Why you should read climate fiction

Let’s be honest: climate science is full of impenetrable jargon, from “greenhouse gases” to “loss and damage” and “net zero” – as we learned in last week’s climate crash courses.

But how much do these terms really mean to people who aren’t deeply involved in climate spaces? How many people actually think about keeping global warming under 2°C, perhaps even when they come face to face with it during a heatwave or hurricane? How do we close the gap between science and the average person?

It is often said that the role of art is to hold a mirror up to society, but the ever-growing field of climate fiction – “cli-fi” – has an even greater responsibility: to hold a mirror up to the global future. By repurposing data and information into stories about life when summers are unsurvivable without air conditioning and potable water has to be manufactured, climate fiction has the power to make sweeping scientific projections comprehensible, personal and emotional.

In this episode, originally aired in June 2022, we’re joined by leading heat health expert Abhiyant Tiwari and renowned author and journalist Alexandra Kleeman, who recently published an applauded work of climate fiction, to discuss the interplay of their professional fields and how it can make a climatic difference.