Chinese scientist has come to conclusion that industrial mining fossil energy (coal, petroleum, natural gas, oil shale, combustible ice, etc.) by the human being has destroyed the thermal insulating layer inside crust of the Earth, and excessive heat from inside of the Earth has come to the surface, which is the main cause of a warming globe.

 

 

Friends, thought you might get a kick out of this. Could this be the theme of the next ''cli-fi'' film?

=============================================================
RE: ''I have finally come to conclusion that industrial mining fossil energy (coal, petroleum, natural gas, oil shale, combustible ice, etc.) by the human being has destroyed the thermal insulating layer inside crust of the Earth, and excessive heat from inside of the Earth has come to the surface, which is the main cause of a warming globe.''

Dear Sir in the USA. I am writing to you from CHINA, i.e., Communist China, PRC, controlled by the brutal dictatorship of the out-dated yet oppressive Soviet-style Communist Party of China

 

I was delighted to read your blog about cli-fi movies and the topic is very inspiring to me.

Although opinions on causes of climate change vary, I has been devoted to the research of climate change and have finally come to conclusion that industrial mining fossil energy (coal, petroleum, natural gas, oil shale, combustible ice, etc.) by the human being has destroyed the thermal insulating layer inside crust of the Earth, and excessive heat from inside of the Earth has come to the surface, which is the main cause of a warming globe. CO₂, CH₄ etc. airs stored in the earth's crust release into the atmosphere because of earth's crust fever and underlying surface temperature increment, make the greenhouse effect enhanced. Weather events become more and more extreme. My argument is based on secondary information or empirical calculation based on various events. Look at the thermal conductivity with various substances, you know how important that thermal insulation in the earth's crust is to terrestrial biosphere.

 

crustal components:                 thermal conductivity (W/m.K):

shale gas                                   0.049

natural gas                                0.052

oil shale                                     0.08

combustible ice                        0.121

petroleum                                  0.14

coal                                            0.21

 

sedimentary rock                      3.41

granite                                       3.49

basalt                                         2.17

 

According to this new concept, except rare cases, an overwhelming majority of existing natural disasters can be reasonably explained with this theory. Crust of the Earth and underlying surface are being heated irregularly! It is for this reason that not only the ecological environment is rapidly getting worse, but also due to entry of excessive heat into the atmosphere and the ocean, extreme weather events occur more and more often to repeatedly refresh the history. Fossil energy is the product of a series of complex chemical reaction under high temperature and high pressure in the interior of the earth for a long geologic time, thus, where there is fossil energy, there is massive heat resource. But there's no "oil sea" or "gas sea" in the earth's crust, fossil oil and natural gas exist in rock pores, cracks, karst caves, faults and grits through the crust, forming a huge "capillary network". Fossil energy constitutes only a very small proportion of earth surface, and the maximum depth of mining is only 5000 meters, but fossil oil and natural gas are effective seal of the rock pores, cracks, karst caves, faults and grits, which prevent excessive leakage of terrestrial heat flow. The enormous pressure formed by petroleum, natural gas and shale gas within the crust oppose the earth’s interior thermal pressure, achieving a dynamic balance. Once petroleum, natural gas and shale gas have been mined, the earth’s interior terrestrial heat flow follows the capillary network because of the loss of thermal insulation and heat-sealants and eventually reaches the surface, causing the crust underlying the surface to “fever” and triggering ecological and geological disasters. Huge amounts of extreme dispersed heat force the water vapor, CO₂, CH₄ and other gases from the crust into the atmosphere and oceans, which disrupts the atmospheric energy balance and causes climate change and meteorological disasters. With increasing sea temperatures, air humidity has also increased, which has produced the strongest recorded typhoons, hurricanes and tropical cyclones, as well as the strongest recorded local rainfall, snow, drought, winter and cold conditions. These conditions are expected to become more frequent, with the weather becoming more extreme and violent. Nowadays in an age of rapid technological advancement, the new mineral deposits continued to throw up discoveries which the fossil energy cover far more than the 1% of the Earth. Even if humans stop emitting greenhouse gases, global change will still continue for a long long time because of this reason.

 

Exploitation quantity of global coal, crude oil and natural gas Vs ENSO frequency of occurrence output (add up) (unit: billion ton, trillion m² )

 

Time             Coal                  Crude oil         Natural gas         ENSO frequency of occurrence

 

1649-1879                                                                             Closely related to submarine volcanic eruption.

  

1880-1980   1500 (1500)     517 (517)        30 (30)                Happen once between 2 and 7 years, duration is about 1year.

 

 

1981-2005   1125 (2625)     440 (957)      20 (50)           Time interval of occurrence is 3 years around, duration is about 15 months, time lag of several El Nino events from 1990’s of last century to now is only half year around, and long one is no less than 2 years, duration can reach 3 years.

 

Sometimes oil companies inject compressed air or CO₂ into the well to push the oil out is used for other purposes, for example, increase production etc. and never restoring insulating layer again. Moreover; oil companies inject compressed air or CO₂ into the well to push the oil out not only without so great pressure before mining but also the cumulative exploitation of the total output is out of proportion to the oil companies inject compressed air or CO₂. So this air or CO₂ don't have insulation effect. Underlaying surface temperature increment and rise of deep sea temperature after the destruction of insulating layer, CH₄ and water vapor etc. GHGs directly into the atmosphere which could escalate the severity of the greenhouse effect. Water vapor is one of the most important GHGs.

 

Global climate will long-term warming if energy mining does not stop. Such a significant heat source, degradation of vegetation cover and widespread loss of soil organic matter  have pervasive effects.

 

The research from Amanda Scott et al. from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA, US) showed that global warming is now irreversible and in an accelerating trend. Even if humans stop emitting greenhouse gases, global warming will still continue for 1000 years. This conclusion denies the greenhouse effect theory of climate change, suggesting that global warming is caused by other factors.

 

The report issued by the American authorities in January 2015 said that global warming has become norm and meteorological history records show the average ground temperature has increased 0.8℃. As a result, not only lead to global warming but also caused ecological and environmental disaster. Rob Westawaya’s study also demonstrates dissipation of a subsurface thermal anomaly by heat transport into the atmosphere. This indicates that warming of the atmosphere will be sustained in the future by dissipation of the large amount of energy stored in pre-existing subsurface thermal anomalies on a global scale, an issue of major societal implications that demands more detailed investigation. (Science of The Total Environment, Volume 508, 1 March 2015, Pages 585–603)

 

The northern latitudes are rich in coal, oil, natural gas and shale gas resources. As the Former Soviet and Russia mass industrial overexploitation, today's the Arctic Ocean you could hardly see floating ice in the summer. The Antarctic ice sheet will melt completely once fossil energy is mined from rock formations inside the southern latitudes. This is not just alarmist talk.

 

When you feel puzzled for some extreme climate events, natural hazards, ecological disasters, etc., you might as well use this standpoint.

 

Only if find true cause for contributing to climate change human society could effectively handle to face the challenge.

 

I will be greatly grateful if you could spare time to read my papers (Please find attachments).

 

I hope to make more exchange and communication with you about the climate change.

 

Sincerely,

 

XX XXXXX

 

Communist China, PRC, controlled by the Communist Party of China

 

 

 

When Corporate PR people become control freaks and try to dictate the news on climate issues nationwide

Dear Sir,
What is the name of the [NAME OF WEST COAST NEWSPAPER REDACTED HERE FOR PRIVACY REASONS] reporter whom you contacted?​ We will not welcome any [NAME OF WEST COAST NEWSPAPER REDACTED HERE FOR PRIVACY REASONS] reporter
whom we have not communicated with directly. Do not contact the [NAME OF WEST COAST NEWSPAPER REDACTED HERE FOR PRIVACY REASONS] again on behalf of [NAME OF WEST COAST LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGE REDACTED HERE FOR OBVIOUS REASONS] or steer reporters in our direction in the future, even if you think you have an important news tip to pass on to them. We contol the news, and we control our news feeds. That's what they hired me for. Capish?

Thank you,

Acting Director of Media Comm PR Relations

[NAME OF WEST COAST COLLEGE REDACTED HERE FOR PRIVACY REASONS]

Call for Papers: ''The Rising Tide of Climate-Change Fiction''

Dear Mr. Bloom,


Thanks so much for your interest in our upcoming special issue on climate change fiction. We don't send out press releases for our special issues, only CFPs and posts on academic listservs, but I'm attaching two versions of that call -- the full call and a condensed version -- in case either is helpful to you. We would be grateful for any mention you feel appropriate to include on the Cli-Fi Report or any of your social media outlets; if you wanted to link to the CFP on your "Cli-Fi News and Academic Links," here is a link to the CFP:


https://studiesinthenovel.org/submit/call-for-papers.html


Let me know if I can answer any questions for you, and thanks again.

Very best wishes,


Tim Boswell

AND MORE:

Studies in the Novel seeks submissions for a special issue on “The Rising Tide of Climate Change Fiction,” guest-edited by Stef Craps (Ghent University) and Rick Crownshaw (Goldsmiths, University of London), to be published spring 2018 as part of the journal’s 50th anniversary volume.

Climate change fiction constitutes a by now well-established set of literary texts that has attracted the attention of both academic and non-academic readers.

A typical facet of much climate change fiction is its imagination of a catastrophic future world in which climatological devastation, unfolding but often imperceptible and ignored in our times, is made tangible and inescapable.

Other works steer clear of the post-apocalyptic or dystopian mode: set in the present, they explore the political, ethical, and psychological dimensions and ramifications of climate change at the current moment.

In tandem with the ascendancy in the academy of the concept of the Anthropocene, the last few years have also seen the publication of a significant amount of sophisticated humanities scholarship theorizing climate change and its cultural framings and impacts, providing numerous opportunities for developing new approaches to fictions of climate change.

Possible topics include:

literary strategies for overcoming the imaginative difficulties posed by the vast scale and complexity of the climate crisis
conceptualizations of the Anthropocene and how they inform the theory and practice of the literature of climate change
the relation between climate change fiction and new directions in ecocriticism
the cultural representation of specific fossil fuels and energy systems in the context of climate change
representations of the relationship between economic and environmental crises
the relation between climate change fiction and literary and cultural responses to other “traumas” of modernity
widening the canon of climate change fiction

See https://studiesinthenovel.org/submit/call-for-papers.html for the full call; send questions and submissions to studiesinthenovel@unt.edu.

Deadline: February 10, 2017.

=============

Call for Papers: The Rising Tide of Climate Change Fiction

Studies in the Novel is currently seeking submissions for a special issue on “The Rising Tide of Climate Change Fiction,” guest-edited by Stef Craps (Ghent University) and Rick Crownshaw (Goldsmiths, University of London), which will be published in spring 2018 as part of the journal’s 50th anniversary volume.

Often described as emergent, climate change fiction constitutes a by now well-established set of literary texts that has attracted the attention of both academic and non-academic communities of readers. Prominent examples include Ian McEwan’s Solar, Margaret Atwood’s MaddAdam trilogy, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior, and Nathaniel Rich’s Odds against Tomorrow.

The cultural place of this kind of writing has been confirmed by the recent publication of Adam Trexler’s survey Anthropocene Fictions: The Novel in a Time of Climate Change, amidst a growing body of literary-critical work (such as Adeline Johns-Putra’s), and the increasing acceptance into the mainstream of the “cli-fi” label.

A typical facet of much climate change fiction is its imagination of a catastrophic future world in which climatological devastation, unfolding but often imperceptible and ignored in our times, is made tangible and inescapable. Other works steer clear of the prevalent post-apocalyptic or dystopian mode: set in the present, they explore the political, ethical, and psychological dimensions and ramifications of climate change at the current moment.

In addition to the rise of fiction grappling with the representational and existential challenges thrown up by a warming planet, the last few years have seen the publication of a significant amount of sophisticated humanities scholarship theorizing climate change and its cultural framings and impacts.

 Questions of scale have been key, from the planetary imagination of environmental crisis (Ursula Heise), over the conception of climate change as a form of slow violence (Rob Nixon) or a hyperobject massively distributed in time and space (Timothy Morton), to the derangement of temporal and spatial scales by which climate change can be mapped and represented (Timothy Clark). These scalar recalibrations have been prompted by the ascendancy in the academy of the notion of the Anthropocene. Even if the inception date of the new geological epoch defined by the actions of humans is subject to debate (Simon Lewis and Mark Maslin), the conceptualization of humanity’s geological agency has afforded ways to chart the history of our species before and beyond globalized industrial capitalism and its effects on the climate (Dipesh Chakrabarty). Moreover, it has created an awareness of the need to think beyond the humanist enclosures of critical theory (Tom Cohen) and to acknowledge the interconnectedness of the human and the non-human (Jane Bennett; Stacy Alaimo). Meanwhile, postcolonial, feminist, and queer theorists have reminded us of the disparities in agency, vulnerability, and impact among the world’s people in the “age of humans” (Nicholas Mirzoeff; Elizabeth DeLoughrey; Claire Colebrook).

This rich body of theoretical work provides numerous opportunities for developing new approaches to fictions of climate change. We invite paper submissions that engage topics such as the following:


literary strategies for overcoming the imaginative difficulties posed by the vast scale and complexity of the climate crisis
conceptualizations of the Anthropocene and how they inform the theory and practice of the literature of climate change
the relation between climate change fiction and new directions in ecocriticism (especially queer, postcolonial, new materialist, and memory and trauma studies)
the cultural representation of specific fossil fuels and energy systems in the context of climate change
representations of the relationship between economic and environmental crises
the relation between climate change fiction and literary and cultural responses to other “traumas” of modernity, ranging from genocide to the nuclear threat and the discovery of geological time in the early nineteenth century
widening the canon of climate change fiction: non-Western and minority literature, non-Anglophone literature, literary production prior to the late twentieth century, cultural forms of representation other than the novel, experimental narrative fiction, “high” vs. “low” literature, speculative realism
Submissions should be sent in Microsoft Word format, devoid of personally identifiable information. Manuscripts should be 8,000-10,000 words in length, inclusive of endnotes and works-cited list, have standard formatting (1” margins, double-spaced throughout, etc.), and conform to the latest edition of the MLA Style Manual. Endnotes should be as brief and as limited in number as possible. Illustrations may accompany articles; high-resolution digital files (JPEGs preferred) must be provided upon article acceptance. All copyright permissions must be obtained by the author prior to publication.


Questions and submissions should be sent to studiesinthenovel@unt.edu
The deadline for submissions is February 10, 2017.

In an Era of Streaming, Is Traditional Cinema Under Attack?

In an Era of Streaming, Cinema Is Under Attack

By A. O. SCOTT and MANOHLA DARGIS

 

APRIL 29, 2016

                    

Seen any good movies lately? Seen any movies? Chances are you have — but maybe not in an actual theater. Americans used to adore going out to the movies, but that love has been on the rocks for decades. Once, the rival was television. Maybe it still is given that so much more of what’s produced specifically for the small screen seems so much more worthwhile (or at least watchable) than it once did. But the threat to movies appears more existential now, because the very digital revolution that has changed how movies are made has also changed how many of us watch them.

Movies are no longer only in theaters or living rooms, but also on our devices, streaming at us wherever and whenever we want them — that is, if the connection is good and you have access both to the Internet and to devices. (Less than half of lower-income households in the United States have Internet service at home.) But like every other digital advance, the on-demand era brings loss and anxiety in its wake, including whether movies — one of the defining mass arts of the 20th century — can continue to provide a communal experience. The chief film critics for The Times, Manohla Dargis and A. O. Scott, consider the state of moviegoing in an era of omnipresent screens.

MANOHLA DARGIS One of the big, possibly bad movie stories of the last few months has been Sean Parker and Prem Akkaraju’s proposed new venture, Screening Room, which would bring first-run movies into living rooms for $50 a pop for 48 hours, though customers would also have to pony up $150 for the device to stream these titles. A lot of the news stories on Screening Room have focused on the industry: Theater owners have given it the thumbs down, because it will cut into their business, as have those lovers of big-screen spectacle, Christopher Nolan and James Cameron. Those who support it include Steven Spielberg and, surprisingly, Martin Scorsese.

Right now, Screening Room sounds like a hustler’s dream, suitable mostly for agoraphobics and children’s birthday parties. But it is worrisome for what it suggests for cinema and its future. That may sound apocalyptic, but it’s not, given how fast movies zip from theaters to video on demand. It’s no wonder that the scholar David Bordwell has called the Screening Room idea “weaponized VOD.” Or that the Arthouse Convergence — a group representing more than 600 art-house cinemas and businesses — wrote an open letter that forcefully takes issue with this venture, arguing that it would devalue the in-theater experience and increase piracy. Put another way, it could destroy an entire segment of the industry — exhibition — and moviegoing itself.

Photo

The audience for a showing of “Carol” at the Metrograph, a new theater in Lower Manhattan. Credit Joshua Bright for The New York Times

A. O. SCOTT It’s been 20 years since Susan Sontag wrote that “no amount of mourning will revive the vanished rituals — erotic, ruminative — of the darkened theater.” Even then, before the arrival of the Netflix queue, moviegoing had, at least in the eyes of some cinephiles, lost its essential, sacred luster. For others, though, digital home viewing had the potential to usher in a new golden age. A decade after Sontag’s elegy, Roger Ebert hailed the DVD’s “incalculable value to those who love films.” It delivered “prints of such quality that the film can breathe before our eyes instead of merely surviving there.”

How quaint it all sounds. Ebert’s words testify to the lingering power of the old — digitally stored and projected motion pictures are technically neither “prints” nor “films” — and also to the speed with which the new passes into obsolescence. For the studios, DVDs were a boon to the bottom line, and to consumers they were collectible tokens of movie love. In any case, they didn’t last long and are now increasingly niche items rather than commodities for mass consumption. Why clutter your shelves with special editions of last year’s blockbusters when a whole mobile cinematheque is a few clicks and swipes away?

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The deeper question, though, is whether the widespread, at-your-fingertips availability of movies is a blessing or a catastrophe or a little of both. Without wanting to play the devil’s advocate — or Sean Parker’s — I’m not entirely sure that streaming is necessarily an existential threat to moviegoing. Recent market research from the Motion Picture Association of America suggests that frequent moviegoers (defined as people who see a movie in a theater at least once a month) are more likely than their more casual counterparts to own gadgets like tablets or smartphones. And also, not to be completely heretical, what’s so sacred about “the darkened cinema” anyway?

It’s often idealized as a space of collective reverence and aesthetic bliss, where photochemical alchemy unfolds in room full of worshipers. But how often does that really happen? Most of the time aren’t we just eating unhealthy snacks and watching a digital file in obnoxious company? Couldn’t we just do that at home?

DARGIS It’s nice that we can pay five bucks to stream a crummy studio movie that looked too awful to leave the house for, I suppose, but I had superior, more interesting choices at my local video stores than I do with Netflix streaming (no Douglas Sirk!) or even Amazon. If you want to stream nonindustrial product, you often need to do time-consuming digging online. And even if you do, you will never find the online equivalent of a Kim’s Video — the extraordinary New York home-video emporium that closed in 2014 — because part of what made it great was being in that store with other people.

 

The key word here is people. After all, what makes movies a mass art is that they are made on a mass scale for a mass audience, which is true even for work that’s largely exhibited on the festival and art-cinema circuit. What happens to that art when we begin to remove, well, people from part of the equation? What happens to its democratic promise, which may be a fantasy at best, a lie at worst, but remains nonetheless? When I think about Mr. Parker’s Screening Room, I flash on the image of Howard Hughes in Mr. Scorsese’s film “The Aviator,” watching films all alone in his private theater, safely isolated from the contamination known as other human beings.

For some, part of the allure of Screening Room, clearly, is that it would allow them to see first-run titles in Hughes-like isolation. There seems to be a high level of dissatisfaction with moviegoing, much of it focused on other people’s behavior, including texting. This brings to mind the days of early cinema, when theaters issued audiences dos and don’ts like take off your hats, don’t spit, don’t talk. (D. W. Griffith even made a film mocking women’s haberdashery: “Those Awful Hats.”)

But theaters aren’t monasteries, and while some movies are better watched in shared, relative quiet, others are better suited to the call-and-response of the volubly engaged audience. And quiet doesn’t mean dead. There’s something unsettling about the fetish of silence that certain moviegoers insist on. It’s partly symptomatic of a kind of art-film preciousness — shh, we’re watching art here — but also of people habituated to viewing images at home, where you can view in silence or while in full yammer. At home, we have control, not so in movie theaters, where our individual wants and needs must accommodate those of other people.

SCOTT Like the movies themselves, moviegoing has changed dramatically from one decade to the next. The nickelodeons of the earliest days gave way to movie palaces, which were supplemented by humbler main-street Bijoux and Roxys. In the ’30s, the major home-entertainment platforms were radio and the upright piano in the parlor, and movies offered a cheap, accessible and climate-controlled escape. And millions of people went often, less out of reverence than out of habit, returning every week to take in double features, shorts and serials, newsreels and cartoons. Cinema in its Classical Age was also destination television.

In the postwar years, the rise of car culture and the growth of the suburbs planted drive-ins in wide-open spaces, while grindhouses, art houses and campus film societies flourished in the cities and college towns. Moviegoing has never been just one thing.

                   

And people are still doing it! The M.P.A.A. notes that theater attendance increased by around 4 percent in North America in 2015, after wobbling and dipping in the previous few years. The highly scientific explanation for this, as you and I have discussed, is that the studios released a lot of movies that people were eager to leave the house to see, including “Jurassic World,” “Trainwreck,” “Straight Outta Compton” and “Inside Out.”

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On a recent Saturday in Lower Manhattan, I bought a ticket to see a 35-millimeter print of an old movie (“The Big Clock”) at a brand-new theater (the Metrograph) staffed by eager youngsters sporting vintage threads and fresh tattoos. The popcorn was organically grown; the Milk Duds ethically sourced. There was a degree of self-conscious retro-ness to the experience that I found bittersweet, because it was inspired by someone else’s nostalgia for something I knew firsthand. At the other extreme, a few months back, I attended a “premiere” of a virtual reality “film” at which people were seated in rows with goggles pressed to their eyes, each one nodding and twisting in a private reverie. Sometimes I feel whipsawed between the future and the past. I like going to the movies. I like reading books on paper and listening to music on vinyl. I also enjoy the modern world, and I’m always curious as well as worried about where it’s headed.

DARGIS One doesn’t need to be an alarmist or a nostalgist to know that there’s much about the contemporary art and industry to be concerned about. The major players have forced the industry to shift from film to digital, and now, courtesy of Screening Room, they are flirting with an idea that could irreparably damage theaters and perhaps endanger the theatrical experience and the art both. I don’t think that will happen — as we know from the Metrograph and theaters like the Cinefamily in Los Angeles — there is an audience (and a young one) willing to leave the house to watch movies.

Still, the notion that moviegoing could become a specialized pursuit for certain knowing audiences — like going to a jazz club — is bleak. Many more people watch movies than listen to jazz and always will. But it’s also true that a lot of what we watch, including in movie theaters, is television. Some of this is good television, much of it is mediocre, but it is television in that it has been produced, big yakking heads and all, to be viewed on small (home) screens. This isn’t about movies versus television and whether one is superior to the other (the mediums have long influenced each other). It’s about larger, more difficult questions: What happens to movies if they are made to be watched only at home? Isn’t that television? What, then, is the cinematic? Because, in some important ways (including experientially), television is closer kin to radio than to cinema.

SCOTT Interesting that you bring up radio, a medium that, like the movies, is believed to be wobbling toward extinction, undone by streaming services and podcasting. Movies and radio are the twin progenitors of the modernity we inhabit. Radio got the world hooked on recorded music and the sounds of strangers’ voices in our private spaces. Movies begat our addiction to screens. And both seem to be in danger of being devoured by their offspring, by the power of the appetites they unleashed.

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We’re increasingly able to bring the movies home, and also to bring the comforts of home with us wherever we go. Moviegoing is not what it used to be, for sure, but I suspect it will flourish as long as it answers to the primal human urge to get out of the house.

 

A version of this article appears in print on May 1, 2016, on page AR19 of the New York edition with the headline: ''Under Attack''. 

Antarctic Cli-Fi: A discussion and book-signing at Darthmouth College with German cli-fi novelist Ilija Trojanow

Antarctic Cli-Fi:

A discussion and book-signing with German cli-fi novelist Ilija Trojanow -- author of THE LAMENTATIONS OF ZENO, newly translated by Philip Boehm

May 12, 2016

7 pm

Moore Room B-03

Sponsored by: The German Department

 

A discussion and book-signing with Ilija Trojanow (Author, "Eistau"/"The Lamentations of Zeno"; and Ross A. Virginia (Director, Institute of Arctic Studies; Myers Family Professor of Environmental Science at Dartmouth)

The Four Questions (Sometimes Five)

This interview is part of a series we are calling The Four Questions (Sometimes Five). That’s how many we’ll be seeking answers for from a wide variety of climate activists and cli-fi novelists, some well-known and some you’ve probably never heard of. 


QUESTION ONE: When you first came up with your personal concept and coinage of the "cli-fi" term in 2008, a term which was largely ignored by the blogosphere and the mainstream media until Judith Curry at Georgeia Tech blogged about cli-fi on her "Climate Etc" blog in late 2012 and just a few month later blasted into the ethersphere by Angela Evancie's brilliant piece  for NPR on April 20, 2013 -- and with your self-appointed mission with using the eye-catching new genre to help spur more novels and movies about global warming isses -- you appeared to express some optimism about the chances of the term catching on and serving as a literary platform for interested novelists and screenwriters in Hollywood.  In the years since then, have you become more optimistic or less optimistic?

QUESTION TWO: Do you think national leaders an  world leaders across the globe have heard of the cli-fi genre and "get" it?  And, if not, why not?

QUESTION THREE: Who are your own climate activist heroes? Name five?

DAN BLOOM: Andy Revkin at his ''Dot Earth'' blog carried by the New York Times; Margaret Atwood with her solid Twitter following and tweets about climate issues both in her native Canada and worldwde; Kim Stanley Robinson, the science fiction writer with a deep sense of  concern for future generations in terms of what global warming impact events might do to our descendants 500 years from now (and with his new cli-fi novel "New York 2140" set for release on Spring Equinox Day on March 21, 2017); David Brin, the science fiction writer with a deep concern for climate change issues as both a physiticist and a novelist especially for his novels ''Earth'' and ''The Postman;" and journalist Eliza Cozzarina in Italy for her contiuing reporting on cli-fi novelists in Italy and around the world.



QUESTION FOUR: You have said in several interviews that one thing you are doing with the cli-fi meme and motif is that you are looking for the "On The Beach" of climate change, hopefully to be published with the fame kind of global impact that that 1957 novel (and movie) by Nevil Shute had in the 1950s and 1960s over nuclear war and nuclear winter issues. Have you found that book yet, or the person who might write it?

DAN BLOOM: I am still looking. It might not surface for another 30 or 40 years. These things take time to incubate. But I am sure it will be published sometime in the 21st Century for sure.

QUESTION FIVE: Many of us know now that the personal is political. But if you had to urge people to to do just one personal thing and one political thing to address climate change, what would those be?

DAN BLOOM: On a personal level, spend more time being a climate activist in your own local way, and based on your own personal skill sets (and at the same time stop spending so much time on internet cat videos and pop culture distractions ... and on a political level, stop using cars and airplanes, period. Vote with your feet. We are at war.
 

Enter the Thunderdrome: Inside the world's largest post-apocalyptic festival where thousands of Mad Max fans gather in the desert

• Wasteland Weekend is an annual four-day festival that allows lovers of the Mad Max movie franchise to see what it is really like to live in a society where civilization is crumbling
• For many, the end of the world might seem daunting, but for these festival goers a post-apocalyptic world in the middle of a Californian desert is a form of escapism
• At least this is the case for Mike Orr who is known as 'Sweet Lips' at Wasteland and who described the event as 'spiritual' and 'inspirational'
• The four-day post-apocalyptic party in the Mojave desert began in 2010 and has seen steady growth each year - this year's event is set to be held from September 22 to 25

By Dailymail.com Reporter

Published: 02:36 GMT, 29 April 2016 | Updated: 17:23 GMT, 29 April 2016

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For many, the end of the world might seem daunting, but for these festival goers a post-apocalyptic world in the middle of a Californian desert is a form of escapism.

At least this is the case for Mike Orr who is known as 'Sweet Lips' at Wasteland Weekend - the annual four-day festival that allows lovers of the Mad Max movie franchise to see what it is really like to live in a society where civilization is crumbling.

'It's the end of the world,' Orr said of Wasteland which attracts thousands from across the country. 'You get to do whatever you want to do.'

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For many, the end of the world might seem daunting, but for Wasteland Weekend festival goers, a post-apocalyptic world in the middle of a Californian desert is a form of escapism. Attendees pictured above at last year's festival

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Wasteland Weekend is the annual four-day festival that allows lovers of the Mad Max movie franchise to see what it is really like to live in a society where civilization is crumbling

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For Mike Orr (pictured at last year's event) who is known as Sweet Lips at Wasteland, the festival is an opportunity where 'you get to do whatever you want to do'

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Attendees of the event are required to be decked out in costumes with festival organizers designing elaborate sets complete with Mad Max-style cars. In his first year, Orr built a car customized with a mermaid figure head from an underwater sunken pirate ship (pictured)

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Orr, a life support aquarist at a public aquarium in Las Vegas, said he first learned of the festival through a former partner and their first year going, they decided to build a car. Last year, he refurbished the hulk of the Exxon Valdez from the 1995 thriller Waterworld (pictured)

Each year, attendees of the event are required to be decked out in costumes while at the festival's wasteland compound with organizers designing elaborate sets complete with Mad Max-style cars. Festival goers also drive out to the event in custom-made vehicles.

Orr, a life support aquarist at a public aquarium in Las Vegas, said he first learned of the festival through a former partner and their first year going, they decided to build a car.

He said he has worked on cars casually, rebuilding engines, but he described the competition to outdo himself by constructing a junkyard monster better than the previous year as an 'addiction.'

'It's an obsession,' he says in a documentary by MEL Films during last year's festival. 'But more than that, it's a passion. I'm married to this... even though I said I'd never get married again.'

In his first year at Wasteland, he acquired a '79 Camaro. For a week, they worked on the car, customizing it with a mermaid figure head taken from an underwater sunken pirate ship at the aquarium, and a harpoon made of air conditioning and heading duct work as well as a fence post anchor.

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Wasteland: A 4-day post-apocalyptic festival in CA

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A group of festival goers walk through the gates of Wasteland for the annual four-day event in a Southern California desert in 2015

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During the event, attendees get to see live bands and DJs from California, Nevada and Arizona perform as well as combat and stunt performers

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Wasteland Weekend is held in a fenced-off area in the open desert and security, portable toilets and sinks are provided during the event. Scene's from last year's festival shown above

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Attendees show up to the event in an armada of post-apocalyptic vehicles driven from around the country (one pictured above last year)

'As we're walking into the gate with the sign overhead that says Wasteland, it was like... being baptized,' Orr recalled of his first time entering through the gates of the festival.

The four-day post-apocalyptic party in the Mojave desert began in 2010 and has seen steady growth each year.

Now it is the largest post-apocalyptic themed festival in the world, with last year's being the biggest event to date with 2,500 festival goers. 

Over the years, fixtures of the Wasteland Weekend environment have emerged and include bounty hunting games, a bonfire dance pit, a film festival and a fire spinning area.

'There's a spiritual aspect to Wasteland weekend and the people who attend it,' Orr said. 

'You have all this armor on and spikes and everything like that... it's emulating the end of the world. It's an escapism. You come here and you can be whatever you want to be.'

He added: 'The big draw is really the creative, inspirational, off-the-wall things that it makes me do because I see what other people are doing. 

'It's a spirituality, it's a philosophy and it's a family... it's the people that make this what it is.'

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Two festival goers show off their junkyard creation. The festival also includes fire dancers, wasteland burlesque, a post-apocalyptic-style sideshow and circus acts

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The festival's elaborate sets are meant to replicate a post-apocalyptic world and are based on the movie franchise Mad Max

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Enthusiasts wear elaborate costumes for the festival, which is a requirement, and also carry life-like looking props during last year's event

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One festival goer is pictured with his fellow pet which is also adorning a costume head adornment

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Over the years, fixtures of the Wasteland Weekend environment have emerged and include bounty hunting games, a bonfire dance pit, a film festival and a fire spinning area

Orr who has now attended the festival for the past three years and plans to keep attending each year said as far as devising his next junkyard monster, he is scared considering his creation last year.

Last year's festival saw Orr refurbish the hulk of the Exxon Valdez from the 1995 Kevin Costner thriller Waterworld, measuring more than 100 feet long, which he bought for only $1.

'As far as developing the next big thing, that scares me. It really does,' Orr said during last year's festival. 'We built a ship in a desert. Next year, what, a 747?'

Wasteland Weekend, an adults-only event, is held in a fenced-off area in the open desert and security, portable toilets and sinks are provided. This year's festival is set to be held from September 22 to 25.

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The four-day post-apocalyptic party in the Mojave desert began in 2010 and has seen steady growth each year

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Over the years, fixtures of the Wasteland Weekend environment have emerged and include bounty hunting games, a bonfire dance pit, a film festival and a fire spinning area

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 A festival goer poses next to one of the Mad Max-style vehicles during the Wasteland Weekend festival in the Mojave desert

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Wasteland Weekend attendees in outlandish costumes ride on one of their junkyard monster creations

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Wasteland Weekend features more than 100 customized, fan-built Mad Max-style cars and motorcycles, driven out from all over the continent. This year's event is set to be held from September 22 to 25

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3564829/World-s-largest-post-apocalyptic-festival-sees-thousands-Mad-Max-fans-gather-Californian-desert.html#ixzz47HpXdCic
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