Bloomberg — When climate change is mentioned in fiction, it is impossible not to bring up The Day after Tomorrow.
In this blockbuster released twenty years ago this month, a disturbance in the North Atlantic current sinks to the US and Britain in a freezing winter.
Here are ten books, television series and movies that incorporate climate changeLike something out of a series or film, vehicles abandoned on a flooded highway following a storm in Dubai, UAE, on April 17 experienced its heaviest downpour since records began in 1949, Dubai’s media office said in a statement. Photographer: Christopher Pike/Bloomberg(Bloomberg/Christopher Pike)
Tornadoes devastate Los Angeles, a wave hits New York while helicopters freeze in mid-flight.
The legacy of this film is complex. Among scientists there are those They credit the film with promoting awareness about climate change and others who call him misinformative and scary.
As a teenager, I remember seeing it with bewilderment and fear. How likely was it that all of this would happen? Isn’t climate change destined to warm the planet?
Beyond the liberties with which climate science is taken, the film and others like it may even contribute to damaging the public’s perception of climate change, he says. Pietari Kaapa, professor of media and communication at the University of Warwick (United Kingdom).
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“People may talk about the spectacular effects or certain plot elements,” he says. “But it doesn’t necessarily mean that real change is going to happen as a result.” Apocalyptic stories sometimes distort the danger and they distance it from reality as necessary to turn it into a useless instrument for raising public opinion.
However, although the climate catastrophe genre is recurring, studies suggest that narratives about climate change also evolve over time.
Good Energy, a nonprofit consulting company dedicated to researching and designing climate change stories in film and television, recently released a report that showed a general increase in climate change in popular films.
The theme is present in almost 25% of the films released in the 2021-22 period, compared to 10% in the 2013-14 period. (Good Energy is funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies, the philanthropic organization of Michael Bloombergfounder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, owner of Bloomberg News).
Here are ten Libors, television series and films that incorporate climate changePercentage of films in which climate change exists, between the years 2013-2022.(Source: “Climate Reality On-Sc)
The Good Energy report, written by Matthew Schneider-Mayersonan associate professor at Colby College, also captures a shift in the types of climate change stories we see in movies: from the climate as an antagonist in epic superhero tales to its inclusion in a range of broader narratives.
Climate issues have appeared on television shows as diverse as Borgen , True Detective (Criminal Detectives), Insecure (Unsure) and Madam Secretary (Madam Secretary).
In Parasite (Parasite), Oscar winner, climate change It is never explicitly mentionedbut it quietly supports the plot, as a poor family is forced to leave their home and their rich counterparts barely notice.
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Knives Out: Glass Onion (Knives Out: The Crystal Onion), a light-hearted Netflix murder mystery, satirizes false climate solutions. In the horror of Ari Aster Midsommara character observes that “it is the hottest, brightest summer ever recorded.”
So why does climate change matter in fiction? In part, it’s about portraying the real world accurately. Films set in the present or near future that ignore global warming “should be considered what they are: fantasy,” Schneider-Mayerson’s report says.
But it is also about power of storytelling to help people come to terms with a changing world. “The more we see it included or highlighted in all the narratives that we are exposed to, the more likely we are to really prioritize it, to think of it as a public issue that demands immediate attention and action,” Schneider-Mayerson said. More realistic and human stories make it easier for the viewer to identify with the challenges that lie ahead.
The most recent crop of climate stories follows this advice, focusing on the ordinary people and their everyday lives as they fight to make the best of what they have. In literature, The Ministry for the Future (Ministry of the Future) of Kim Stanley Robinson and The end from which we began (The End We Start From) dand Megan Hunter They focus on what could happen in the boardrooms, climate conferences, and living rooms of the very near future.
It’s easy to imagine yourself as Hunter’s unnamed protagonist, forced to flee her London home and fend for herself and her baby in a flooded and unstable Britain. Or see yourself in Robinson’s stoic heroine, Mary Murphy, grimly watching as the world is ravaged by climate calamity while trying to introduce systems and policies that can stem the tide.
Both books too They end on a hopeful note, fusing a vision of the tragedies ahead with roadmaps to make things better.
The Last City (The Last City), a climate fiction podcast from Wondery, is set in a futuristic, technological haven in a climate-ravaged United States. All of the characters have their own personal AI and appear to live healthy, peaceful lives, but their community hides a dark secret.
The main writer Carmiel Banasky describes its story, set in 2072, as a “protopia”: neither utopia nor dystopia, but a third way in which life improves in “incremental and realistic ways.”
The Last City is a thriller and a mystery, but Banasky, who often writes family comedy-dramas, says he also wanted to show how families, friendships and romantic relationships develop in a world facing climate change.
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There is a emblematic tension between the protagonist Demetria and her mothera former activist whom Banasky conceived of as a “Greta [Thunberg] already adult.” When she was young, Demetria was “pushed on stage to talk about the climate when she just wanted to play,” Banasky says, a dilemma many modern activists face with their own children.
These intergenerational relationships are also a key part of my favorite work of climate fiction: the comedy mockumentary carnage (Matanza) from 2017, performed by the British comedian Simon Amstell.
Climate change plays a small role in the story, which takes place in the United Kingdom in 2067, when eating meat and dairy has become taboo and an older generation must confront its past transgressions.
The story focuses deeply on how people can accept guilt for having lived in a way that is now considered wrong. It’s also set in a world that feels familiar. Can easily put ourselves in the place of those peoplelook back and wonder what they could have done differently.
10 Climate-Themed Books, Movies, and TV Shows
Extrapolations (Extrapolations) (2023). With a broad global reach and a star-studded cast, Extrapolations Apple TV continues eight stories over 33 yearslooking at the climate from all angles, including religion, technology, nature, and family life.
3 Body Problem (3 body problem) (2024). Based on the books of Liu Cixin, In this Netflix series, ecological destruction pushes an important character to make a momentous decision. The central question it raises, how to deal with intelligent and potentially hostile aliens who will come to colonize Earth in 400 years, constitutes a powerful allegory for climate.
The Ministry for the Future (The Ministry for the Future)by Kim Stanley Robinson (2020). The bible of climate policy nerds, The Ministry for the Future offers a chorus of global voices describing suffering and salvation as a near-future world navigates its way through climate catastrophe.
The End We Start From (The end from which we start) (2023). This film, based on the moving novel by Megan Hunter, is a quiet antidote to bombastic, big-budget disaster movies. How could a new mother and her baby survive a catastrophic flood? The answer is unexpectedly beautiful.
Flight Behavior (Flight behavior)by Barbara Kingsolver (2012). Many of Kingsolver’s books have environmental themes, but here it’s right at the heart of the story. A poor Appalachian housewife discovers that a valley near her home is filled with monarch butterflies displaced by climate change, opening the door to a new life but also complex questions about how best to live it. .
Parasite (Parasite) (2019). The Oscar-winning film Bong Joon Hotrata about class, wealth and inequality, but also (subtly) about climate change. The basement of a poor family’s home is destroyed when a storm causes the sewers to overflow, while a rich family simply suffers a ruined vacation.
The Commons (The groups) (2019). This Australian drama, starring Joanne Froggatt of Downton Abbey follows a woman’s struggle to have a baby in a world plagued by climate-related illnesses and disasters.
How to Blow Up a Pipeline (How to burst a pipe) (2022). A time-trial thriller that follows a highly organized group of activists attempting to sabotage an oil pipeline. Loosely based on the non-fiction book by Andreas Malm, brings to life his radical ideas about the arguments for destroying property in response to the climate crisis.
Annihilation (Annihilation)by Jeff VanderMeer (2014). This eerie and atmospheric sci-fi horror novel, adapted to film in 2018, is about a mysterious fungal force that causes strange mutations in the natural world. It covers themes including the fragility of humanity and disconnection from nature.
Fortitude (Strength) (2015). Fortitude, A disturbing slow-burn horror series, it takes place in an arctic community where nothing bad ever happens, until environmental collapse brings horrific results.
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