Why I Don't Like Climate Fiction

by D. A Baden, founder of Green Stories

It’s a controversial title for an article for the Climate Fiction Writers League, and I admit it’s mostly an attention-grabbing ploy. I know there’s a market out there. Many people love dystopian stories and climate fiction offers plenty of dark scenarios to explore in a realistic way. Part of the reason for my aversion is that my day job is as a sustainability academic, and after being immersed in dismaying facts and predictions, I can’t take much more. What’s worse is seeing the inadequacy of government ambition and the greenwash of so-called sustainable business. I tried calling myself professor of unsustainable business for a while hoping to provoke some discussion, but annoyingly no one commented!

I’m not alone in resorting to avoidance and distraction. I suspect many writers turn to climate fiction hoping that by spelling out with descriptive mastery what terrible futures lie ahead if we don’t change our ways, readers will give up beef and flying, instal solar panels and campaign for more effective climate policies. Possibly we think that – I say ‘we’ because ironically, I sort of am a climate fiction writer - because we ourselves were scared by the facts into wanting to take action, and the action we’ve taken is to put pen to paper.

My argument is that if people were going to be scared green, then they already would be. There’s plenty of content to inform and terrify anyone if they care to look. For the rest, there’s a reason for avoidance and denial. My PhD was in psychology, and I remember coming across Terror Management Theory. This involved a series of experiments which found that respondents primed with death-related images were more likely to be intolerant of outsiders, keener to preserve their personal safety and so on. Other studies of fear confirm that it doesn’t bring out our best selves. Positive emotions make us expansive and generous; negative emotions inward, less tolerant and self-protective.

Authoritarian leaders know this - spreading fear plays into their hands. Negative news also plays into this. I did numerous studies with a variety of samples and results consistently showed a preference for more positive or balanced news. My research also found that solution-focused news improved mental health and was much more likely to prompt ethical behaviour than typical stories that just focused on the problem. I interviewed news editors of Reuters, BBC, Sky, Channel 4 and others, and their attitude was ‘if it bleeds, it leads’[i]. Their assumption was you must make viewers aware of what’s wrong, so they want to do something about it. Some were interested in my research results, but eliciting alarm remained their key interest. This had nothing to do with caring about the likely impact on viewers’ emotions and behaviour, this was because we have evolved to pay attention to alarming information, and our attention is what they’re after.

Writers too compete in the market for readers’ attention, so it’s no surprise that we big up the conflict and the drama for all it’s worth to keep our readers turning the pages. But if you write to make a positive difference in the world, be aware of the unintended consequences that can result. A study of climate fiction reports that readers experience mostly negative emotion, and that while some emotions such as anger could fuel action, others such as helplessness, shame and sadness can be counterproductive, leading to fatalism, denial and avoidance[ii].

My study in 2019[iii] compared 100 readers’ responses to short climate-themed stories. Stories with a catastrophic focus inspired some to action, but just as many switched off. Stories with a solution focus didn’t lead any to switch off and were more likely to lead to specific behavioural intentions, e.g. ‘I will now do this…’ as opposed to typical responses to the darker stories which tended to be more passive, such as ‘something should be done.’

Other studies[iv] have found that dystopic climate fiction may raise concern about climate change but also reduce the sense of efficacy to prevent global warming. This matters as changing attitudes isn’t enough. The psychology literature is full of studies showing an attitude-behaviour gap. What really affects behaviour are our feelings of agency – do we believe what we do makes a difference. In summary, it is not enough to raise awareness of the disastrous consequences of not addressing climate change. It might scare readers green, but it may also lead to buying up all the toilet rolls and support for populist leaders who shift the blame onto marginalised groups. Importantly too, studies show that climate fiction is mostly read by those who are already climate aware, which limits the potential for impact. Exacerbating this effect is the ‘echo-chamber’ polarisation of climate change discussions on social media and within climate policy.

What I’d really love to see are positive visions of what a flourishing future might look like if we did things right. A vision to give us something to aim towards rather than run away from. I like the thrutopian ideal championed by Manda Scott and Rupert Read and others of using fiction as a space to explore some of the steps by which we can get from where we are now to where we’d like to be.

That’s the space that I write into in my novels. My first novel, Habitat Man used a rom-com/cosy mystery as a kind of ‘trojan horse’ for smuggling in role models of sustainable behaviours with gratifying success[v].

My current novel just published, The Philosopher and the Assassin educates about the kinds of transformative climate policies that politicians don’t dare to talk about. It doesn’t forego the doom and gloom entirely as the main character is deeply anxious about climate, but predominantly it’s a drama with humour and mystery and is hopefully just an enjoyable read. The climate themes are woven through, not articulating the problems, but in terms of the climate policies that would be truly effective.

It’s set in a contemporary British university, and the protagonist is Iris Tate, a professor of moral philosophy with personal baggage. The novel follows her journey of tragedy and redemption. A story within the story involves a murder in a citizens’ assembly on climate and a dilemma which Iris and her students must resolve. What the students don’t know is that their decision will have far-reaching consequences.

I’d class The Philosopher and the Assassin as literary fiction due to its innovative structure: campus novel meets philosophy meets whodunnit. The murder mystery element is both entertaining and allows me to naturally raise awareness of citizens’ assemblies, which for me are a key climate solution[vi]. The climate assembly element also allows climate policies to be explored by a variety of characters, all of whom have a different response to the proposals. The fact that one of them is the murderer keeps the reader turning the pages.

It has so far garnered positive reviews.

I’m especially delighted to get this from the respected best-selling author Manda Scott:

Denise Baden’s campus novel/whodunnit is so much more than just an up-to-the-minute academic locked-door mystery, it’s a philosophical treatise wrapped in an exposition of the polycrisis, embedded in a love story, threaded through with alternative democracy and grounded in explorations of grief, motivation and drive. Full of sharp ideas, subtle humour and grounded in the harsh realities of our world, you’ll come away with a whole new understanding of our world and what it takes to change it!”

Manda Scott, author of Any Human Power and Boudica series

You can see more reviews and how it uses fiction to inspire climate action here. I also run the Green Stories project and writing competition. On our website we have a list of resources for writers. Just as some books/films product place products, we aim to ‘product place’ sustainable attitudes behaviours products and policies. The story doesn’t have to be specifically about climate change or catastrophic shortages, it can be any kind of genre – rom-com, crime drama, legal drama, children’s book, sci-fi etc. as long as it showcases sustainable technologies, practices, products or ideas in the background.

Below is an example of one of our guides, about Personal Carbon Allowances:

Climate change is getting serious and we need to step up our pace of change. A radical but hugely effective solution would be for everyone to have a personal carbon allowance. So just like managing a financial budget, we’d be expected to live within a carbon budget. This 3 minute video gives a good summary.

Your transactions, journeys and purchases would use up your carbon allowance. This benefits green behaviour and would drive innovation into sustainable products and business models. Individuals would choose products and services with a lower carbon footprint, or prefer to borrow, repair or re-use rather than new. Companies would then be incentivised to provide greener products and services, for example by sourcing their energy from renewable sources, designing green products, making it easier to borrow rather than buy or providing easy repair options.

This idea is an alternative to green taxation. Although green taxes allow more individual freedom, they make environmentally harmful behaviour the privilege of the rich. A personal carbon allowance is more equitable – like a kind of rationing as everyone has the same carbon allowance which is fairer, but there is still room to manoeuvre if you allow unspent carbon to be sold to those who need more than they have. Hence when others have run out of carbon, they can buy some of the leftover carbon from those who aren’t using as much.

Story Ideas around Personal Carbon Allowances (PCAs)

‘The Carbon Diaries’ by Saci Lloyd is a great book aimed at young adults set against the backdrop of carbon rationing. Her book is a little dystopian and the carbon ration is centre stage, but you could set any kind of plot – romance, whodunit, family drama – against a backdrop of personal carbon allowances (PCAs). This allows you as a writer to introduce the idea to readers and help to normalise it at the same time as highlighting behaviours that would use up a lot of carbon and those that wouldn’t. For example, think of all the plots centred on money – trying to get it, steal it, obtain by fraud – if you consider personal carbon allowances as an alternative form of currency then you can adopt similar plots but with the PCA at the centre rather than money.

Personal Carbon Allowances would lead to a more equitable society. If you were poor but green, you could profit by selling excess carbon credits to those who are short of carbon credits. On the other hand, what would it be like to be wealthy yet find that your money now has a very limited ability to get you what you want? If the system is more stringent and more like rationing (as during war time), then it’s pointless having money if you don’t have enough carbon credits. The prestige and privileges associated with wealth would quickly disappear. It could be fun to explore the changing fortunes of your characters who are all variously affected.

You could extend the idea to include social factors as well as environmental ones. For example all products and services could be rated green, orange or red depending on whether they were manufactured in good or bad working conditions and with good or bad environmental impact. So a character might hear on the news for example that a mobile phone supplier is now upgraded because they have improved their worker satisfaction rates, or addressed their planned obsolescence issues.

If you remove the ability to purchase carbon credits then the personal carbon allowance becomes a kind of rationing. This is arguably fairer – but the moment rations or allocations are introduced you are likely to get some kind of black market, and again this can be a focus for the plot or a sub-plot in the background.

Your plot doesn’t have to centre on personal carbon allowances, it could just be part of the everyday backdrop, just as money is currently. Perhaps your hero or heroine could have to use a lot of energy as part of the plot and then have their carbon credit card declined and need to justify getting more carbon credits.

Explore our other pages on Sustainable food and more. I also run a monthly Creative Climate Communication newsletter on LinkedIn.

Find out more about The Philosopher and the Assassin.

D.A. Baden is Professor of Sustainability at the University of Southampton and has published numerous book chapters and articles in the academic realm, and several novels. Her first work of fiction was the eco-themed rom-com ‘Habitat Man’ (2021), followed by ‘The Assassin’ in 2022. She edited the anthology, ‘No More Fairy Tales: Stories the Save Our Planet’ and contributed several stories. She wrote the script for a musical, performed in Southampton and London in 2016, and has written three other screenplays.

Denise runs the Green Stories project and writing competitions and is on the Forbes List of Climate Leaders Changing the Film and Television Industry. Denise set up the series of free Green Stories writing competitions in 2018 to inspire writers to integrate green solutions into their writing (www.greenstories.org.uk). Follow on https://www.dabaden.com/ and @DABadenauthor.

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[i] Baden, D. (2015). Shock! Horror! Behind the ethics and evolution of the bad news business The Conversation. doi:http://theconversation.com/shock-horror-behind-the-ethics-and-evolution-of-the-bad-news-business-39211

Baden, D., McIntyre, K. E., & Homberg, F. (2019). The impact of constructive news on affective and behavioral responses. Journalism Studies, 20(13), 1940-1959.

[ii] Schneider-Mayerson, M. (2018). The influence of climate fiction: an empirical survey of readers. Environmental Humanities, 10(2), 473-500.

[iii] Baden, D. (2019). Solution-focused stories are more effective than catastrophic stories in motivating proenvironmental intentions. Ecopsychology, 11(4), 254-263.

[iv] Schneider-Mayerson, M., Gustafson, A., Leiserowitz, A., Goldberg, M. H., Rosenthal, S. A., & Ballew, M. (2023). Environmental literature as persuasion: an experimental test of the effects of reading climate fiction. Environmental Communication, 17(1), 35-50.

[v] Baden, D. (2023). Readers’ Emulation of Green Behaviours in Fiction: A Case Study of Habitat Man. Sustainable Innovation: Accelerating Sustainability in the Creative Economy and Creative Industries.

[vi] https://www.greenstories.org.uk/anthology-for-cop27/solutions/citizen-juries-2/

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Solutions Spotlight

In A Deadly Inheritance, Jane McParkes considers building renovations as a form of sustainability:

‘They loved rescuing unwanted things and either restoring them to their former glory or just breathing fresh life into them to fulfil their potential. They did it with this house and they did it with the station buildings. George was passionate about the environment and our heritage, and about old, neglected industrial buildings being protected or converted into something else if it’s impossible to use them for their original purpose.’

Trenow searched through his pocketbook, and then turned back to her.

‘Mrs Greville, your administrator, explained briefly how the Goods Shed operates. But she said you were the person to ask for more details about it.’

Olivia nodded. ‘George and Mollie visited me every year in New York, and it was there that George learned about the idea of affordable and quality shared workspaces for young businesses and creative entrepreneurs. And being George, he immediately saw that there was a need for such a concept in Cornwall, particularly as it was already attracting creative and artistic types from all over the country.’

‘And I gather there’s more to it than that, with the green and eco side of things?’

‘Yes. George was quite unusual for his generation and was a lifetime advocate of sustainability. He really believed in championing young eco businesses.’

‘And the premises at the old Penbartha railway station? He owned them?’

‘Yes. He bought them years ago, from British Rail, for a ridiculously small amount of money. And when he decided to go for the co-working idea, he was able to combine the renovation of the station buildings with his commitment to sustainability and the community.’ Olivia spoke more freely now she was on familiar territory. ‘His biggest dream was to make the entire site as environmentally friendly as possible and help all the members and tenants bring greener practices into their businesses. It was really important to him that he was helping eco-conscious and creative people to break with the traditional ways of working and giving them more freedom by providing them with an affordable shared workspace. He won a Cornish Heritage Award for his work at the Goods Shed.’

She stopped, realizing she’d been on her hobbyhorse and pulled an awkward face. ‘It’s basically about reducing people’s carbon footprints and working towards a more sustainable future.’