PBS Digital's Hot Mess asks if climate fiction can save the planet

While I was writing Vox explains how thawing permafrost is already releasing dangerous diseases and looking at all the examples of science fiction media in which a disease is released from climate change ("Interstellar," "The Last Ship," "Fortitude," "A Plague Tale : Innocence," and "Resident Evil."), I was thinking about a video from Hot Mess that came out at beginning of October, Can These Books Save The Planet? The Rise of Climate Fiction feat. Lindsay Ellis & Amy Brady.

Climate Fiction comes in all sorts of forms, there’s your Mad Maxes, your Games of Thrones, your Parables of the Sowers, and your WALL-Es. But are all these Cli-Fi books, movies, and TV shows just capitalizing on a hot topic, or do they actually change people’s perceptions of climate change? Lindsay Ellis, of It’s Lit, and Amy Brady, the editor-in-chief of The Chicago Review of Books, help us find out.

On the one hand, I'm glad science fiction writers are examining the topic of climate in books and other media.  I'm one of them, albeit in non-fiction reviews of climate fiction and other "eco-horror, such as the worst eco-horror films early in the decade about to end and more recently in Polygon explains how climate change is changing horror.  On the other hand, science fiction addressing current anxieties may make people more aware, but it may not actually make them do anything about it.

That's not all bad, as awareness is still the first step in environmental literacy.  Action is the last one.  The intermediate steps are knowledge, attitudes, and skills.  For the past eight-and-one-half years, I've been working on the first three steps with myself and my readers, something I alluded to last year in A reminder of why I write this blog.

"I have been advocating for all aspects of sustainability, viable natural environments, nurturing communities, and sufficient economies, on my blog Crazy Eddie's Motie News since 2011.  There, I educate my readers on these topics and hope to inspire them to work for an equitable social environment, sustainable economic development, and a sustainable natural and built environment."  I also "discuss politics, science, technology, the environment, education, and entertainment."

Here's to my continuing to increase my readers' awareness, knowledge, and attitude about the environment, whether through fact or fiction.

That's it for the Sunday entertainment feature.  Stay tuned for Cyber Monday.