As I move closer to teaching my first ever Cli-fi class I find myself thinking about the roots of this genre. Specifically, I am thinking about the big questions that Cli-fi seeks to address. Primarily I think cli-fi is about our relationship with the environment. It is in fact a relationship, with all of the feelings and doubts and agenda that ought to be associated with that term.
We are in a relationship with this planet and we are absolutely taking it for granted. I think cli-fi rises out of that association. I think that the genre speaks to those who are hurt, ignored, abused, overlooked, and under appreciated. When we see nature we tend to see it in terms of what we want or need from it. We see what we want to use or take or even change until it is so boxed off and manipulated that what we called nature doesn’t actually ever look a such. When we hear stories or see films about post-apocalypse the first thing we tend to observe is how fast nature got over us. Unless we’ve created a nuclear wasteland most of the places I’ve seen as of late in readings and even my own words are green.
This matters because we see ourselves in an abusive relationship with the planet and we see this earth as the protagonist in that story. We see ourselves in a much more negative light.