Steve Willis and Jan Lee, authors of the recently published book Fairhaven – A Novel of Climate Optimism, discuss the importance of telling climate stories, as they have the potential to impact public opinion and even change history.
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By Steve Willis and Jan Lee
According to data released in February by the European Union climate monitor, over the past 12 months, the average temperature worldwide was more than 1.5C higher than it was at the dawn of the industrial age. In short, we’re toast. Right?
Well, that is what the dominant narrative in popular books and movies would have us believe. No Kindle library of “cli-fi”, as climate fiction is now called, is complete without apocalyptic hell-scapes like those depicted in The Drowned World, American War, and The Water Knife. Movies about climate change, including The Day After Tomorrow (2004) revel in the billions of deaths coming our way; its modern, metaphorical partner, Don’t Look Up, ends with (spoiler alert!) the destruction of the earth and human race.
These stories matter, because popular fiction and film directly impact public opinion and can even change history.
We know this is true because it has happened before. In the 19th century, the public view of human slavery in the United States took a dramatic turn with the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe; it is sometimes called “the book that started the [Civil] War”. In the early 20th century, Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, although it was originally written as an exposé of immigrant working conditions, caught the public imagination due to its depiction of unsanitary meat packing and was named “… the final precipitating force behind both a meat inspection law and a comprehensive food and drug law,” according to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
More recently, the sitcom Will and Grace transformed Americans’ opinions on a major social topic: same-sex relationships. According to a study at the University of California (UCLA), “increased viewing frequency and parasocial interaction were found to correlate with lower levels of sexual prejudice – a relationship that was most pronounced for those with the least amount of social contact with lesbians and gay men.”
In 2012, Joe Biden, then US vice president, said the show had been a factor in his decision to support marriage equality. It wasn’t the first time fiction had impacted White House policy: the night he watched made-for-TV movie The Day After about an atomic holocaust, former president Ronald Reagan wrote in his diary, “My own reaction was one of our having to do all we can to have a deterrent & to see there is never a nuclear war.”
Will and Grace stands out among these examples because it portrays a positive, optimistic situation rather than a negative warning. The phenomenon of “parasocial contact” with fictional characters can provide positive psychological reinforcement to the viewers who accept them as (imaginary) friends. And as any parent knows, positive reinforcement gets better results than threats.
When it comes to climate change, dystopian cli-fi stories frighten and depress readers and viewers. It can even contribute to the increasing phenomenon of climate anxiety, especially in children. On the other hand, positive portrayal of climate-friendly action can encourage readers to do the same. In a 2023 study by the University of Southampton, 50 readers were asked to read a book showcasing green behaviors (Habitat Man), and all but one of the readers changed their behavior on at least one activity.
Science fiction great Ursula K. Leguin understood this enormous potential when she said, “The exercise of imagination … has the power to show that the way things are is not permanent, not universal, not necessary.”
This knowledge is what led us to write a new work of climate fiction, Fairhaven – A Novel of Climate Optimism. The story, set mainly in Asia, turns the idea of climate dystopia on its head by portraying real, workable solutions in their scaled-up, implementation phase. These include coastal adaptation, rigs-to-reef marine restoration, and Arctic refreezing.
Fairhaven opens in 2036 as Grace Chan is days away from assuming office as the President of the newly-formed Ocean Independent State. Driving along the edge of a dyke in the imagined “Fairhaven” coastal protection project of Penang, Malaysia, her truck crashes. The tide is rising, and she is stuck. As she reviews her life, the reader comes to understand what has brought her (and the world) to this point, how she will move forward, and the surprising role that ordinary individuals can play. Her story explores the implications, both at the global scale and and on a deeply personal level, of our common dilemma and the possibilities that are open to us.
By telling the personal stories of Grace Chan, Marina Zainal and Kenji Fujimoto as they live and work on these projects, we help readers envision what effective climate solutions might look like, and what the individual role of each person might be. Readers from such diverse walks of life as fishermen, human resources officers, and industrialists will see people like themselves depicted, and understand better how they might contribute.
It can be hard to stay positive given the state of reality. People often quote F. Scott Fitzgerald, who said, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” However, too often the second part of his statement is forgotten: “One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless yet be determined to make them otherwise.”
The characters in Fairhaven do not have an easy time of it, and neither will we. But they persevere and succeed, because they can envision a future where in the end, it all works out.
We have seen too many “Mad Max” futures in fiction. With our book, we hope that readers will come for the story, but leave with a message: a Fairhaven future is not only preferable, but possible.
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