lush terrain-has been cut off from the rest of the continent for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; all the members of the second expedition committed suicide; the third expedition died in a hail of gunfire as its members turned on one another; the members of the eleventh expedition returned as shadows of their former selves, and within months of their return, all had died of aggressive cancer. This is the twelfth expedition.

Aurora Kim Stanley Robinson, 2016, single work novel

Aurora tells the incredible story of mankind's first voyage beyond the solar system in search of a new home.

Autonomous Annalee Newitz, 2018, single work novel

Jack is an anti-patent scientist turned drug pirate, traversing the world in a submarine as a pharmaceutical Robin Hood, fabricating cheap medicines for those who can't otherwise afford them. But her latest drug hack has left a trail of lethal overdoses as people become addicted to their work, doing repetitive tasks until they become unsafe or insane.

Back to the Garden Clara Hume, 2018, single work novel

Clara Hume’s speculative ecofiction, Back to the Garden,is told from the perspective of a group of “tipping point” survivors–a generation of mountain folks who have experienced the collapse of late-stage capitalism, along with widespread ecosystem degradation due to climate change. It is within the framework of a unique time, when these characters live through two worlds, vastly different from one another, that they tell their tales, a way of documenting their journeys in life.

Barkskins Annie Proulx, 2016, single work novel

Annie Proulx tells the stories of the descendants of Sel and Duquet over three hundred years—their travels across North America, to Europe, China, and New Zealand—the revenge of rivals, accidents, pestilence, Indian attacks, and cultural annihilation. Over and over, they seize what they can of a presumed infinite resource, leaving the modern-day characters face to face with possible ecological collapse.

The Beast of Cretacea Todd Strasser, 2015, single work novel

When seventeen-year-old Ishmael wakes up from stasis aboard the Pequod, he is amazed by how different this planet is from the dirty, dying, Shroud-covered Earth he left behind. But Ishmael isn’t on Cretacea to marvel at the fresh air, sunshine, and endless blue ocean. He’s here to work, risking his life to hunt down great ocean-dwelling beasts to harvest and send back to the resource-depleted Earth. Todd Strasser reimagines the classic tale of Moby Dick as set in the future—and takes readers on an epic sci-fi adventure.

Blackfish City Sam J. Miller, 2018, single work novel

After the climate wars, a floating city is constructed in the Arctic Circle, a remarkable feat of mechanical and social engineering, complete with geothermal heating and sustainable energy. The city’s denizens have become accustomed to a roughshod new way of living, however, the city is starting to fray along the edges—crime and corruption have set in, the contradictions of incredible wealth alongside direst poverty are spawning unrest, and a new disease called “the breaks” is ravaging the population.

The Bone Clocks David Mitchell, 2015, single work novel

A Cambridge scholarship boy grooming himself for wealth and influence, a conflicted father who feels alive only while reporting on the war in Iraq, a middle-aged writer mourning his exile from the bestseller list—all have a part to play in this surreal, invisible war on the margins of our world. From the medieval Swiss Alps to the nineteenth-century Australian bush, from a hotel in Shanghai to a Manhattan townhouse in the near future, their stories come together in moments of everyday grace and extraordinary wonder. 

The Book of Dave Will Self, 2007, single work novel

What if a demented London cabbie called Dave Rudman wrote a book to his estranged son to give him some fatherly advice? What if that book was buried in Hampstead and hundreds of years later, when rising sea levels have put London underwater, spawned a religion? What if one man decided to question life according to Dave? And what if Dave had indeed made a mistake?

Borne Jeff VanderMeer, 2017, single work novel

In Borne, a young woman named Rachel survives as a scavenger in a ruined city half destroyed by drought and conflict. The city is dangerous, littered with discarded experiments from the Company—a biotech firm now derelict—and punished by the unpredictable predations of a giant bear. 

The Broken Earth Trilogy N.K. Jemisin, 2015, series novel

This is the way the world ends. Again. Three terrible things happen in a single day. Essun, a woman living an ordinary life in a small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Meanwhile, mighty Sanze -- the world-spanning empire whose innovations have been civilization's bedrock for a thousand years -- collapses as most of its citizens are murdered to serve a madman's vengeance. And worst of all, across the heart of the vast continent known as the Stillness, a great red rift has been been torn into the heart of the earth, spewing ash enough to darken the sky for years. Or centuries.

California Edan Lepucki, 2014, single work novel

The world Cal and Frida have always known is gone, and they’ve left the crumbling city of Los Angeles far behind them. They now live in a shack in the wilderness, working side-by-side to make their days tolerable in the face of hardship and isolation. Mourning a past they can’t reclaim, they seek solace in each other. But the tentative existence they’ve built for themselves is thrown into doubt when Frida finds out she’s pregnant.

The Carbon Diaries Series Saci Lloyd, 2009, series novel

It s January 1st, 2015, and the UK is the first nation to introduce carbon dioxide rationing, in a drastic bid to combat climate change. As her family spirals out of control, Laura Brown chronicles the first year of rationing with scathing abandon. 

The Carhullan Army Sarah Hall, 2007, single work novel

England is in a state of environmental and economic crisis. Under the repressive regime of The Authority, citizens have been herded into urban centres, and all women of child-bearing age fitted with contraceptive devices. A woman known as ‘Sister’ leaves her oppressive marriage to join an isolated group of women in a remote northern farm at Carhullan, where she intends to become a rebel fighter. But can she follow their notion of freedom and what it means to fight for it?

The Day After Tomorrow Whitley Strieber, 2010, single work novel

The planet is warming up and as the ice caps melt, the great currents of the oceans shift and the Northern Hemisphere is plunged into a new ice age. One scientist has the key to turning back the clock of global warming. But as Western civilisation succumbs to blizzards and tidal waves and the population of the Northern hemisphere begins a mass exodus south, mankind's only saviour is making a lonely, terror-filled trip north. To a New York disappearing under snowdrifts hundreds of feet high. The city where his son was last heard of.

The Dog Stars Peter Heller, 2013, single work novel

Hig somehow survived the flu pandemic that killed everyone he knows. Now his wife is gone, his friends are dead, and he lives in the hangar of a small abandoned airport with his dog, Jasper, and a mercurial, gun-toting misanthrope named Bangley. But when a random transmission beams through the radio of his 1956 Cessna, the voice ignites a hope deep inside him that a better life exists outside their tightly controlled perimeter. Risking everything, he flies past his point of no return and follows its static-broken trail, only to find something that is both better and worse than anything he could ever hope for.

The Drought J.G. Ballard, 1964, single work novel

Water. Man’s most precious commodity is a luxury of the past. Radioactive waste from years of industrial dumping has caused the sea to form a protective skin strong enough to devastate the Earth it once sustained. And while the remorseless sun beats down on the dying land, civilization itself begins to crack. Violence erupts and insanity reigns as the remnants of mankind struggle for survival in a worldwide desert of despair.

The Drowned World J.G. Ballard, 1962, single work novel

Fluctuations in solar radiation have melted the ice caps, sending the planet into a new Triassic Age of unendurable heat. London is a swamp; lush tropical vegetation grows up the walls of the Ritz and primeval reptiles are sighted, swimming through the newly-formed lagoons. Some flee the capital; others remain to pursue reckless schemes, either in the name of science or profit. While the submerged streets of London are drained in search of treasure. Dr Robert Kerans – part of a group of intrepid scientists – comes to accept this submarine city and finds himself strangely resistant to the idea of saving it.

Early Riser Jasper Fforde, 2018, single work novel

Imagine a world where all humans must hibernate through a brutally cold winter, their bodies dangerously close to death as they enter an ultra-low metabolic state of utterly dreamless sleep. All humans, that is, apart from the Winter Consuls, a group of officers who diligently watch over the vulnerable sleeping citizens.

The Earlie King and the Kid in Yellow Danny Denton, 2018, single work novel

Ireland is flooded, derelict. It never stops raining. The Kid in Yellow has stolen the babba from the Earlie King. Why? Something to do with the King's daughter, and a talking statue, something godawful. And from every wall the King's Eye watches. And yet the city is full of hearts-defiant-sprayed in yellow, the mark of the Kid.

Earthseed Octavia Butler, 1993, series novel

The time is 2025. The place is California, where small walled communities must protect themselves from hordes of desperate scavengers and roaming bands of people addicted to a drug that activates an orgasmic desire to burn, rape, and murder.

The Emissary Yoko Tawada, 2018, single work novel

Japan, after suffering from a massive irreparable disaster, cuts itself off from the world. Children are so weak they can barely stand or walk: the only people with any get-go are the elderly. Mumei lives with his grandfather Yoshiro, who worries about him constantly. They carry on a day-to-day routine in what could be viewed as a post-Fukushima time, with all the children born ancient–frail and gray-haired, yet incredibly compassionate and wise. Mumei may be enfeebled and feverish, but he is a beacon of hope, full of wit and free of self-pity and pessimism. Yoshiro concentrates on nourishing Mumei, a strangely wonderful boy who offers 'the beauty of the time that is yet to come.'

Far North Marcel Theroux, 2010, single work novel

Out on the far northern border of a failed state, Makepeace patrols the ruins of a dying city and tries to keep its unruly inhabitants in check. Into this cold, isolated world comes evidence that life is flourishing elsewhere - a refugee from the vast emptiness of forest, whose existence inspires Makepeace to take to the road to reconnect with human society.

Flight Behavior Barbara Kingsolver, 2012, single work novel

Flight Behavior, set in present day Appalachia, is a breathtaking parable of catastrophe and denial that explores how the complexities we inevitably encounter in life lead us to believe in our particular chosen truths.

Future Home of the Living God Louise Erdrich, 2017, single work novel

The world as we know it is ending. Evolution has reversed itself, affecting every living creature on earth. Science cannot stop the world from running backwards, as woman after woman gives birth to infants that appear to be primitive species of humans. Twenty-six-year-old Cedar Hawk Songmaker, adopted daughter of a pair of big-hearted, open-minded Minneapolis liberals, is as disturbed and uncertain as the rest of America around her. But for Cedar, this change is profound and deeply personal. She is four months pregnant.

Gold Fame Citrus Claire Vaye Watkins, 2016, single work novel

Unrelenting drought has transfigured Southern California into a surreal, phantasmagoric landscape. With the Central Valley barren, underground aquifer drained, and Sierra snowpack entirely depleted, most “Mojavs,” prevented by both armed vigilantes and an indifferent bureaucracy from freely crossing borders to lusher regions, have allowed themselves to be evacuated to internment camps. In Los Angeles’ Laurel Canyon, two young Mojavs—Luz, once a poster child for the Bureau of Conservation and its enemies, and Ray, a veteran of the “forever war” turned surfer—squat in a starlet’s abandoned mansion. 

Greenhouse Summer Norman Spinrad, 2013, single work novel

The world of the future is in a lot of trouble. Pollution, overpopulation, and ecological disasters have left the rich nations still rich, and the poor nations dying. Still, for international businesses it is business as usual. It is better to be rich. But is it all coming to a terrible end.

The Healer Antti Tuomainen, 2014, single work novel

In this chilling dystopian detective story, a man searches for his missing wife in a Helsinki devastated by ruthless climate change, and finds himself on the trail of a serial killer.

The History of Bees Maja Lunde, 2018, single work novel

England, 1851. William is a biologist and seed merchant, who sets out to build a new type of beehive—one that will give both him and his children honour and fame. United States, 2007. George is a beekeeper and fights an uphill battle against modern farming, but hopes that his son can be their salvation. China, 2098. Tao hand paints pollen onto the fruit trees now that the bees have long since disappeared. When Tao’s young son is taken away by the authorities after a tragic accident—and is kept in the dark about his whereabouts and condition—she sets out on a grueling journey to find out what happened to him.

The Ice Laline Paull, 2017, single work novel

A frozen corpse emerges from a melting glacier and after three years of uncertainty, Sean Cawson can finally put the past behind him. Tom Harding, Sean’s friend of thirty years was lost in an accident and Sean was the last person to see him alive. Tom’s body is not the only secret hidden in the ice. As global businesses and global powers jostle for territory in this new, lawless frontier there are big opportunities for those with the courage or mendacity to seize them. And equally big risks.

Islands at the End of the World Series Austin Aslan, 2015, series novel

In this fast-paced survival story set in Hawaii, electronics fail worldwide, the islands become completely isolated, and a strange starscape fills the sky. Leilani and her father embark on a nightmare odyssey from Oahu to their home on the Big Island. Leilani’s epilepsy holds a clue to the disaster, if only they can survive as the islands revert to earlier ways. 

Kinship of Clover Ellen Meeropol, 2017, single work novel

He was nine when the vines first wrapped themselves around him and burrowed into his skin. Now a college botany major, Jeremy is desperately looking for a way to listen to the plants and stave off their extinction. But when the grip of the vines becomes too intense and Health Services starts asking questions, he flees to Brooklyn, where fate puts him face to face with a group of climate-justice activists who assure him they have a plan to save the planet, and his plants.

Lighthouse Island Paulette Jiles, 2014, single work novel

In the coming centuries the world's population has exploded. The earth is crowded with cities, animals are nearly all extinct, and drought is so widespread that water is rationed. There are no maps, no borders, no numbered years, and no freedom, except for an elite few. It is a harsh world for an orphan like Nadia Stepan. Growing up, she dreams of a green vacation spot called Lighthouse Island, in a place called the Pacific Northwest. When an opportunity for escape arises, Nadia embarks on a dangerous adventure.

Love in the Time of Global Warming Francesca Lia Block, 2014, series novel

After the Earth Shaker, which all but destroyed Los Angeles, seventeen-year-old Penelope (Pen) sets out into the wasteland in search of her family, her journey guided by a tattered copy of Homer's Odyssey. Soon she begins to realize her own abilities and strength as she faces false promises of safety, the cloned giants who feast on humans, and a madman who wishes her dead. On her voyage, Pen learns to tell stories that reflect her strange visions, while she and her fellow surivors navigate the dangers that lie in wait.

MaddAddam Trilogy Margaret Atwood, 2003, series novel

Snowman, known as Jimmy before mankind was overwhelmed by a plague, is struggling to survive in a world where he may be the last human, and mourning the loss of his best friend, Crake, and the beautiful and elusive Oryx whom they both loved. In search of answers, Snowman embarks on a journey–with the help of the green-eyed Children of Crake–through the lush wilderness that was so recently a great city, until powerful corporations took mankind on an uncontrolled genetic engineering ride.

Mara and Dann Doris Lessing, 1999, single work novel

Thousands of years in the future, all the northern hemisphere is buried under the ice and snow of a new Ice Age. At the southern end of a large landmass called Ifrik, two children of the Mahondi people, seven-year old Mara and her younger brother, Dann, are abducted from their home in the middle of the night. Raised as outsiders in a poor rural village, Mara and Dann learn to survive the hardships and dangers of a life threatened as much by an unforgiving climate and menacing animals as by a hostile community of Rock People.

Mars Trilogy Kim Stanley Robinson, 1992, series novel

Mars – the barren, forbidding planet that epitomises mankind's dreams of space conquest. From the first pioneers who looked back at Earth and saw a small blue star, to the first colonists – hand-picked scientists with the skills necessary to create life from cold desert – Red Mars is the story of a new genesis. It is also the story of how Man must struggle against his own self-destructive mechanisms to achieve his dreams: before he even sets foot on the red planet, factions are forming, tensions are rising and violence is brewing… for civilization can be very uncivilized.

Memory of Water Emmi Itäranta, 2014, single work novel

Global warming has changed the world’s geography and its politics. Wars are waged over water, and China rules Europe, including the Scandinavian Union, which is occupied by the power state of New Qian. In this far north place, seventeen-year-old Noria Kaitio is learning to become a tea master like her father, a position that holds great responsibility and great secrets. Tea masters alone know the location of hidden water sources, including the natural spring that Noria’s father tends, which once provided water for her whole village.

Mr. Eternity Aaron Thier, 2016, single work novel

Key West, 2016. Sea levels are rising, coral reefs are dying. In short, everything is going to hell. It's here that two young filmmakers find something to believe in: an old sailor who calls himself Daniel Defoe and claims to be five hundred and sixty years old.

The New Atlantis Ursula K. Le Guin, 1975, single work novel

A vision of hope sinking and hope rising, in an America paralyzed by corporate control of government while sea levels rise catastrophically due to human-caused climate change.

New York 2140 Kim Stanley Robinson, 2017, single work novel

As the sea level rose, every street became a canal, every skyscraper an island. For the residents of one apartment building in Madison Square, however, New York in the year 2140 is far from a drowned city.

Odds Against Tomorrow Nathaniel Rich, 2013, single work novel

NEW YORK CITY, the near future: Mitchell Zukor, a gifted young mathematician, is hired by a mysterious new financial consulting firm, FutureWorld. The business operates out of a cavernous office in the Empire State Building; Mitchell is employee number two. He is asked to calculate worst-case scenarios in the most intricate detail, and his schemes are sold to corporations to indemnify them against any future disasters. This is the cutting edge of corporate irresponsibility, and business is booming.

On Such a Full Sea Chang-rae Lee, 2014, single work novel

In a future, long-declining America, society is strictly stratified by class. Long-abandoned urban neighborhoods have been repurposed as highwalled, self-contained labor colonies. And the members of the labor class—descendants of those brought over en masse many years earlier from environmentally ruined provincial China—find purpose and identity in their work to provide pristine produce and fish to the small, elite, satellite charter villages that ring the labor settlement.

Orleans Sherri L. Smith, 2014, single work novel

After a string of devastating hurricanes and a severe outbreak of Delta Fever, the Gulf Coast has been quarantined. Years later, residents of the Outer States are under the assumption that life in the Delta is all but extinct… but in reality, a new primitive society has been born.  

The Other Side of the Island Allegra Goodman, 2009, single work novel

In the eighteenth glorious year of Enclosure, long after The Flood, a young girl named Honor moves with her parents to Island 365 in the Tranquil Sea. Life on the tropical island is peaceful—there is no sadness and no visible violence in this world. Earth Mother and her Corporation have created New Weather. The sky is always blue and it almost never rains. Every family fits into its rightful, orderly, and predictable place…

Our Life in the Forest Marie Darrieussecq, 2018, single work novel

In the near future, a woman is writing in the depths of a forest. She’s cold. Her body is falling apart, as is the world around her. She’s lost the use of one eye; she’s down to one kidney, one lung. Before, in the city, she was a psychotherapist, treating patients who had suffered trauma. Every two weeks, she travelled out to the Rest Centre, to visit her 'half', Marie, her spitting image, who lay in an induced coma, her body parts available whenever the woman needed them.

The Overstory Richard Powers, 2018, single work novel

An artist inherits a hundred years of photographic portraits, all of the same doomed American chestnut. A hard-partying undergraduate in the late 1980s electrocutes herself, dies, and is sent back into life by creatures of air and light. A hearing- and speech-impaired scientist discovers that trees are communicating with one another. An Air Force crewmember in the Vietnam War is shot out of the sky, then saved by falling into a banyan. This is the story of these and five other strangers, each summoned in different ways by the natural world, who are brought together in a last stand to save it from catastrophe.

Portent James Herbert, 2007, single work novel

In Portent, it is the near future and signs of an impending global disaster are multiplying. Earthquakes, floods and volcanic eruptions sweep the earth. As the storms and tempests rage, a series of ominous events signal the emergence of a new and terrifying force.

The Road Cormac McCarthy, 2006, single work novel

A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.

Salvage Robert Edric, 2011, single work novel

The far north of England, several decades into the future, the Gulf stream has ceased: Quinn has been appointed by the government to conduct an audit on a remote area of land designated for a brand new model town. As Quinn arrives to greet the local developer, the surveillance cameras spin into overdrive, and soon he is immersed in a quagmire of corruption that will put his integrity to the ultimate test.

Science in the Capital Kim Stanley Robinson, 2005, series novel

It’s a muggy summer in Washington, D.C., as Senate environmental staffer Charlie Quibler and his scientist wife, Anna, work to call attention to the growing crisis of global warming. But as these everyday heroes fight to align the awesome forces of nature with the extraordinary march of technology, fate puts an unusual twist on their efforts—one that will place them at the heart of an unavoidable storm.

The Sheep Look Up John Brunner, 1972, single work novel

In a near future, the air pollution is so bad that everyone wears gas masks. The infant mortality rate is soaring, and birth defects, new diseases, and physical ailments of all kinds abound. The water is undrinkable—unless you’re poor and have no choice. Large corporations fighting over profits from gas masks, drinking water, and clean food tower over an ineffectual, corrupt government. Environmentalist Austin Train is on the run. The “trainites,” a group of violent environmental activists, want him to lead their movement; the government wants him dead; and the media demands amusement. But Train just wants to survive.

Ship Breaker Series Paolo Bacigalupi, 2011, series novel

Nailer's time is running out. He's getting too big for his work - stripping copper wire from old oil tankers - and once he's off the crew he's on his own, stuck in a shack on the beach with no food, no money and no way of earning his keep. He has one last chance. The thing all crew members dream about, a lucky strike, has hit in the shape of a clipper ship beached during the last hurricane. If he can hold off the rest of the scavengers long enough to get the oil out, he might just have a future.

Solar Ian McEwan, 2011, single work novel

Dr. Michael Beard’s best work is behind him. Trading on his reputation, he speaks for enormous fees, lends his name to the letterheads of renowned scientific institutions, and halfheartedly heads a government-backed initiative tackling global warming. Meanwhile, Michael’s fifth marriage is floundering due to his incessant womanizing. When his professional and personal worlds collide in a freak accident, an opportunity presents itself for Michael to extricate himself from his marital problems, reinvigorate his career, and save the world from environmental disaster. But can a man who has made a mess of his life clean up the messes of humanity? 

Solstice P.J. Hoover, 2013, single work novel

Piper's world is dying. Each day brings hotter temperatures and heat bubbles which threaten to destroy the Earth. Amid this Global Heating Crisis, Piper lives under the oppressive rule of her mother, who suffocates her even more than the weather does. Everything changes on her eighteenth birthday, when her mother is called away on a mysterious errand and Piper seizes her first opportunity for freedom.

South Pole Station Ashley Shelby, 2018, single work novel

A warmhearted comedy of errors set in the world’s harshest place, Ashley Shelby's South Pole Station is a wry and witty debut novel about the courage it takes to band together when everything around you falls apart.

State of Fear Michael Crichton 2009, single work novel

When a group of eco-terrorists engage in a global conspiracy to generate weather-related natural disasters, its up to environmental lawyer Peter Evans and his team to uncover the subterfuge

Station Eleven Emily St. John Mandel, 2014, single work novel

One snowy night a famous Hollywood actor slumps over and dies onstage during a production of King Lear. Hours later, the world as we know it begins to dissolve. Moving back and forth in time-from the actor's early days as a film star to fifteen years in the future, when a theatre troupe known as the Travelling Symphony roams the wasteland of what remains-this suspenseful, elegiac, spellbinding novel charts the strange twists of fate that connect five people: the actor, the man who tried to save him, the actor's first wife, his oldest friend, and a young actress with the Traveling Symphony, caught in the crosshairs of a dangerous self-proclaimed prophet.

The Stone Gods Jeanette Winterson, 2008, single work novel

On the airwaves, all the talk is of the new blue planet - pristine and habitable, like our own 65 million years ago, before we took it to the edge of destruction. And off the air, Billie and Spike are falling in love. What will happen when their story combines with the world's story, as they whirl towards Planet Blue, into the future? Will they - and we - ever find a safe landing place?

The Story of General Dann and Mara's Daughter, Griot and the Snow Dog Doris Lessing, 2006, single work novel

The Earth’s climate has changed it is colder than ever before and Dann, four in the first book, is now grown up and a general, and the man to whom everyone looks for guidance and leadership. Lessing’s novel charts his adventures across the frozen wastes of the north, a journey that will eventually lead to the discovery of a secret library.

Submergence J.M. Ledgard, 2012, single work novel 

In a room with no windows on the eastern coast of Africa, an Englishman, James More, is held captive by jihadist fighters. Posing as a water engineer to spy on al-Qaeda activity in the area, he now faces extreme privation, mock executions and forced marches through arid Somali badlands. Thousands of miles away on the Greenland Sea, Danielle Flinders, a biomathematician, prepares for a dive to the ocean floor to determine the extent and forms of life in the deep. Submergence is a love story, a meditation on mortality, and a vivid portrayal of man’s place on Earth. 

The Water Knife Paolo Bacigalupi, 2016, single work novel

In the near future, the Colorado River has dwindled to a trickle. Detective, assassin, and spy, Angel Velasquez “cuts” water for the Southern Nevada Water Authority, ensuring that its lush arcology developments can bloom in Las Vegas. When rumors of a game-changing water source surface in Phoenix, Angel is sent south, hunting for answers that seem to evaporate as the heat index soars and the landscape becomes more and more oppressive.

The Wolves of Winter Tyrell Johnson, 2018, single work novel

Lynn McBride has learned much since society collapsed in the face of nuclear war and the relentless spread of disease. As the memories of her old life continue to surface, she’s forced to forge ahead in the snow-drifted Canadian Yukon, learning how to hunt and trap and slaughter. Forget the old days. Forget summer. Forget warmth. Forget anything that doesn’t help you survive in the endless white wilderness beyond the edges of a fallen world.
 

We Are Unprepared Meg Little Reilly, 2016, single work novel

Ash and his wife, Pia uproot themselves from a brownstone in Brooklyn to the town of Isole in northeast Vermont in search of a more self–reliant lifestyle. But after a few idyllic months, the days begin to grow unnaturally hot, ill–omened and filled with discontent. The Weather Service, too, is awash with portentous news about a catastrophic hurricane season brewing off–shore. Preparations preoccupy the town and deepen the cracks inside the community – and within the couple's marriage. When The Storm finally hits, it razes both external and internal landscapes, leaving everything – and everyone – permanently altered.

When the Floods Came Clare Morral, 2016, single work novel

In a world prone to violent flooding, Britain, ravaged 20 years earlier by a deadly virus, has been largely cut off from the rest of the world. Survivors are few and far between, most of them infertile. Children, the only hope for the future, are a rare commodity.

Below is a list of critical works, essays, and news articles relating to climate change in fiction and to philosophical underpinnings of our understanding of climate change.

The works on this list are general in focus; we also recommend checking AustLit's search results for criticism on climate change and climate change fiction, as well as the records for individual works.

Note: links open in a new tab.

Books:

Canavan, Gerry and Kim Stanley Robinson. Green Planets: Ecology and Science Fiction. Wesleyan University Press, 2014.

Goodbody, Axel and Adeline Johns-Putra. Cli-fi: A Companion. Peter Lang Pub Inc, 2018.

Share, Jeff, Allen Webb, and Richard Beach. Teaching Climate Change to Adolescents. Taylor and Francis, 2017.

Trexler, Adam. Anthropocene Fictions: The Novel in a Time of Climate Change. University of Virginia Press, 2015.
 

Journal Articles:

Albrecht, Glenn, et. al. 'Solastalgia: The Distress Caused by Environment Change.' Australas Psychiatry, vol. 15, no. 1, 2007, pp. 95-98.

Craps, Stef and Rick Crownshaw. 'Introduction: The Rising Tide of Climate Change Fiction.' Studies in the Novel, vol. 50, no. 1, 2018, pp. 1-8.

Huggan, Graham, and Helen Tiffin. Postcolonial Ecocriticism: Literature, Animals, Environment. Routledge, 2010.

Johns-Putra, Adeline. 'Climate Change in Literature and Literary Studies: From Cli-fi, Climate Change Theater and Ecopoetry to Ecocriticism and Climate Change Criticism.' Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, vol. 7, 2016, pp. 266-282.

Milner, Andrew and J. R. Burgmann. 'A Short Pre-History of Climate Fiction.' Extrapolation, vol. 59, no. 1, 2018. pp. 1-23.

Moore, Jason W. 'The Capitalocene, Part I: On the Nature and Origins of Our Ecological Crisis.' Journal of Peasant Studies, vol. 44, no. 2, 2017, pp.594-630.

Slovic, Scott. 'A Booklist of International Environmental Literature.' World Literature Today, vol. 83, no. 1, 2009, pp. 53-55.

Tuhus-Dubrow, Rebecca. 'Cli-Fi: Birth of a Genre.' Dissent, vol. 60, no. 3, 2013, pp. 58-61.
 

News Articles and Essays:

Abraham, John. 'Clifi - A New Way to Talk About Climate Change.' The Guardian, 18 Oct. 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/oct/18/clifi-a-new-way-to-talk-about-climate-change. Accessed 15 Jan. 2019.

Albrecht, Glenn. 'The Age of Solastalgia.' The Conversation, 7 Aug. 2012, https://theconversation.com/the-age-of-solastalgia-8337. Accessed 17 June 2019.

Birch, Tony. 'Recovering a Narrative of Place - Stories in the Time of Climate Change.' The Conversation, 27 Apr. 2018, https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-recovering-a-narrative-of-place-stories-in-the-time-of-climate-change-95067. Accessed 9 Jan. 2019.

Bloom, Danny. 'The Rise of the Cli-Fi Literary Genre.' Modern Literature, 13 Dec. 2017, http://www.modernliterature.org/2017/12/13/rise-cli-fi-literary-genre-danny-bloom/. Accessed 11 Jan. 2019.

Clark Howard, Brian. 'Cli-fi Writers Imagine Unchecked Climate Change.' National Geographic, 30 Oct. 2018, https://www.nationalgeographic.com.au/nature/cli-fi-writers-imagine-unchecked-climate-change.aspx. Accessed 15 Jan. 2019.

Delaney, Brigid. 'Facts Matter, But Stories Can Persuade Us to Change Our World.' The Guardian, 14 July 2017, www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/14/facts-matter-but-stories-can-persuade-us-to-change-our-world. Accessed 9 Jan. 2019.

Moore, Jason W. 'World Accumulation and Planetary Life, or, Why Capitalism Will Not Survive Until the "Last Tree Is Cut".' Political Economy Research Centre, 20 Dec. 2017. http://www.perc.org.uk/project_posts/world-accumulation-planetary-life-capitalism-will-not-survive-last-tree-cut/. Accessed 27 June 2019.

Ortiz, Diego Arguedas. 'How Science Fiction Helps Readers Understand Climate Change.' BBC, 15 Jan. 2019. http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20190110-how-science-fiction-helps-readers-understand-climate-change. Accessed 20 Jan. 2019.

Proulx, Annie. 'Annie Proulx on the Best Books to Understand Climate Change.' The Guardian, 21 Jan. 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jan/21/books-climate-change-annie-proulx. Accessed 23 Jan. 2019.

Ross, Monique and Julie Street. 'Could Cli-fi Help Inspire Real Climate Change Action?' ABC News, 4 July 2018, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-04/could-climate-change-fiction-help-save-the-world/9913990. Accessed 9 Jan. 2019.