Monday, August 31, 2015

President Obama addresses Alaska conference on climate change (VIDEO)



http://www.shallownation.com/2015/08/31/video-president-obama-speech-in-anchorage-alaska-at-glacier-conference-renaming-of-mt-mckinley-to-denali-august-31-2015/

TRANSCRIPT coming soon:

A few things he said:

''The U.S. is an arctic nation now."

''The climate denialists are drowning on their own little island.''

Cli-Fi Panel at Brisbane Writers Festival on Sept. 5 with panelists James Bradley and Deb Fitzpatrick

http://bwf.org.au/events/cli-fi-an-emerging-genre-to-explore-climate-change/

Cli-Fi: An Emerging Genre To Explore Climate Change


http://bwf.org.au/events/cli-fi-an-emerging-genre-to-explore-climate-change/

James Bradley (author of the cli fi novel CLADE) and Deb Fitzpatrick will discuss why ''cli-fi'' has emerged as ''a terribly useful term....'' ) in the exact words of Mr Bradley, one of the finest litetary critics worldwide ...and ......why the 'cli-fi' genre both limits and enables writers, literary critics and readers.... as Australian writer Mirielle Duchau has said at other cli-fi panels Down Under

'“Another World Is Possible” - a ''cli-fi'' related college class in Singapore in 2016

Dr. Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, PhD,
Assistant Professor of Social Sciences (Environmental Studies) at
Yale-NUS College in Singapore (National University of Singapore) plans to teach a class next semester in 2016 (tentative title of class: “Another World Is Possible”) that will include a lot of ''cli-fi''.
 

 
 

Cli-Fi Alert: ''DUNE'' at 50: ''Why the Groundbreaking Eco-Conscious Novel Is More Relevant Than Ever''

''DUNE'' at 50:  ''Why the Groundbreaking Eco-Conscious Novel Is More Relevant Than Ever''

By Steve Duffy at FLAVORWITE on August 31, 2015

http://flavorwire.com/535249/dune-at-50-why-the-groundbreaking-eco-conscious-novel-is-more-relevant-than-ever

TAKE HOME QUOTE:
''Nowadays, novels that concern life in extreme or altered climates are commonplace, and even have their own subgenre: “cli-fi.” IN FACT, Cli-Fi [see link at cli-fi.net ] has even been broached by literary darlings like Ian McEwan (Solar) and Margaret Atwood (the MaddAddam trilogy). And it’s not hard to understand the reasons for its growth as a sub-genre, spiking as it has with real life concerns about Earth’s ecological stability. This reality has shifted the timescale of traditional sci-fi works from the dystopian future (such as that in Dune) to the dystopian present. The flooding and/or desertification of major cities, leading to starvation, mass movement of people, and general catastrophe no longer seems a matter of fictitious distance....."

Sunday, August 30, 2015

PM_Urquhart says it well: ''I started out thinking that ''Cli-Fi'' was a pointless, faddish, marketing neologism, as some of its critics have maintained, but in fact, there's actually a lot of meaningfully similar novels that fall into it. "

PM_Urquhart says it well:
''I started out thinking that ''Cli-Fi'' was a pointless, faddish, marketing neologism, [as some of its critics have maintained], but in fact, there's actually a lot of meaningfully similar novels that fall into it. "



CALL AND RESPONSE: ''People are always going to sub-categorize. Is it hard sci-fi, soft sci-fi, space opera? Cli-fi is just another term in that progression, albeit with a cutesy name.'' ..................... ''I have seen some arguments that cli-fi is different than sci-fi. I don't have any problem with the term as long as it doesn't get overused or become too trendy - a la grimdark fantasy.''.................. ''In all honesty, it probably came to being because Margaret Atwood didn't want the MaddAddam trilogy to be called sci-fi.''

CALL AND RESPONSE 2: ''Cli-fi is entirely the creation of several people: Scott Thill the former WIRED reporter who used the term in two movie reviews in WIRED in 2009 and 2010; an IT guy in Seattle named Ivan Schneider who set up a Twitter handle @clifi in 2009 and then never used it at all, before donating it to a climate activist in 2015; David Carter who blogs under the pen name of PacoEnterprises.Blogspot.com and coined the cli fi term in 2009 on his blog as a mocking term to poke fun ot the "climate fiction" of such fictional documentaries of Al Gore and essays by James Hansen, which Paco dubbed as being cli fi and he meant it in a righwing climate-denialist mocking way; and a PR guy and climate activist who graduated with a degree in literature from Tufts in 1971. That Tufts guy isn't a science fiction fan. He's a deep green, almost doomsdayian climate activist."

Emma Podietz produces powerful cover art for Edward L. Rubin's new novel THE HEATSTROKE LINE

http://www.sdjewishworld.com/2015/08/29/63269/

Professor Joni Adamson at Arizona State University is teaching a cli fi class this fall 2015 semester

Professor Joni Adamson at Arizona State University is teaching a cli fi class this fall 2015 semester

Joni Adamson at Arizona State University tells this blog that ASU is running some Fall 2015 courses (including her class, see links belo) through the ASU climate initiative. Here is the link: https://climateimagination.asu.edu/courses/

Dr Adamson also notes that Colorado 'cli-fi' novelist Paolo Bacligalupi will be with ASU on September 17 for a lecture on his new novel titled "The Water Knife", and that he will also attend workshop with Professor Adamson and her students, see link below: https://climateimagination.asu.edu/events/

[In addition, Adamson notes that Professor Stephanie LeManager at the University of Oregon will visit ASU on February 24-26 next year -- just a few months from now -- where she will give a lecture (about the ''oil culture") in addition to leading a workshop on ''cli fi'' with the ASU science and imagination professors and students. ]

Saturday, August 29, 2015

"What is a good apocalyptic cli-fi movie?" a Redditor named ''taiwanisacountry'' asks at Reddit today

He asks: "I'm writing a paper on sustainability issues in cli-fi movies for class, and can't seem to find any cli-fi movies besides insanely popular ones such as Interstellar, Mad Max, Wall-E, The Day After Tomorrow. Any suggestions? via https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/3iw7zl/what_is_a_good_apocalyptic_clifi_movie/.compact

ANSWERS INCLUDE:

merry722 ''The Road''...................

fathomghost ''Waterworld could be interesting.''...............

Wrathofthefallen aks ''What's cli-fi?''...............

fallen_seraph says "Recent one, though I haven't watched it yet is 'The Young Ones'. It is on Netflix.".....................

ZorroMeansFoxr/Movies Veteran says "Here's a fantastic film with a mystical tone: Peter Weir's The Last Wave: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/last_wave/ ".......................

merry722 - ''Book of Eli'', alright, not good.................

Also suggests ''TAKLUB'' from the Philippines director Brillante Mendoza and ''CLEO AND THEO"

Andrew Hebard at Miami University of Ohio is teaching a ''cli-fi'' class this 2015 fall semester

This fall semester Dr Hebard is teaching an Honors seminar for first-year students on "Literature and the Environment." 

 The class ends with Margaret Atwood's ''Oryx and Crake'', Indra Sinha's ''Animal's People'' (which is more of an eco-disaster novel), and Ian McEwan's ''Solar'' (with some interesting papers on "Solar" being presented at this past summer's ASLE conference). The class will also be reading parts of Rob Nixon's book ''Slow Violence,'' which has also been assigned in a graduate theory seminar that Dr Hebard is also teaching.


NOTE FOR 2016: ''Next year I will probably teach an introductory course on popular literature that will have a major section (probably 1/3 of the course) on 'Cli-fi', Professor Hebard tells this blog.

INFO FROM: Andrew Hebard Associate Professor Director of the Literature Program Department of English Miami University of Ohio

Friday, August 28, 2015

University of Wisconsin Professor Greta Gaard teaching Cli-Fi related class this fall semester: ''Literature and Environmental Justice'' (English 228)

University of Wisconsin Professor Greta Gaard teaching Cli-Fi related class this fall semester: ''Literature and Environmental Justice'' (English 228)

Here is Dr Gaard's Fall 2015 syllabus for a course on ''Literature and Environmental Justice'' (English 228) which has just been updated so that it moves from Euro-Western environmentalisms, to environmental justice, and then to climate justice. In this shift, Dr Gaard has chosen Linda Hogan's early novel, Mean Spirit, which addresses oil colonialism in Oklahoma in the 1920s. She tells me in a recent email: "It is (not surprisingly) another amazing work blending the agony of colonialism, the anguish of the indigenous people / animals/ land / plants, and the strength, healing and hope provided by traditional indigenous culture and community."




She is also bridging that book with an excerpt from Ken Saro-Wiwa's writings, a film and article about the Alberta tar sands, and then a day spent on mining and environmental destruction in Saamiland.  Her target audience is composed of students with Nordic heritage, and she is bringing in their indigenous roots to see if this connection has any effect in fracking (!) the pervasive cultural racism in Wisconsin, she tells me.

To see the full syllabus for this very comprehensive class, do contact Professor Gaard.



As a side note, Dr Gaard added at the end of her email the other day: ''Thank you, Dan and your cli-fi team worldwide,  for your leadership in catalyzing the international community interested in cli-fi..."









REFERENCE:
 
Dr. Greta Gaard
Professor of English
Coordinator, Sustainability Faculty Fellows

University of Wisconsin, River Falls



James Bradley in Australia still says in his opinion "cli-fi is not a terribly useful term" (but the context in which he said this is still unknown). Anybody know the context? RSVP

 UPDATE: James Bradley in Australia still says in his opinion "cli-fi is not a terribly useful term" (but the context in which he said this is still unknown). Anybody know the context? RSVP
 
 
Stephanie @yiduiqie in Australia TWEETS and says she ''also'' doesn't like the 'cli-fi' term...... quoting James Bradley as saying at recent Melbourne Writers Festival on Cli-fi panel: "I don't think the term is a terribly useful one." Back in January in an SMH oped, James called it "that unlovely shorthand" for climate fiction. He apologized to me later by email, and we are friends now, but now he seems he is at it again at the Melburne Writers Festival, according to Stephanie. James? You dissed cli-fi again? At #MWF15? Why are you do terribly opposed to the cli fi term? It might not be useful to YOU, sure, but it is mighty useful to many, many other people. Why don't you acknowledge *THAT* as well?
 
Maybe next time you go public with ''cli-fi'' pronouncements!
 


On Friday Stephanie who apparently cannot abide the cli fi term from her perch in Australia said she was ''chuffed'' to attend the 2nd Asia Pacific Writer’s Forum held at the Wheeler Centre as part of the Melbourne Writer’s Festival.


She live-tweeted the event, and Peril Magazine recorded it for future analysis ''but I am cheekily getting in first with my feels," she wrote.

@yiduiqie TWEETED:

''Yay... @cityoftongues [aka James Bradley, author of 'CLADE'] also doesn't like the term "cli-fi" ...yay"

YAY? Stephanie says? YYAYAY?

Well, James did not say he doesn't like the term. He said "I don't think the term is terribly useful (to his understanding of the term and the world he lives in). Of course, he has every right to his opinion, and I consider James a friend. [We have emailed and tweeted back and forth a few times since January. With more to come. I admire and respect him. Great writer. ]

CASE CLOSED

UPDATE 2

Why would James Bradley say ''Cli-Fi is not a terribly useful term'' (to him) if he was on Cli Fi Panel #MWF15? Who invited HIM? [smile] Kidding! JB has every right to his anti CF views, sure.

Thursday, August 27, 2015

Queens University in Canada offering 3 'Cli-Fi' themed college classes this year

The department of English at Queen's University is offering an undergraduate course on Cli-Fi this year: ENGL 486 taught by Professor Molly Wallace.

Closely related to and possibly including examples of cli fi will also be her graduate seminar, ENGL 881 - ''Permacultural Studies, or How to Make Critique Sustainable.'' Likewise, a course taught be David Carruthers, ENGL 278 - ''Literature and Place: the Environmental Turn,'' will feature a section on cli-fi.

Links here: Undergraduate courses: http://www.queensu.ca/english/documents/ugradCourses.pdf Graduate courses: http://www.queensu.ca/english/documents/gradCourses2015-16.pdf


ENGL 486-002/3.0 Group III: Special TopicsTopic: ''Cli-Fi'': Movies and Novels re climate fiction
Professor Molly Wallace is teaching this class Fall Term 2015 at QUEENS UNIVERSITY in CANADA

 

Her Research Interests:

20th Century and 21st Century U.S. literature (particularly fiction), risk society, literature and environment, science studies, theories of the animal and animality, cultural studies, and theories of globalization and the transnational.

Recent Publications:

  • “Discomfort Food: Analogy, Biotechnology, and Risk in Ruth Ozeki’s All Over Creation,” Arizona Quarterly (forthcoming).
  • “Will the Apocalypse Have Been Now? Literary Criticism in an Age of Global Risk,” Criticism, Crisis, and Contemporary Narrative: Textual Horizons in an Age of Global Risk, ed. Paul Crosthwaite (New York: Routledge, forthcoming).
  • “War Is for the Birds: Birding Babylon and the ‘Military-Industrial-Environmental Complex,’ ” Cultural Critique 76 (Fall 2010).
  • “Reading Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis after Seattle.” Contemporary Literature 50.1 (2009).

Remarks

Her current project puts contemporary U.S. fiction in conversation with UN reports, government documents, popular nonfiction, and film in order to trace the ways in which US culture has responded to the globalization of environmental risk (from atomic fall-out to the greenhouse effect).

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

''Cli-Fi'' at the Movies: Can ''Hollywood'' Save the Planet? -- MAYBE! (Knock on Wood!)

TRUE,''cli-fi'' movies are just entertainment and in a world that is so very distracted by 500 TV channels and 10,000 internet playforms/platforms, so Hollywood has a lot of work to do to helo save the planet with well-written and well-produced cli-fi movies. Only we can save the planet, but Hollywood can help too! Cli-fi is here to make a difference!

Here are what some ''clexperts'' are saying about cli fi movies and why they matter. Your take?

NOTE: [*clexperts* is a new coinage meaning "climate experts."]
 
 





Cli-fi movies are generated for the purpose of entertainment rather than public empowerment. They  may increase people's sense of concern by giving climate change the shape of a powerful movie, the way 'ON THE BEACH' was a powerful anti-nuclear war movie in 1959. While I'm skeptical that cli-fi movies can raise overall awareness of climate change and AGW, I do think that it might intensify concern amongst the public at large and amongst those people who are already engaged. There is a large body of solid research evidence that demonstrates that well-produced cinematic visions of climate change issues can feed concern and compassion for future generations yet to come.
I predict that “cli-fi” will shift views, yes.
There is way too much silence on the topic, and 'cli-fi' is a welcome addition that could help people talk about climate change more.  To build conviction, cli-fi movies will need to contain stories about a successful struggle to defend shared values with a resolution in a world that is stable, secure and, in some ways, better."





 
 
-- George Marshall, founder of Climate Outreach Information Network and author of ''Don't Even Think About It: Why our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change''
 
--------------------------------
 
Cli-fi films continue some of the same trends we note occurring in monstrous nature cinema, including drawing on anthropomorphism to both humanize and vilify nonhuman nature. Cli-fi films may present important environmental messages, but they also must entertain viewers with spectacular effects to attract audiences. Although there are few studies on the effects cli-fi films have on viewers’awareness of AGW issues, the cli-fi movement has definitely made its mark on classic and contemporary cinema."
 
- Professors Robin Murray and Joseph Heumann, authors of books on films exploring environmental issues.

--------------------------------


''Hollywood movies are the place to go for entertainment; they are not the place to go for information. Typically, movies present a much more extreme view of a future under climate change than what is likely to occur. Movies deal with our anxieties as well as our desire for entertainment. There is evidence from paleo-climate records of abrupt changes happening over a decade or two, but not over several days [as in ''The Day After Tomorrow'']. The idea that somehow global warming will trigger an ice age has no basis whatsoever in sound science. This was an invention of Hollywood.” 

-- Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science’s Department of Global Ecology.

--------------------------------------------

"The research on ''The Day After Tomorrow'' suggests that it raised awareness. It seems to have been successful also at raising awareness in the U.S., possibly because previous levels of awareness were lower than elsewhere -- or because its release was accompanied by more publicity here. The movie was, as one pundit put it, an 'event-film'."

-- Michael Svoboda, George Washington University

--------------------------------------

Global warming, as laid out by scientists, is the antithesis of 'news' -- incremental, still largely masked by natural climate variability, with widespread subtle effects and the worst outcomes projected decades, if not generations in the future. That's why the issue, somewhat like the national debt or other creeping risks, tends to hide in plain sight.  [Climate issues are a difficult fit for conventional media, and they're even a worse fit for Hollywood.] When they do  make it into a film, there's inevitable [Hollywood] exaggeration, which is a normal part of the process of making any dystopian, action or horror film. Villains are cartoons, monsters are outsized, and heroes are, too. So from 'Waterworld' to 'The Day After Tomorrow' and 'Snowpiercer' and onward, it's not surprising to see stark futures full of conflict."  
 
-- Andrew Revkin, DOT EARTH blog, New York Times
 
--------------------------------------

 
It's my hope that cli-fi movies will inspire audiences worldwide and lead to actions or fundamental changes in their perspectives, and I have seen that happening already. There's been a sea change and cli-fi is in the air. True, Hollywood is mostly about entertainment, pure and simple, and making a profit for the bottom line people who do the accounting books, but at the same time, in the right hands, with producers who care and "get it" and with screenwriters who are are not afraid to speak truth to power, I think movies can make a huge difference. That's why I am working day and night 24/7 to make cli-fi part of the culture at large.”
 
-- Dan Bloom, movie buff and climate activist





Tuesday, August 25, 2015

En Francais: LIBERATION: Olivier Postel-Vinay, directeur du magazine «Books», et 'cli-fi': Le genre a un nom : «cli-fi» (prononcez «claï- faï»).

French newspaper LIBERATION picks up «cli-fi» (prononcez «claï- faï») meme today (link here in French only' translation coming soon)


French newspaper picks up «cli-fi» (prononcez «claï- faï») meme

LIBERATION:

http://www.liberation.fr/livres/2015/08/22/dystopies-climatiques-diabolisation-du-the-et-demons-de-l-ukraine-trois-long-formats-a-lire-ce-week-_1367634

Mr. Olivier Postel-Vinay, directeur du magazine «Books», points to some longs formats des magazines anglo-saxonnes. Here are some excerpts:

1300 romans de climat fiction

Le genre a un nom : «cli-fi» (prononcez «claï- faï»). Ce sont les romans dystopiques sur le climat. Il ya a peu pres de 1300 titres recensés sur Amazon. Tous les clichés du catastrophisme écologiste se pressent au portillon. Une aubaine pour de jeunes auteurs, qui aspirent aussi à voir leur essai transformé à l’écran, dans le sillage d’un Christopher Nolan ou d’une Margaret Atwood.

Le terme «cli-fi» a été lancé en 2008 par l’écrivain militant americaine Dan Bloom. Atwood l’a repris à son compte dans un tweet, attirant d’un coup ses 900 000 followers. Le genre attire un nouveau public de jeunes lecteurs sensibilisés à la question du réchauffement climatique. L’université de Cambridge a ouvert une formation en «cli-fi».


Source : The Atlantic, 14 août 2015, 9300 signes. L’auteur : J.K. Ullrich est romancière. Elle a publié une fiction climatique, Blue Karma, au printemps 2015.

French newspaper LIBERATION picks up «cli-fi» (prononcez «claï- faï») meme today (link here in French only' translation coming soon)



French newspaper picks up «cli-fi» (prononcez «claï- faï») meme

LIBERATION:

http://www.liberation.fr/livres/2015/08/22/dystopies-climatiques-diabolisation-du-the-et-demons-de-l-ukraine-trois-long-formats-a-lire-ce-week-_1367634

Mr. Olivier Postel-Vinay, directeur du magazine «Books», points to some longs formats des magazines anglo-saxonnes. Here are some excerpts:

1300 romans de climat fiction

Le genre a un nom : «cli-fi» (prononcez «claï- faï»). Ce sont les romans dystopiques sur le climat. Il ya a peu pres de 1300 titres recensés sur Amazon. Tous les clichés du catastrophisme écologiste se pressent au portillon. Une aubaine pour de jeunes auteurs, qui aspirent aussi à voir leur essai transformé à l’écran, dans le sillage d’un Christopher Nolan ou d’une Margaret Atwood.

Le terme «cli-fi» a été lancé en 2008 par l’écrivain militant americaine Dan Bloom. Atwood l’a repris à son compte dans un tweet, attirant d’un coup ses 900 000 followers. Le genre attire un nouveau public de jeunes lecteurs sensibilisés à la question du réchauffement climatique. L’université de Cambridge a ouvert une formation en «cli-fi».


Source : The Atlantic, 14 août 2015, 9300 signes. L’auteur : J.K. Ullrich est romancière. Elle a publié une fiction climatique, Blue Karma, au printemps 2015.
 

Monday, August 24, 2015

Grave New World: Cli-Fi Rising

Grave New World: 'Cli-Fi' Rising

If earlier SF novels reflected the anxieties of their era, what can we expect from today's cli-fi novelists writing in English, French, Spanish, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, German, Italian, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese and Dutch?

Lots. We can expect lots from them. Just you watch!

Sehba Mohammad at FlavorPill Points Out 3 Chilling 'Cli-Fi' Novels to Get to Know

Cli fi feature
Books

3 Chilling 'Cli-Fi' Books to Know

By Sehba Mohammad
@SebhaM
 
August 24, 2015
 
Cli-fi, the catchy abbrev for ''climate-change fiction,'' is the newest fiction genre taking creative worlds by storm (pun intended). As the name suggests, cli-fi centers around climate change, veering away from the sociopolitical, intergalactic, and technological tropes of sci-fi. Earth, decimating floods, rising sea levels, climate refugees, and the extreme chaos of weather changes and natural disasters are the heart of cli-fi, which is not a subgenre of sci-fi or eco-fiction or eco-fabulism. Cli-fi is a standalone genre of its own, independent of any other genre.

Feminist speculative fiction novelist Margaret Atwood is one of the biggest proponents of the genre, -- she was tweeting about it as early as 2011 -- along with writer and climate activist Dan Bloom [who co-coined the abbrev cli-fi along with Wired reporter Scott Thill] [and humorist/climate skeptic David Carter at his Pacoenterprises.blogspot.com blog (and uses it as a mocking term to poke good natured fun at such liberal climate activists as Al Gore and James Hansen.)]

“Novelists, filmmakers and other creators have been registering (climate) changes for some time. There’s a new term, cli-fi (for climate fiction, a play on [the sound of] sci-fi), that’s being used to describe books in which an altered climate is part of the plot,” Atwood wrote about the genre in three separate opeds published in Canada and the UK.

Although cli-fi is seeping into he mainstream — think Game of Thrones harbinger “Winter is Coming” – the best way to understand the latest form of fiction is through these three seminal cli-fi novels.


maddaddamMaddaddam Trilogy by Margaret Atwood
Probably one of the most quintessential cli-fi trilogies, Maddaddam consists of Oryx and Crake (2003), The Year of the Flood (2009) and MaddAddam (2013). In the books Atwood describes a future society in the years before and after a biological catastrophe. Traversing genetic engineering, the obliteration of humanity, and man-made plagues, the trilogy reveals an eerily familiar dystopia of climate chaos. MaddAddam is currently being adapted into a series for HBO by Darren Aronosfsky.

snowpiercer, graphic novelSnowpiercer by Jacques Lob and Jean-Marc Rochette
Most people remember Snowpiercer as the famed South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho’s Hollywood debut. However the classic, cli-fi masterpiece was originally a French graphic novel, Le Transperceneige, translated into a two-part English version last year. The gripping post-apocalyptic narrative revolves around a long winding train, carrying the last vestiges of humanity after Earth has frozen over. The surviving humans maybe safe from the freezing temperatures, but they are not free from tyranny.

The Windup Girl by Paolo BacigalupThe Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalup
Even though this novel doesn’t deal with a specific natural disaster, and touches upon sci-fi sub-genres such as biopunk, it is considered an important work of cli-fi. Taking place in a 23rd century Thailand, rife with genetic modification and food shortages, the imaginative novel focuses on the geopolitical maneuvering that takes place when — due to climate change — their are limited food and energy resources. The Windup Girl won both Hugo and Nebula awards in 2010.

Sunday, August 23, 2015

Does the state of the environment today worldwide mean we need to develop a new type of [genre] fiction to confront it? Yes, and it's name is Cli-Fi...

 
 
Does the state of the environment today worldwide mean we need to develop a new type of [genre] fiction to confront it? Claire L. Evans, a Portland/Los Angeles pop rock singer in the style of Annie Lennox, seems to think so, but she's wrong. There's already a new type of sci-fi and it's called Cli-Fi. Claire wrote her ideas down at the Guardian's COMMENT IS FREE oped section. An excerpt, slighty edited by our rewrite person:
In recent years the term climate fiction, or 'cli-fi,' has emerged to refer to works dealing explicitly with climate-change [fiction in novels and movies]. Margaret Atwood has championed the term, which has since been applied broadly, and .... retroactively, to writers like JG Ballard and Jules Verne. [But of course neither Verne nor Ballard wrote cli-fi. Verne did not even write sci fi; hecalled his novels "Extraordinary Adventures" and then once used the sci fi term; Ballar wrote sci fi and only sci-fi, he had never ever heard of the cli-fi term in his lifetime.] Cli-fi, with an emphasis on global warming and its attendant anxieties, goes [a long way] toward the ideal of Anthropocene [Age] fiction, [and it is catching on]. ...[Some of the] books most often cited as examples of cli-fi – Kim Stanley Robinson’s ''Mars trilogy'', Paolo Bacigalupi’s [''The Water Knife''], Atwood’s ''Oryx and Crake'' – [do] address issues [of] climate change. They envision futures dictated by human recklessness: as Atwood said this year in an interview with Slate, it’s not climate change; it’s “the everything change.” [Yet she remains a strong champion of the cli fi term.]....[So is there a need for a new term that might be goofily dubbed "Anthro-fi"? No way, no way. Cli fi has arrived. Sci fi is dying. Wait for Scott Thill's nonfiction book about the rise of cli fi comign this December!]

Cli-Fi Should Give You Pause (if nothing else)

Cli-Fi Should Give You Pause (if nothing else)

Marlowe Hood at the Paris bureau of the AFP news bureau says in a recent article:

''CASE CLOSED: CO2 MELTED ICE AGE GLACIERS'' -- AND OUR GOOSE IS COOKED IF WE DO NOTHING NOW TO STOP RUNAWAY CLIMATE CHANGE

SEE STORY HERE:

http://news.yahoo.com/case-closed-says-study-c02-melted-ice-age-182946601.html

Ignoring Cli-Fi Is Not an Option

Annie Banerji, writing for the AFP wire service from India, in an article headlined:

''Pacific isles say climate talks failure not an option''

Jaipur (India) (AFP) - Two of the world's most vulnerable low-lying island nations, Kiribati and Tuvalu, have said failure at upcoming climate talks in Paris is not an option as rising sea levels threaten their very existence.

"Failure is not a fallback position, it is not an option, we cannot have it as an option. We must get success," Tuvalu Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga told AFP in an interview.

READ FULL ARTICLE HERE AS COP21 meeting approaches in late November

http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-pacific-isles-say-climate-talks-failure-not-an-option-2015-8#ixzz3jhgTYVCg

It's all cli-fi to me (but now there's these subgenres: cli-fi noir, pulp cli-fi, cli-fi dark, cli-fi deep, cli-fi lite and last but not least Cli-Fi You!

 
 
It's all 'cli-fi' to me (but now there's these subgenres: cli-fi noir, pulp cli-fi, cli-fi dark, cli-fi deep, cli-fi lite and last but not least Cli-Fi You!

Google 'em to learn more: google.com

Saturday, August 22, 2015

As the "cli-fi" genre term rises, the motif is spreading worldwide: Here's how *YOU* can help!

As the "cli-fi" genre term rises, the motif is spreading worldwide: Here's how *YOU* can help!



http://pcillu101.blogspot.tw/2015/08/as-cli-fi-genre-term-rises-motif.html

As the "cli-fi" genre term rises, the motif is spreading worldwide: Here's how YOU can help!
NOTES ON THE RISE OF ''Cli-Fi'' -- and how *YOU* can help spread the word via blogs, FB groups, reading clubs, oped essays and book reviews AND writing your own cli-fi novel or screenplay.
1. New (and old) literary and movie genres grow organically, and other people who follow other genres are more than welcome to their own opinions about whether or not they like any given genre term or phrase or pop buzzword. For this blog, "cli-fi" fits the bill. But all points of view are welcome here.
2. Genre discussions and critiques help define all this in various ways. Keep the discussions going!
3. Getting excited about new genres is wonderful: ''Cli-fi'' has arrived JUST IN TIME!
4. Several genres cover climate-change fiction for novels and movies: cli-fi, speculative fiction, and literary fiction. We will be seeing more and more cli-fi novels and movies in future years.

Sustainability inspires a Philadelphia artist​ with vision​ and drive

By Staff Blogger


PHILADELPHIA -- Emma Podietz, an avid bicyclist who once made a grueling cross-country road trip from Colorado to Pennsylvania, graduated from New York University in 2012 with degrees ​in environmental studies and Latin American studies, with a minor in art.


Now based in her hometown of Philadelphia, the 25-year-old artist and
environmentalist is working as a freelance illustrator and ​on the outreach and education team of Philly's new bike share system, Indego.


Last year, when Vanderbilt
​University ​
law professor Edward
​L. ​
Rubin was getting ready to publish his first novel -- a 'cli-fi' story titled "The Heatstroke Line" -- he was looking for an artist to do the cover for
​the book
, and knowing Podietz from a family connection and an earlier academic book she illustrated for him, he asked her if she had time to
​do a new cover illustration for him.
.


She did, and the novel will be published soon by Sunbury Press in Pennsylvania and her artwork adorns the cover. In a recent email exchange, I asked Emma how she created the cover -- and how it all came about
​.


"Thanks for your interest," she told me
in a recent email. "I am so grateful for this opportunity to do the cover art for Ed's book, and I'm looking forward to seeing how the book does once it is released nationwide."




Podietz
, who grew up in Philadelphia in the 1990s and entered NYU in 2008
​, ​
said that even as a kid she did a lot of drawings and paintings on her own.
​Even at home, both her parents were into both painting and drawing and her family so that valued the artistic side of things, she said.


"I did a few side illustration jobs throughout middle and high school, and I continued to make art whenever I could as an extracurricular activity," she said. "After graduating from college, where I started out as a studio art major but ended up studying environmental studies and Latin American studies, I didn't really plan on having a career as an artist or illustrator. Actually, my goal was and still is to find a career that combines my artistic ability with my passion for environmental and social issues."



Working on Rubin's debut climate-themed novel set in a dystopian near future, Podietz found a good way to marry her art skills with her worries about global warming.

"Given what Ed's novel is about, you can imagine that I was thrilled to be working on the cover art," she said. "The concept of my illustration came mainly from my several conversations I had with Professor Rubin. I did
​n​
't want to create a cover image that was too melodramatic, but at the same time I felt it was important to create an image of a world that no human would ever want to inhabit.
I think that in this illustration, the colors do that work for the viewer, particularly the yellow sky and red sun."


[NOTE TO READERS: The last scene in Rubin's novel occurs when the main character has to walk a little more than a mile in Birmingham, Alabama (i.e., below the so-called ''Heatstroke Line)'' in April of that imagined future year, about 150 years from now. The temperature on that day is about 140 degrees, and the man in fact suffers heatstroke, and almost dies. But a 12 year old girl who goes with him does not suffer heatstroke. This is the scene depicted in the cover illustration!
 
 


As someone who loves the great outdoors and did a cross-country bicycle trip across America, Emma says that her interest in art and nature comes from her upbringing.
"I think my family has instilled in me the value of making things with my hands and also an appreciation for the great outdoors," she said. "My grandfather, who is now 96 years old and in near perfect health, has always loved camping and hiking and passed this on to my father, so our family went camping a lot while I was growing up.''

As an artist and environmentalist, Podietz has high hopes, noting: "Although I'm still exploring and figuring out a career path, I believe that the biggest challenge facing humanity is to figure out how to raise standards of living around the world while simultaneously monitoring and reducing the negative environmental and public health impacts that result from most forms of "development".

When asked for few words about Rubin's new novel, Podietz was upbeat, telling this blogger:

''This highly-imaginative novel is a valuable addition to the emerging 'cli-fi' (climate fiction) genre, and is a great initiator of conversation and debate relating to the potential consequences of global climate change. In 'The Heatstroke Line,' Ed Rubin carefully constructs a future in which technology allows human life to continue despite catastrophic changes caused by global warming. In this apocalyptic world, self-driving cars carry passengers straight from one climate-controlled space to another so that no one ever has to go outside in the suffocating heat. Vast regions of the world have become uninhabitable, and years of war and climate-related catastrophe have entirely reshaped global politics and power dynamics.''
"The novel tells the story of one man trying to raise a family in a future that is very different from today, have a successful career as a scientist, and find meaning in a world that many would find devastating to live in," she added. "It was jarring for me to read this book and consider that if our mindsets do not change, the current trajectory of human development might lead us into a future like the one imagined here. "

''Welcome to the Anthropocene," says David Biello in a 2012 essay for the Los Angeles Review of Books

David Biello writes in 2012:

https://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/welcome-to-the-anthropocene

A new literature for a new age, the 'Age of Man'



I LIVE IN A SUPERFUND site. So do you, no matter where you live. Despite environmental laws older than I am and the migration of U.S. heavy industry overseas, the toxic impacts of modern human life touch every inch of the U.S. And it's not just the U.S., it's North America, it's Asia, it's Antarctica, every inch of everywhere really — even the organic detoxification spas across California. Welcome to the Anthropocene, or "age of man."

We move more earth and stone than all the world's rivers. We are changing the chemistry of the atmosphere all life breathes. We are on pace to eat to death half of the other life currently sharing the planet with us. There is nothing on Earth untouched by man — whether it be the soot from fossil fuels darkening polar snows or the very molecules incorporated into a tree trunk. Humanity has become a global force whose exploits will be written in rock for millennia.

We can think of our Anthropocene as a steam-punk thing, only as old as James Watt's invention of a practical coal-burning steam engine way back in 1776. Or we can see it stretch back millions of years to when early Homo sapiens may have driven large carnivores like sabre-tooth tigers to extinction. Still, nothing compares to the Atomic Age, which spread rare, long-lived elements across the planet — a unique human signature. And our mark will remain in the atmosphere for tens of thousands of years, elevated levels of carbon dioxide keeping the planet warmer than it would otherwise be. If people, plants or animals don't like the climate in 2100, 2500 or even 25000 they will have us to blame.

As a writer who covers the Anthropocene, I follow all the talk, and it’s hard to think of another area of scientific inquiry where there is so much doubt, and, in fact, straight rejection, of the proofs we have been seeing. MORE AT LINK:

https://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/welcome-to-the-anthropocene

''The Art of Life in the Anthropocene'' (2013 essay)

 David Biello writes at :
https://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/the-art-of-life-in-the-anthropocene

Flower creation, maggot painting, microbe literature, and bio art.

April 13th, 2013 reset - +
Photo: Eduardo Kac, “Natural History of the Enigma.” Courtesy Black Box Gallery, Copenhagen.


THE RED VEINS of a certain pink petunia flower come courtesy of human DNA — the A’s, C’s, T’s, and G’s that teach a cell how to build itself. With the help of a virus, Brazilian-born Eduardo Kac was able to stitch human DNA — his own — into a petunia, veining the flower’s petals in red by generating an antibody with a snippet of his genetic code. This so-called “Edunia” is neither the product of genetic research, per se, nor botanical gamesmanship. Kac is simply an artist, and the Edunia (along with limited edition seed packs) has been exhibited from Minneapolis to Barcelona, a show he calls “Natural History of the Enigma.”
Or, as Kac puts it:
The petal pink background, against which the red veins are seen, is evocative of my own pinkish white skin tone. The result of this molecular manipulation is a bloom that creates the living image of human blood rushing through the veins of a flower.
Such is art in the Anthropocene, this new era of man necessitated by our ever-expanding impacts on the planet as a whole, from geology to biology. Kac’s work is hardly alone. Bio-art in the Anthropocene ranges from a book stored entirely in DNA to a poem “written” by a microbe, a living poem known as “The Xenotext” to its progenitor (not exactly author) Christian Bök of the University of Calgary.

Here’s how Bök’s living poem, once translated into English from DNA, goes:
Any style of life
Is prim
To which the microbe responds by writing out a protein that can be translated as this:
The faerie is rosy
Of glow
 
MORE AT L.A REVIEW OF BOOKS:
https://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/the-art-of-life-in-the-anthropocene
 

Some background notes to ''THE HEATSTROKE LINE, ''a new cli-fi novel by Edward L. Rubin

Some background notes on the climate science in THE HEATSTROKE LINE for easy checking by book reviewers, literary critics, general readers, pop science geeks and climate skeptics and climate denialists: 



THE HEATSTROKE LINE, a cli-fi novel, is set at an indeterminate time in the future,  although given the events the author describes as occurring, it could not be less than 100 years. He  thought of it as about 175-200 years in the future and didn't think it would be plausible for more time to have elapsed, since daily conversation and speech remains essentially contemporary.The assumption in the novel is that the ''climate change deniers'' won out and nothing was done to prevent global warming.



The basic effects described are as follows:



  • 1. The US coastal cities were flooded so regularly that they became uninhabitable, and people had to move inland. At first, the US demanded that Canada take the ''climate refugees'' population; when it refused, the US dropped nuclear bombs on Toronto and Montreal. Shortly after this, political stress from the climate refugees and other disruptions caused the outbreak of a civil war. Canada took advantage of this situation to invade the Lower 48 and Alaska. Either before or after the Canadian invasion (the author doesn't specify) the US broke apart into three separate countries (the Northwest, the Mountain States and the Midwest, which is called the UFA). Canada seized Alaska and New England and transported the topsoil out of the Plains states (the land between the Mississippi and 100 degrees West Longitude) so that it could engage in temperate zone agriculture on the land surrounding Hudson's Bay.
  • 2. The three successor nations in the US have a fully tropical climate and grow bananas, coffee and citrus fruit. Temperatures are described as going as high as 130 F in the summer. The assumption is that they drop into the 80s in the winter, but the author does not specify, since none of the action in the book takes place in these nations during the winter months .
  • 3. ''The Heatstroke Line'' of the title runs along the Potomac and Ohio Rivers and then at 37 degrees North Latitude. Below this line, temperatures are consistently about 130-40 for half the year, dropping no lower than the 90s in the remaining half. A small number of people live below the Heatstroke Line east of 100 degrees West Latitude, in small principalities called the Confederacies. They depend upon year-round air-conditioning for their survival. West of that, there is no water and the land is uninhabited. ]
  • 4. The last scene in the book occurs when the main character has to walk a little more than a mile in Birmingham, Alabama (i.e., below the Heatstroke Line) in April. The temperature is about 140 degrees F. He in fact suffers heatstroke, and almost dies. But the 12 year old girl who goes with him is not described as suffering heatstroke. This is the scene depicted in the cover illustration by artist Emma Podietz!
  •  
  • 5. Below the Heatstroke Line, flesh-eating insects, called ''biter bugs,'' have become endemic. As of the time the action in the book occurs (a period of 8 months) they have not spread north of the Heatstroke Line. The bugs are used as a literary device to motivate the action; symbolically, they represent the various collateral consequences that climate change might involve. The bugs are (very) unpleasant, but the decline of the U.S., and the dominance of Canada, is attributed to the heat, not the bugs.



[Here are the passages from the book that describe the effects of climate change, but page numbers may change as the book goes to press in the editorial and publishing process so the page numbers cited here are approximate. However, you can easily find the passages in your copy of the book.]



Ch. 1, pp. 1-2



On a blazing, early September afternoon, with the outdoor temperature spiking at 130 degrees Fahrenheit, he was sitting with Garenika in the waiting room at Denver Diagnostic Clinic while Michael was being examined by still one more doctor. . . .



“Well,” the doctor said,” I really can’t tell you what the problem is.”



“Why not?” Garenika asked, her voice tinged with its increasingly frequent sense of panic. “Why can’t you find an answer for us? Look at him –he’s losing weight, his skin keeps getting blotchier, and he’s exhausted all the time.”



“I’m sorry. As you probably know, we’re pretty sure that we’re seeing all these new diseases because the climate change has wiped out a lot of the beneficial bacteria that we used to have in our bodies. Commensals, they’re called. But we’ve never really figured out how they work, so it’s hard to compensate for their disappearance.”



Ch. 1, p. 7



We were the most powerful nation on Earth before the Second Civil War. And we could be powerful again if the three Successor States united. Just think, we’d have almost as many people as Canada.”

“How do you figure that?” said Dan.

Josh was obviously waiting for that question. “Mountain America has 24 million people, the UFA has 25 or 26 million, and Pacifica has 12 or 13.

“Well, that’s a little over 60 million by my math. Canada has 150 million.”

“Yeah, but five million of them are in New England, and another 20 are in Alaska. Those used to be part of the United States. If you subtract 25 million people from Canada and add them to us, the difference gets a lot smaller.”

“But why would all those people want to leave a richer, stronger country with a decent climate to join three smaller, overheated ones?”









Ch, 1, p. 8



Why exactly is that?” Garenika asked. “You can live below the Heatstroke Line if you have air conditioning. I mean, I’m a nutritionist, not an h-vac engineer, but the Halcyon units are really good. Ours can handle 150 degree weather easily.”



“So it would seem,” said Dan, “but it never works. It’s a matter of social organization, not engineering. You’ve got to keep a power plant going all the time. As soon as it breaks down, or the fuel supply is interrupted, or one of your enemies blows it up, you die. Then there are the biter bugs. You’ve got to give everyone a stun gun or life is just intolerable. Even with the guns, it’s pretty damn unpleasant.



Ch. 7, pp. 80-81





“Since American history isn’t taught in our high schools any more, I get students in my classes who think that all the people in the coastal cities died when huge tidal waves suddenly came crashing over them.”

“Well, the teachers probably don’t want to deal with the fact that so many of them were killed by other Americans.”

“I used to think that too, but I wonder about it now. After all, it was the UFA that did most of the killing, not Mountain America. In addition to those huge machine gun batteries they had along the Appalachians, they put gunboats in the Ohio and Potomac Rivers and on Mississippi Bay, so very few of the refugees could even reach us. The ones that came into Mountain America were mainly from Houston, and we let them in because we were under-populated.”

“You know Stuart, I never had American history in high school either.” Dan said, as they began walking back to the car. “And I spent most of my time in college studying science. It’s a little hard to imagine that many people being killed by machine guns. I mean, there must have been over a hundred million of them.”

“Actually, you’re right. What happened is that most of the people realized they wouldn’t be able to get into the UFA and just returned to their homes in the coastal cities. With a few feet of water on the ground, services broke down, food and drinking water wasn’t supplied, and the people gradually died from thirst, hunger or disease.”


Ch. 9, p. 98-99

Further down the road [in Mississippi] was a forest of dead pine trees, their needles uniformly brown, their trunks covered with discolored patches. Probably an infestation by one of the newly aggressive varieties of bark beetle, Dan surmised; he had spent several years combatting an attack by a related species on Mountain America's coffee crop. . . . After a while, the van turned left onto an even narrower road, not much more than a single lane, and headed east again. To his right, the land stretched out in a dead-flat, treeless expanse of marsh grasses and weeds, with pools of dark water scattered across it. . . .

Although Dan’s knowledge of the Confederacies was spotty, he was able to guess where he was and what was happening. They were driving along the land bordering the Gulf of Mexico and had just driven around the northern end of Mobile inlet. Because of the tidal surges from the Gulf, to say nothing of the brutal heat in summer, this land was uninhabitable and no longer controlled by any of the Confederacies. Clearly, they had turned off the commercial freeway and taken this circuitous path to get around Montgomery, which, as Dan recalled, had a particularly aggressive government aligned with only a few small states like Mid-Tennessee and the Orlando Islands.


Ch. 9, p. 101

He went out into the rain, which had let up only slightly, and faced out toward the Gulf. The scene in front of him was desolate –nothing but water-logged grass, brackish ponds, a grey sky and rain. Then he noticed some sort of ruined building in the distance, a concrete structure that had partially collapsed. He realized that there had been cities, towns and farms here, that the people who lived in them had probably died, as Stuart had described. This sodden marsh was covering thousands of bodies, buried in the mud and rotting into nothingness. Dan had a sudden image that their lifeless faces lay just below the surface of the muddy water, staring blankly upward.

NOTES:

 ''THE HEATSTROKE LINE'' is part of a new literary genre called "cli-fi" (for
climate-change fiction). It takes place in the near future. For background purposes, assume that it's
about 150 years from now.


A brief news item about Emma Podietz who did the cover illustration for the novel:

http://northwardho.blogspot.tw/2015/08/sustainability-inspires-philadelphia.html

Friday, August 21, 2015

A chi interessa: domani su La Lettura del Corriere esce un mio pezzo sul fenomeno ''Climate Fiction'' aka ''Cli-Fi''.

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https://twitter.com/fazdeotto
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The latest Tweets from Fabio Deotto (@FazDeotto). ... A chi interessa: domani su La Lettura del Corriere esce un mio pezzo sul fenomeno Climate Fiction #CliFi.






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'We Come As Friends’ and the Advent of Post-Apocalyptic Nonfiction


 and some excerpts from his recent article on ''THE ADVENT OF POST-APOCALYPTIC NONFICTION''
 
Daniel Walber is a freelance writer based in Brooklyn. He has written for Nonfics, Film School Rejects, Movies.com, Film.com, and The Brooklyn Rail. He holds a BA in History from McGill University and an MA in Cinema Studies from New York University. His favorite documentaries include Paris Is Burning, Portrait of Jason, F for Fake and everything directed by Werner Herzog.

SEE FULL ARTICLE AT:

http://nonfics.com/post-apocalyptic-nonfiction/#bSrsLU61iEMw1Pt6.99

TEXT BEGINS:

The world is ending.

“Post-apocalyptic” is a term we usually reserve for elaborately conceived, nightmarish fiction cinema. Mad Max, Waterworld and Planet of the Apes all come to mind. Post-apocalyptic nonfiction, on the other hand, sounds like an impossibility. The world still exists, after all. Society has yet to completely collapse. Mel Gibson and Kevin Costner still wear normal clothes.
Yet we live in a collapsing ecosystem. Global climate change has unleashed dramatic and devastating weather events. Seas are drying up, methane is springing up from the ice in the Arctic, and countless species are going extinct. We’ve known this for some time now, and it’s already had an impact on nonfiction cinema. The wave of environmentally motivated films did not crest with An Inconvenient Truth, nor The Cove three years later. It’s become difficult to imagine a documentary landscape without these targeted pleas for environmental awareness.

That said, none of these can really be called apocalyptic. They do frequently include a lot of doom and gloom, but there is always a third-act pivot toward solutions. All is not lost; here is what we can do to save the planet; here is where to donate. And occasionally, here is an uplifting song that may find its way to the Oscars. Some of these films are worthwhile, in spite of their lack of artistic ambition.

Take Racing Extinction, the new film from The Cove director Louie Psihoyos, as an example. Its subject is the coming Sixth Extinction, the first of its kind to be caused by human behavior. To illustrate this catastrophe, Psiyohos uses some astonishing sounds and images. The final chirps of the world’s only remaining Kaua’i O’o are particularly compelling, singing his unique melody for a mate that will never come. But by the third act of the film these touchstones of loss make way for a determined appeal, mostly taking the form of awareness-raising efforts designed to energize the public and thereby fix the problem.

The films of Hubert Sauper are not so optimistic. They aren’t even documentaries, a term that Sauper himself rejects. “It is a very ugly word,” he says in an interview with Nonfics’s Jamie Maleszka. “It comes from document and proof and a rational delivery of information usually from groups without power to groups with power.” The assertion of objectivity and its agreement with preconceived notions of power, that Western philanthropy can solve the world’s problems, is dishonest even when it’s endorsed by someone as articulate and well-meaning as George Clooney. Sauper’s two feature films dive into the economic, political and environmental realities of two different African nations. Yet they are not documentaries, at least not in the conventional sense.

Read FULL TEXT at http://nonfics.com/post-apocalyptic-nonfiction/#bSrsLU61iEMw1Pt6.99

​Sustainability drives Philadelphia artist, illustrator, cross-country bicyclist: Meet Emma Podietz

Sustainability inspires a Philadelphia artist​ with vision​ and drive
By Staff Blogger
[NOTE TO READERS: The last scene in Rubin's novel occurs when the main character has to walk a little more than a mile in Birmingham, Alabama (i.e., below the so-called ''Heatstroke Line)'' in April of that imagined future year, about 150 years from now. The temperature on that day is about 140 degrees, and the man in fact suffers heatstroke, and almost dies. But a 12 year old girl who goes with him does not suffer heatstroke. This is the scene depicted in the cover illustration!

PHILADELPHIA -- Emma Podietz, an avid bicyclist who once made a grueling cross-country road trip from Colorado to Pennsylvania, graduated from New York University in 2012 with degrees ​in environmental studies and Latin American studies, with a minor in art.


Now based in her hometown of Philadelphia, the 25-year-old artist and
environmentalist is working as a freelance illustrator and ​on the outreach and education team of Philly's new bike share system, Indego.


Last year, when Vanderbilt
​University ​
law professor Edward
​L. ​
Rubin was getting ready to publish his first novel -- a 'cli-fi' story titled "The Heatstroke Line" -- he was looking for an artist to do the cover for
​the book
, and knowing Podietz from a family connection and an earlier academic book she illustrated for him, he asked her if she had time to
​do a new cover illustration for him.
.


She did, and the novel will be published soon by Sunbury Press in Pennsylvania and her artwork adorns the cover. In a recent email exchange, I asked Emma how she created the cover -- and how it all came about
​.


"Thanks for your interest," she told me
in a recent email. "I am so grateful for this opportunity to do the cover art for Ed's book, and I'm looking forward to seeing how the book does once it is released nationwide."




Podietz
, who grew up in Philadelphia in the 1990s and entered NYU in 2008
​, ​
said that even as a kid she did a lot of drawings and paintings on her own.
​Even at home, both her parents were into both painting and drawing and her family so that valued the artistic side of things, she said.


"I did a few side illustration jobs throughout middle and high school, and I continued to make art whenever I could as an extracurricular activity," she said. "After graduating from college, where I started out as a studio art major but ended up studying environmental studies and Latin American studies, I didn't really plan on having a career as an artist or illustrator. Actually, my goal was and still is to find a career that combines my artistic ability with my passion for environmental and social issues."


Working on Rubin's debut climate-themed novel set in a dystopian near future, Podietz found a good way to marry her art skills with her worries about global warming.

"Given what Ed's novel is about, you can imagine that I was thrilled to be working on the cover art," she said. "The concept of my illustration came mainly from my several conversations I had with Professor Rubin. I did
​n​
't want to create a cover image that was too melodramatic, but at the same time I felt it was important to create an image of a world that no human would ever want to inhabit.
I think that in this illustration, the colors do that work for the viewer, particularly the yellow sky and red sun."


[NOTE TO READERS: The last scene in Rubin's novel occurs when the main character has to walk a little more than a mile in Birmingham, Alabama (i.e., below the so-called ''Heatstroke Line)'' in April of that imagined future year, about 150 years from now. The temperature on that day is about 140 degrees, and the man in fact suffers heatstroke, and almost dies. But a 12 year old girl who goes with him does not suffer heatstroke. This is the scene depicted in the cover illustration!


As someone who loves the great outdoors and did a cross-country bicycle trip across America, Emma says that her interest in art and nature comes from her upbringing.
"I think my family has instilled in me the value of making things with my hands and also an appreciation for the great outdoors," she said. "My grandfather, who is now 96 years old and in near perfect health, has always loved camping and hiking and passed this on to my father, so our family went camping a lot while I was growing up.''

As an artist and environmentalist, Podietz has high hopes, noting: "Although I'm still exploring and figuring out a career path, I believe that the biggest challenge facing humanity is to figure out how to raise standards of living around the world while simultaneously monitoring and reducing the negative environmental and public health impacts that result from most forms of "development".

When asked for few words about Rubin's new novel, Podietz was upbeat, telling this blogger:

''This highly-imaginative novel is a valuable addition to the emerging 'cli-fi' (climate fiction) genre, and is a great initiator of conversation and debate relating to the potential consequences of global climate change. In 'The Heatstroke Line,' Ed Rubin carefully constructs a future in which technology allows human life to continue despite catastrophic changes caused by global warming. In this apocalyptic world, self-driving cars carry passengers straight from one climate-controlled space to another so that no one ever has to go outside in the suffocating heat. Vast regions of the world have become uninhabitable, and years of war and climate-related catastrophe have entirely reshaped global politics and power dynamics.''
"The novel tells the story of one man trying to raise a family in a future that is very different from today, have a successful career as a scientist, and find meaning in a world that many would find devastating to live in," she added. "It was jarring for me to read this book and consider that if our mindsets do not change, the current trajectory of human development might lead us into a future like the one imagined here. "