The Didactic Potential of Climate Fictions in the Transmission of Scientific Knowledge: Challenges, Strategies and Limits

Introduction

Climate change is probably the most multifaceted environmental crisis in human history and presents a multitude of complex scalar questions that pose a considerable representational challenge. Highlighting its complexity and hybridity, Julien Knebusch calls it a boundary-dissolving, mutating “multidimensional phenomenon in which are combined the contributions of nature, culture, history and geography, but also the imaginary and the symbolic” (2008, 245). Representation is, however, crucial to a better understanding of the issue: according to Astrid Bracke, “the political failure to act is inherently related to the literary difficulty of imagining apocalypse and environmental crisis” (2017, 26).

Scholars, critics and environmentalists concur that the main obstacle to visualising climate change lies in its massive, often unthinkable scales, a topic which proves to be particularly taxing for novels seeking to represent the issue, commonly referred to as ‘climate fictions’ (Johns-Putra 2019a; Ghosh 2016). Thus, Timothy Clark asserts that the role of art and literature about climate change is one of “scalar translation”, implying a capacity to “transpose into a representation on the human scale events and processes that exceed or escape the usual geographical and temporal limits of how we think, or feel involved” (2019, 38). Of all scales, it has been widely agreed that the temporal one requires the most difficult stretch of the imagination. Rob Nixon thus urges to change the timescale on which we identify violence in order to solve the representational challenge that hinders environmental action (2011, 2-3). According to him, ‘slow violence’ as environmental damage that unfolds over geological timescales invisible to the everyday observer, needs striking symbolic images and narratives to be brought to our human understanding (2011, 2-3).

However, critics have underlined that the geological scales of climate change constitute an unprecedented, if not insurmountable, obstacle for narrative and storytelling in general, not to mention the conventional novel form and realist discourse. In his influential The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable, Amitav Ghosh famously argues that it is almost impossible for novels to represent climate change because they are by nature defined by boundaries of time and space to make their world credible and their story readable (2016). To him, the novel is designed to be scaled to the individual and its close circle and does not often contain extraordinary elements, which makes it a rather unsuitable medium to depict climate change’s scales and disrupting presence. Therefore, he speaks of the traditional novel form’s “scalar resistance” to climate change, a claim that has been widely agreed upon among critics (2016, 73).

Yet, despite this generalised scepticism about the novel’s ability to approach the topic, researchers from a wide range of fields agree that literature can foster a certain understanding of climate change and play a crucial role in envisioning the future. I shall first discuss the potential of literature and ecocriticism in raising environmental awareness before considering two case studies from contemporary British fiction—Ian McEwan’s Solar (2010) and Liz Jensen’s The Rapture (2009)—whose approach to climate change data bears an informative, didactic dimension. Finally, I will evoke some of the limits to take into consideration when viewing climate novels as a potentially ethical, educative form of storytelling in the transmission of scientific knowledge.

1. The Potential of Literature and Ecocriticism

Multiple scholars, from the fields of literary criticism to risk communication ((Vincent Covello defines risk communication as the “process of exchanging information among interested parties about the nature, magnitude, significance or control of a risk” (1992, 359).)), have recognised the essential role of narrative and the humanising effect of the novel in channelling abstract climate change data (Johns-Putra 2019a). Bracke suggests that fiction narratives can play an important role in “rethinking and reframing the stories we tell about climate in crisis” in order to make it more concrete and fit to human understanding (2017, 6). Indeed, Trexler emphasises that fictionalising climate change in narratives does not mean turning it into an imaginary abstraction, but on the contrary, helps making it more real, especially when it comes to its elusive non-human temporalities (2015, 75). While scientific facts remain in the abstract domain of knowledge, the psychological, emotional, physical and political dimensions of climate change evoked in fiction are likely to be more relatable for the readers. Consequently, Nikoleris et al. state that, in novels, “through identification with the protagonists in literary fiction, climate change moves from being distant and abstract to close and personal” (2017, 317).

Realist fiction in particular, with its wealth of details, its dramatisation potential and emotional focalisation on personal experience, boasts efficient tools to inspire the readers empathy and create a space to reflect on the issue from a different perspective. Martha Nussbaum most notably defends the positive social consequences of literature in the transmission of ethical values through emotions, suggesting that ethics needs narratives because it requires exemplification inscribed in lived experiences (1992, 2001). Overall, she argues that stories present an optimal way to address ethical questions since they encourage the individual imagination to transcend itself toward others, human and non-human beings (1992, 2001). Finally, recognising the didactic, educational potential of literature, Olga Pilkington asserts that one of the main advantages of novels over more objective forms of scientific communication is that “stories are an essential motivator in learning, drawing audiences in and engaging people’s intellect, which, in turn, helps them comprehend and remember information” (2019, 149). Therefore, it can be inferred that, despite its formal limits, the novel may provide a space for new creative ways of making potential futures visible to the imagination.

This hope in the capacity of the novel to have a real-life impact on ethical questions has led to the development of empirical ecocriticism, a rising trend within the broad field of ecocriticism. Pramod Nayar defines ecocriticism as “a critical mode that looks at the representation of nature and landscape in cultural texts, paying particular attention to attitudes towards ‘nature’ and the rhetoric employed when speaking about it” (2010, 242). Empirical ecocriticism departs from its original counterpart due to its reader-focused orientation: drawing on reader-response theory ((Reader-response is a literary theory that pays particular attention to how readers experience texts and create meaning from them.)), it seeks to understand the social impact of climate fictions in the current world. Moving beyond the mere use of literary theory and critical interpretation typical of the field, it borrows the tools from other disciplines such as sociology or the cognitive sciences. As John Thieme observes, the “recent years have seen the expanding field of empirical environmentalism begin to address readers’ responses to the depiction of anthropogenic climate change in fiction” (2024, 175). For instance, Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, a leading figure in empirical ecocriticism, carried out some studies to investigate the effects of climate fictions on their readership. His findings revealed that most particularly visual metaphors, symbols and detailed descriptions were often mentioned by readers as helping their imagination of potential futures (2018, 482).

While one might see in empirical ecocriticism a utilitarian approach to literature, it cannot be denied that the ethical, didactic, or even political dimension of many recent climate fictions is a major part of their identity one should take into account when analysing them. Yet, some critics have expressed their reservations and warnings about the limitations of analysing the role of climate fictions in the transmission of scientific information and raising of environmental awareness. Carin Graminius and Phil Dodds stress that “storytelling should be appreciated as a complex art form rather than an instrumental and diffusionist tool that can be manipulated and tested in controlled experiments” (2023, 61). Addressing these concerns about the instrumentalisation of literature, Schneider-Mayerson maintains that empirical ecocriticism’s “attention to didactic value and influence is not a critical imposition, as it constituted an explicit concern for many authors of climate change fiction, for whom artistic and political intervention was a stated goal” (2017, 314). Like their predecessors in environmental literature, such as Rachel Carson and Ralph Waldo Emerson, or more generally speaking, authors employing politically loaded genres such as dystopia and utopia, the intention of raising awareness, informing the public and spurring social change is a significant feature of their work and, consequently, has bearing on related literary criticism. Although the goals and practices of the emerging field of empirical ecocriticism may still be debated, it cannot be denied that some climate fictions clearly adopt a didactic approach to their topic and participate in the democratisation of scientific information.

2. Climate Fictions, Didacticism and the Transmission of Scientific Knowledge

Derek Woods, among others, stresses that climate fictions are intrinsically didactic as they are concerned with the preservation of climate futures (2023, 1143-1167). The majority of these fictions are cautionary tales, which allow readers to see themselves through the eyes of others, and often rely on the traditions of dystopia or satire, both being didactic genres, to provide a critique of today’s western societies and common attitudes to climate change. Noel Gough states that such novels, and most particularly science fiction, can be seen “as a form of public pedagogy accessible to all generations, [that] provides alternative visualisations of the problems arising from humanity’s destructive transformations of Earth’s climate and possible ways of ameliorating them” (2024, 538). In their pedagogical endeavour, most authors count on scientific plausibility to ensure a more positive reception of a novel that seeks to communicate ideas on climate change. This engagement with scientific data, when made with an attention to accuracy, can give climate fictions an informative dimension despite their fictional nature.

Although one can find a plethora of potentially didactic strategies in climate fictions, as they take inspiration from satire, allegory, science fiction or the dystopian tradition to denounce current trends, the favoured way of conveying scientific knowledge generally appears to be realism, both literary and scientific. The realist tradition lends itself particularly well to an informative approach to climate change and fosters identification with the characters, which may grant it an ethical, didactic function. For Pilkington, “scientific realism and verisimilitude—a life-like quality and implied possibility of being true—is the most crucial aspect in narrative science communication because it allows readers to assess the truthfulness of its messages” (2019, 149). Some novels, like non-fiction works of popular science, provide a wealth of factual information understandable to non-specialist readers framed by plot lines clear enough to suggest what may be the ways of avoiding worse-case-scenarios (Murphy, 2012, 89). In order to illustrate these ideas, I consider two case studies from contemporary British literature, The Rapture (2009) by Liz Jensen and Solar (2010) by Ian McEwan.

2.1 Sharing Scientific Information in The Rapture

The Rapture is an apocalyptic thriller set in a near future where natural disasters have become frequent as a result of climate change and a team of scientists attempts to warn the public about a looming catastrophe set to destroy London. It is particularly efficient at communicating scientific data about environmental risks in the novel form, and most often does so through the protagonist, Gabrielle Fox, a psychologist, learning from scientific papers or the voices of scientist characters. The novel is based on real-life risk assessments, one of which was issued at the 2012 San Diego meeting, warning against the dangers of hydraulic fracking, a method of natural gas extraction that consists in mining methane from the ocean floor. This narrative choice attracts the attention to the fact that methane is the most potent greenhouse gas and drilling for it is a risky practice, which clearly grants an informative function to the novel. According to Eric Otto, such concern for plausibility in climate fictions lends them credibility and may provide a more engaging way of communicating scientific facts and risks than non-fiction (2012, 109-119).

In order to approach the issue, The Rapture employs a journalistic, realist style incorporating existing facts and embedding non-literary discourses into the fictional text. As the protagonist investigates the cause of an upcoming tsunami caused by methane drilling, the first-person narration is progressively overtaken by a documentary, technical style which mimics the scientific text that she is reading:

What can you mine underwater that’s frozen cold? I [...] switch my laptop open. Within a few minutes I have encountered the word clathrate [...]. A clathrate, also known as gas hydrate, is a thin coating of ice that has developed around a gas molecule, forming a shell. When I learn what is trapped inside these ice hexagons, I put my hand to my neck and note its heat. Methane […] many times more powerful than carbon, I learn that there are millions of square kilometres of it locked frozen on to the sea floor, all around the world, in the form of a crust […] water pressure and cold temperature are what keep it down there. Without those, it would shoot to the surface in huge sheets […] and burst into flames. It is so volatile that until recently, there was no serious discussion about harvesting it for energy purposes. (161)What can you mine underwater that’s frozen cold? I [...] switch my laptop open. Within a few minutes I have encountered the word clathrate [...]. A clathrate, also known as gas hydrate, is a thin coating of ice that has developed around a gas molecule, forming a shell. When I learn what is trapped inside these ice hexagons, I put my hand to my neck and note its heat. Methane […] many times more powerful than carbon, I learn that there are millions of square kilometres of it locked frozen on to the sea floor, all around the world, in the form of a crust […] water pressure and cold temperature are what keep it down there. Without those, it would shoot to the surface in huge sheets […] and burst into flames. It is so volatile that until recently, there was no serious discussion about harvesting it for energy purposes. (161)

The lay reader is thus invited to learn facts alongside the protagonist as the scientific information is filtered through her mind. Since her level of knowledge on the topic is probably representative of that of the average British layperson, her learning process is therefore mirrored by that of the reader who discovers with her factual information grounded in existing data. Two types of discourses merge as the protagonist’s thoughts are blended with scientific, technical, non-fictional text extracted from our contemporary reality. The informative aspect of the novel becomes even more salient as the protagonist and her team pinpoint the place of the future mining accident in a real-life location where risk assessments have previously been carried out on these matters, the Storegga Slide. This time, it is through a conversation with a climatologist that we find the facts embedded in the narration:

Have you heard of the Storegga Slide? [...] It’s a massive package of sand and mud off the continental shelf that stretches for hundred kilometers, from Norway to Greenland. It’s the result of the biggest submarine upheaval we know of, eight thousand years ago. It generated a huge tsunami that washed over most of the British Isles. This rig is sited on the edge of the Storegga [...] A huge underwater collapse anywhere in the Storegga region will cause a tsunami that will devastate the entire area. (219)

Although the scientist’s initial question targets the protagonist, it could also appear as being directly addressed to the reader. Furthermore, the climatologist’s explanation turns into a risk assessment detailing the forming process of the tsunami and subsequent accelerated global warming in a style that is both accessible, technical and informative:

The sediment will destabilise and trigger a submarine avalanche. Possibly leading to the release of the entire methane reserve buried under the explored hydrate field. Thereby removing vast amounts of sediments above and adjacent to the methane. Creating further cascades across the whole area […] followed by a huge tsunami. Which is likely to destabilise more sediment packages, leading to more massive landslides [...]. Which in turn is highly likely to trigger a further cycle of landslides and more tsunamis [...]. With more of the hydrate field being dislodged and releasing more methane. Methane is ten times more powerful than CO2. If the whole thing spreads and escalates, we get runaway global warming on a scale that’s beyond anyone’s worst nightmare [...]. It used to be called the clathrate gun hypothesis. (195)

Through the voices of scientist characters, The Rapture provides factual information based on contemporary data, papers and risk assessments verifiable for the reader outside of the fictional text, blurring the conventional boundary between literary and non-literary discourse with its shift in narrative style. In doing so, the novel participates in raising awareness on the less democratised dangers of a practice regarded with optimism as a green alternative to fossil fuels and invites the reader to investigate the issue. The Rapture’s engagement with literary realism and scientific plausibility allows it to channel under-publicised knowledge on greenhouse gases and ocean floor destabilisation. As the protagonist carries out her own research and receives information from scientist characters, the novel takes the readers along in her learning process. Thus, in The Rapture, environmental issues are not merely exploited for narrative effect: the way it conveys actual climate change modelling and risk scenarios has an informative, educational function, mirrored by the author’s own statement, in the final paratex of the novel, inviting the readers to learn more about climate change and get involved in activism (293).

2.2 Exposing Scientific Misinformation in Solar

Solar by Ian McEwan tells in a satirical, comical tone the life of Michael Beard, a famous physicist who devotes his research to finding a solution to climate change based on solar energy. The novel takes place in the present, allowing the author to deal with current issues in ways that are inspired by contemporary science and politics. Solar could be seen as a didactic novel in many regards: it makes extensive use of satire and allegory to criticise consumer societies, climate politics, the myth of progress, and the hope that a technological fix will save us from climate change. Like much of McEwan’s previous work, the novel is highly concerned with the world of science and puts it in dialogue with literature. For Thieme, Solar “demonstrates a high level of scientific literacy, so much so that it can be seen as […] a fiction that bridges the divide between science and the humanities” (2024, 89). He goes on saying that “consequently, Solar promises to rise to the challenge of engaging with climate change by communicating hard facts about its physical causes through the reader-friendly medium of the comic realist novel” (2024, 89). Navigating allegorical and realistic representation, the novel explores the communication and perception of scientific data in the public and the media.

Directly inspired from our present context, Solar shows the media flourishing with groundless debates about whether evidence of global warming is actually flawed, confusing audiences and spurring doubt. More specifically, the media appear to diffuse a false sense of scientific controversy over whether the earth is warming or cooling, a real debate which raged in the 1970s and testifies to the malleability of public opinion when science is misrepresented. As a result, Toby, a layman, who can be seen as a proxy for some less informed part of the public, tells Beard that “they’re saying the scientists have gotten it wrong but don’t dare to admit it. Too many careers and reputations on the line” (214). These assumptions play on the existing fact that scientific careers may be vulnerable to new research developments, stigmatising scientists as a self-interested, dishonest group. Furthermore, according to Toby, “they’re also saying that too many people are going to get rich on the Obama handouts and tax breaks to want to tell the truth. Then there are all these scientists, […] who’ve signed up to the Senate Minority Report on Climate Change” ((An actual document released by the US Senate gathering the statements of scientists who dissent about the idea of anthropogenic climate change.)) (215). Through the voice of Toby, Beard’s concerned business partner, the novel illustrates the influence the media can have on public opinion. One can see that a false sense of controversy is created by disproportionately emphasising the few marginal scientific voices with a diverging point of view who signed the contrarian agreement, a false representation, overlooking the massive consensus, which allows climate change sceptics to dismiss the undeniable data by blaming it on the human flaws of scientists such as pride and greed. Answering Toby, Beard stresses that “some weak-brained journalists write against it because they think it’s a sign of independent thinking” (215). Beard’s words accurately pinpoint Dessler and Parson’s observation that

journalists frequently do not understand scientific issues any better than do policy actors. Even when they do, journalists often follow a professional norm of providing balance between opposing views [...]. Moreover, controversy sells newspapers. Since even settled issues may be debated by a minority, the press generally over-report scientific dissent and under-report consensus. Worse still, coverage often favors the dramatic, so the press may give particular prominence not just to minority views, but to extreme or eccentric views. (2006, 59)

Solar brings this very question to light in a clear and direct manner. Toby impersonates gullible public opinion, easily influenced by popular representations of climate science as an uncertain, controversial field even among its specialists, inviting people to take a side depending on their political affiliation. Through Beard’s scientifically informed voice, the novel proceeds to explain in simple terms the mechanisms behind this distorted representation of the data. He starts by correcting the misconception about the rise in atmospheric temperature:

It’s zero point eight now, it’s not negligible in climate terms, and most of it has happened in the last thirty years. And ten years is not enough to establish a trend. You need at least twenty-five. Some years are hotter, some are cooler than the year before, and if you drew a graph of average yearly temperatures it would be a zigzag, but a rising zigzag. When you take an exceptionally hot year as your starting point, you can easily show a decline, at least for a few years. That’s an old trick, called framing, or cherry-picking. (215)

Exposing the cherry-picking method ((Cherry picking is defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary as “to select the best or most desirable”, which, in climate change terms, means taking isolated data, such as a particularly cold winter, to support the argument that the overall warming trend is false.)), Solar sheds light on how climate science can be distorted to fit certain political agendas and manipulate public opinion, spreading the misconception that the scientific community is divided about the data. The technique described by Beard is commonly resorted to by politicians to instil doubt and take advantage of the public lack of scientific understanding on the issue. Indeed, Stoknes claims that “false arguments are built on cherry-picked facts and dressed up in forceful expressions to bolster someone’s personal viewpoint against overwhelming evidence” (2015, 46). Most importantly, Beard’s explanation emphasises the crucial and vastly misunderstood difference between weather and climate, one climate sceptics often play on. Dessler and Parson explain that “while climate consists of average meteorological conditions, weather consists of meteorological conditions at a particular time” (2006, 9). Thus, the novel actively dispels scientific misinformation, explaining in simple terms the mechanisms behind it.

These two examples taken from contemporary British literature illustrate the potentially informative, didactic aspect of climate fictions in their relation to scientific knowledge. Both novels place the voices of scientists in the foreground, in an educational dialogue with a layman character who can be seen as a proxy for the reader. However, beyond the conspicuous representational challenges raised by critics evoked in the first section, there are some limitations to be aware of when considering the potentially beneficial role of such western climate fictions in spreading knowledge about environmental risks.

3. Some Limits

3.1 Between Scientific Plausibility and Cultural Narratives

Firstly, it is important to acknowledge that the majority of climate fictions are significantly influenced by pre-existing blueprints and cultural narratives that might prevent our imagination of alternative worldviews, compromise our understanding of the crisis on a global level and impinge on scientific accuracy. Despite the widespread concern for scientific credibility, critics have noted the recurrence of culturally specific narrative patterns, symbols and images in climate fictions. Milner et al. summarise that representations of climate change in western fictions are generally organised around the tropes of ice, fire and flood (2015), that is to say, polar, drought and flood narratives, all borrowing from the apocalyptic subtext, whose mythical roots can threaten scientific accuracy. Whether employed in environmentalist discourse or fiction, apocalyptic undertones can be received with scepticism as alarmist and sensational, either viewed as deforming scientific projections for the sake of dramatisation or perceived as the source of overwhelming, unhelpful feelings of fear and powerlessness (Stoknes 2015). More generally speaking, Ursula Heise stresses that even popular metaphors and imagery, such as the flood or polar tropes, although they may be at times more striking to the general public than abstract data, can also lead to omission or misinterpretation, and offer but a one-sided vision of the picture (2008, 138).

When it comes to British climate fictions, for instance, the recurring use of tropes such as the flood myth, the pervading presence of apocalyptic and related Judeo-Christian undertones, or the Arctic imagery reminiscent of the polar expedition narratives that flourished in 19th century Britain, provide as many indicators of the enduring cultural influences fuelling literary representations of climate futures (Milner 2015; Johns-Putra 2019a). For instance, despite its scientifically informative and plausible aspects evoked earlier, The Rapture offers representations of climate change that are heavily coded by Judeo-Christian imagery. To quote but one example, we are told in the first pages that, after months of heatwave, "when the skies finally broke, it felt biblical, megalomaniacal, as though orchestrated from on high by an irate Jehovah” (2). Moreover, the novel is a flood narrative, a myth that seems to resurface in literature throughout history and serves as an already available cultural metaphor in moments of crisis, endowed with additional layers of meaning in the context of climate change. In British literature, it is commonly associated with the destruction of London ((For instance: Mary Shelley’s The Last Man (1826), Richard Jefferies’s After London (1895), or, in terms of climate fiction, J.G. Ballard’s The Drowned World (1962).)), which, according to Pat Wheeler, acts as “a symbol of human culture and civilization” (2013, 69). Interestingly, The Rapture’s final catastrophe depicts in a sensational tone the apocalyptic destruction of London by floods. Thus, for some, such as Clark, The Rapture’s apocalyptic inspirations compromise its goal as an activist fiction (2015, 182).

Ultimately, Trexler concludes that “evidence would suggest that the articulation of climate change is highly constrained by existing cultural narrative” (2015, 24). These underlying cultural subtexts play a shaping role at the structural and thematic levels of the novels and might encroach on the goals of offering plausible representations of climate change, attracting the attention to scientific facts or raising environmental awareness. Furthermore, and as a result of the points just raised, some critics have acknowledged that these representations still testify to a lingering anthropocentric, western bias.

3.2 “Truncated Narratives”: Western-centric Biases

Greta Gaard stresses that, despite the impulse towards innovation and challenging anthropocentric conventions found in western climate fictions, they “have not inclusively portrayed the additional facts of climate change—namely, the underpinnings of colonialism, neoliberalism, speciesism, and gendered fundamentalisms ((Since ‘fundamentalism’ is defined by the Cambridge Online Dictionnary as “the belief that the traditional principles of a religion or set of beliefs should be maintained”, ‘gender fundamentalism’ evokes a worldview that emphasises traditional gender attributes and roles.))—and thus the activist and systemic solutions they present are partial and ineffective” (2014, 272). This leads her to call such fictions ‘truncated narratives’ (2014), insofar as they embody a certain paradox between the ethical need to raise awareness about the crisis and the seemingly biased, one sided-vision of it they ultimately offer ((Gaard explains that “in her essay, [...] Marti Kheel develops her theory of the truncated narrative, a theory that foregrounds the rhetorical strategy of omission” (2014, 279).)). 

Considering the bulk of mainstream climate fictions, one may notice that novels tend to portray a rather western-centric image of the crisis where the consequences of climate change in the Global South ((As defined by the Cambridge Online Dictionary, the term refers to “the group of countries that are in Africa, Latin America, and the developing parts of Asia”.)), for instance, are generally ignored. Julia Gibson observes that “instead, apocalyptic narratives tend to sensationalize climate change […]. These stories overwhelmingly represent, center, and cater to white, male, and/or environmentally privileged perspectives” (2020, 209).

Such criticism could, to some extent, also apply to the novels evoked in this analysis. As explained earlier, on may find The Rapture’s engagement with the apocalyptic narrative questionable, notably the sensational destruction of London by flood. Likewise, Solar has been criticised for evading the topic of climate change and disproportionally focusing on its misogynistic, chauvinistic British protagonist, while silencing alternative viewpoints (Bracke, 2019, 54; Garrard, 2013, 135). Thus, although Beard serves as an allegory of modern societies and over-consumption, critics are divided on whether the satire is an appropriate way of approaching the issue and encouraging public awareness.

Furthermore, one could see in a trend, such as climate fiction, that systematically reduces the crisis to a far future apocalypse taking place in the northernmost regions of the planet or to the destruction of major western cities a form of cultural bias. Indeed, the common apocalyptic representation of climate change as a future, global catastrophe can also betray a certain limited western perspective on the crisis. Gibson denounces that “in its traditional apocalyptic guise, [...] global climate change is conceptualized as the great equalizer” where the causes of the crisis and unequal vulnerabilities are glossed over as responsibility is blamed on “the species” alone (2020, 211). This restricted perspective overlooks the tragic consequences of climate change unfolding around the globe at this very moment, silencing crucial matters of environmental justice and unequal vulnerabilities both in the present and the future.

Admittedly, although the majority of western climate fictions were at first future apocalypses, the last decade has witnessed a shift to more immediate representations of the crisis. Thieme sees the resilience of literary realism in climate fictions as an encouraging sign that the immediacy of the crisis is becoming more acknowledged, commenting that “increasingly, realist climate fiction engages with the ethical challenge of representing [climate change] by refusing to run the risk of deferring engagement with the crisis through the use of dystopian and other futuristic narratives” (2024, 16). Despite these promising indicators that western climate fictions are evolving towards less short-sighted representations of the crisis, cultural templates and biases must be put under scrutiny when analysing the potentially ethical, didactic role of fictions that portray the present and future consequences of climate change.

Conclusion

Ultimately, in spite of the considerable representational challenges that face them, it appears that climate fictions have the potential of vulgarising scientific knowledge through various didactic means, such as realist discourse, which can take on an informative, educational function. Moreover, scholars across disciplines beyond the literary field agree that the novel form is well equipped to raise awareness on ethical questions and reach people in a different way than traditional scientific communication ((Needless to say, that is not necessarily the case of all novels labelled as climate fiction since some might merely exploit the crisis to create a dramatic plot without showing a self-reflective, critical approach to it.)). The birth of empirical ecocriticism, although its endeavours remain debated, testifies to a growing interest in the real-life impact of such fictions on their readership in relation to the crisis. While present day fictions, such as the two case studies considered in this analysis, can address contemporary facts, speculative fictions can help us come to grasp with environmental changes, providing the opportunity to better visualise and, therefore, anticipate or prevent, climate futures. Seeing the didactic value of such a process, Gough deplores that “regrettably, the academic curricula of most Anglophone education systems [...] in contemporary industrial nations tend not to offer ‘exercises in imagination’ for people of any age, despite the crucial roles that imagination [...] has played in the development of many disciplines” (2024, 539). All in all, there are grounds to remain hopeful that literature has the resources to be a vector for positive change and climate fictions may have a part to play in making sure the topic is talked about in popular culture and academia alike. 

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Pour citer cette ressource :

Marion Moussier, The Didactic Potential of Climate Fictions in the Transmission of Scientific Knowledge: Challenges, Strategies and Limits, La Clé des Langues [en ligne], Lyon, ENS de LYON/DGESCO (ISSN 2107-7029), février 2026. Consulté le 14/02/2026. URL: https://cle.ens-lyon.fr/anglais/litterature/litterature-britannique/the-didactic-potential-of-climate-fictions-in-the-transmission-of-scientific-knowledge-challenges-strategies-and-limits