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References to climate change in popular culture have existed since the late 20th century and increased in the 21st century. Climate change, its impacts, and related human-environment interactions have been featured in nonfiction books and documentaries, but also literature, film, music, television shows and video games.
Science historian Naomi Oreskes noted in 2005 "a huge disconnect between what professional scientists have studied and learned in the last 30 years, and what is out there in the popular culture." [1] An academic study in 2000 contrasted the relatively rapid acceptance of ozone depletion as reflected in popular culture with the much slower acceptance of the scientific consensus on climate change. [2] Cultural responses have been posited as an important part of communicating climate change, but commentators have noted covering the topic has posed challenges due to its abstract nature. [3] [4] The prominence of climate change in popular culture increased during the 2010s, influenced by the climate movement, shifts in public opinion and changes in media coverage. [5] [6]
An important tool for evaluating the presence of climate change in popular culture is the Climate Reality Check. Like the Bechdel Test, it is a simple tool for evaluating climate change in any form of media, and consists of two conditions: "Climate change exists" in a narrative, and "a character knows it." [7] An analysis of 250 of the most popular fictional films released between 2013 and 2022 and set in the present, recent past, or future found that only 12.8% passed the first part of the Climate Reality Check, and 9.6% passed the second part. [8]
Omnipresent and relevant, yet abstract and statistical by nature, as well as invisible for the naked eye – climate change is a subject matter in need for perception and cognition support par excellence. [9]
Climate change art is art inspired by climate change and global warming, generally intended to overcome humans' hardwired tendency to value personal experience over data and to disengage from data-based representations by making the data "vivid and accessible". One of the goal of climate change art is to "raise awareness of the crisis", [10] as well as engage viewers politically and environmentally. [11]
Some climate change art involves community involvement with the environment. [10] Other approaches involve revealing socio-political concerns through their various artistic forms, [12] such as painting, video, photography, sound and films. These works are intended to encourage viewers to reflect on their daily actions "in a socially responsible manner to preserve and protect the planet". [12]
Climate change art is created both by scientists and by non-scientist artists. The field overlaps with data art.Climate change has been an occasional topic in fictional cinema. [13] Nicholas Barber opined in BBC Culture that Hollywood films seldom feature climate change mechanisms due to the difficulty of tying the topic to individual characters, and due to fears of alienating audiences; instead, impacts of climate change have been more frequently depicted as a consequence of nuclear or geoengineering accidents. [4]
This refers to the classification non-fiction, without regard to whether the books are accurate or intended to be accurate.
Climate fiction (sometimes shortened to cli-fi) is literature that deals with climate change. [32] Generally speculative in nature but inspired by climate science, works of climate fiction may take place in the world as we know it, in the near future, or in fictional worlds experiencing climate change. The genre frequently includes science fiction and dystopian or utopian themes, imagining the potential futures based on how humanity responds to the impacts of climate change. Climate fiction typically involves anthropogenic climate change and other environmental issues as opposed to weather and disaster more generally. Technologies such as climate engineering or climate adaptation practices often feature prominently in works exploring their impacts on society.
The term "cli-fi" is generally credited to freelance news reporter and climate activist Dan Bloom, who coined it in either 2007 or 2008. [32] [33] References to "climate fiction" appear to have begun in the 2010s, although the term has also been retroactively applied to a number of works. [34] [35] Pioneering 20th century authors of climate fiction include J. G. Ballard and Octavia E. Butler, while dystopian fiction from Margaret Atwood is often cited as an immediate precursor to the genre's emergence. Since 2010, prominent cli-fi authors include Kim Stanley Robinson, Richard Powers, Paolo Bacigalupi, and Barbara Kingsolver. The publication of Robinson's The Ministry for the Future in 2020 helped cement the genre's emergence; the work generated presidential and United Nations mentions and an invitation for Robinson to meet planners at the Pentagon. [36]
University courses on literature and environmental issues may include climate change fiction in their syllabi. [37] This body of literature has been discussed by a variety of publications, including The New York Times , The Guardian , and Dissent magazine, among other international media outlets. [38] Lists of climate fiction have been compiled by organizations including Grist, Outside Magazine, and the New York Public Library. [39] Academics and critics study the potential impact of fiction on the broader field of climate change communication.Climate change has been a topic of some popular music, particularly during the 2010s. [5] [40] [41] The topic has been discussed in various genres, including pop, folk, electronic music and heavy metal. [6] The New York Times found 192 references to climate change in English-language songs that entered the Billboard charts between 1999 and 2019, with around half of those (87 songs) between 2015 and 2019. [5]
The Holocene extinction, also referred to as the Anthropocene extinction, is an ongoing extinction event caused by human activities during the Holocene epoch. This extinction event spans numerous families of plants and animals, including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and invertebrates, impacting both terrestrial and marine species. Widespread degradation of biodiversity hotspots such as coral reefs and rainforests has exacerbated the crisis. Many of these extinctions are undocumented, as the species are often undiscovered before their extinctions.
The Anthropocene is a now rejected proposal for the name of a geological epoch that would follow the Holocene, dating from the commencement of significant human impact on Earth up to the present day. It was rejected in 2024 by the International Commission on Stratigraphy in terms of being a defined geologic period. The impacts of humans affect Earth's oceans, geology, geomorphology, landscape, limnology, hydrology, ecosystems and climate. The effects of human activities on Earth can be seen for example in biodiversity loss and climate change. Various start dates for the Anthropocene have been proposed, ranging from the beginning of the Neolithic Revolution, to as recently as the 1960s. The biologist Eugene F. Stoermer is credited with first coining and using the term anthropocene informally in the 1980s; Paul J. Crutzen re-invented and popularized the term. However, in 2024 the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) and the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) rejected the Anthropocene Epoch proposal for inclusion in the Geologic Time Scale.
An ecological or environmental crisis occurs when changes to the environment of a species or population destabilizes its continued survival. Some of the important causes include:
Environmental degradation is the deterioration of the environment through depletion of resources such as quality of air, water and soil; the destruction of ecosystems; habitat destruction; the extinction of wildlife; and pollution. It is defined as any change or disturbance to the environment perceived to be deleterious or undesirable. The environmental degradation process amplifies the impact of environmental issues which leave lasting impacts on the environment.
Human impact on the environment refers to changes to biophysical environments and to ecosystems, biodiversity, and natural resources caused directly or indirectly by humans. Modifying the environment to fit the needs of society is causing severe effects including global warming, environmental degradation, mass extinction and biodiversity loss, ecological crisis, and ecological collapse. Some human activities that cause damage to the environment on a global scale include population growth, neoliberal economic policies and rapid economic growth, overconsumption, overexploitation, pollution, and deforestation. Some of the problems, including global warming and biodiversity loss, have been proposed as representing catastrophic risks to the survival of the human species.
Mark Lynas is a British author and journalist whose work is focused on environmentalism and climate change. He has written for the New Statesman, The Ecologist, Granta and Geographical magazines, and The Guardian and The Observer newspapers in the UK, as well as The New York Times and The Washington Post in the United States; he also worked on and appeared in the film The Age of Stupid. He was born in Fiji, grew up in Peru, Spain and the United Kingdom and holds a degree in history and politics from the University of Edinburgh. He has published several books including Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet (2007) and The God Species: Saving the Planet in the Age of Humans (2011).
Laurie Ellen David is an American environmental activist, producer, and writer. She produced the Academy Award–winning An Inconvenient Truth (2006) and partnered with Katie Couric to executive produce Fed Up (2014), a film about the causes of obesity in the United States. She serves as a trustee on the Natural Resources Defense Council and a member of the Advisory Board of the Children's Nature Institute and is a contributing blogger to The Huffington Post.
An Inconvenient Truth is a 2006 American documentary film directed by Davis Guggenheim about former vice president of the United States Al Gore's campaign to educate people about global warming. The film features a slide show that, by Gore's own estimate, he has presented over 1,000 times to audiences worldwide.
The Weather Makers: The History and Future Impact of Climate Change is a 2005 book by Australian scientist Tim Flannery. It discusses climate change, its scientific basis and effects, and potential solutions.
The 11th Hour is a 2007 documentary film on the state of the natural environment created, produced, co-written and narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio. It was directed by Leila Conners Petersen and Nadia Conners and financed by Adam Lewis and Pierre André Senizergues, and distributed by Warner Independent Pictures.
Dimmock v Secretary of State for Education and Skills was a case heard in September–October 2007 in the High Court of Justice of England and Wales, concerning the permissibility of the government providing Al Gore's climate change documentary An Inconvenient Truth to English state schools as a teaching aid.
Al Gore is an American politician and environmentalist. He was vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001, the Democratic Party's presidential nominee in 2000, and the co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He has been involved with the environmental activist movement for a number of decades and has had full participation since he left the vice-presidency in 2001.
Climate crisis is a term that is used to describe global warming and climate change and their effects. This term and the term climate emergency have been used to emphasize the threat of global warming to Earth's natural environment and to humans, and to urge aggressive climate change mitigation and transformational adaptation.
Environmental issues are disruptions in the usual function of ecosystems. Further, these issues can be caused by humans or they can be natural. These issues are considered serious when the ecosystem cannot recover in the present situation, and catastrophic if the ecosystem is projected to certainly collapse.
An Inconvenient Truth...Or Convenient Fiction? is an American documentary film by Steven F. Hayward, produced by the Pacific Research Institute, and filmed at The Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. It was released on April 12, 2007. The film seeks to address inconsistencies in the film An Inconvenient Truth, which was released the year before, in 2006.
Climate fiction is literature that deals with climate change. Generally speculative in nature but inspired by climate science, works of climate fiction may take place in the world as we know it, in the near future, or in fictional worlds experiencing climate change. The genre frequently includes science fiction and dystopian or utopian themes, imagining the potential futures based on how humanity responds to the impacts of climate change. Climate fiction typically involves anthropogenic climate change and other environmental issues as opposed to weather and disaster more generally. Technologies such as climate engineering or climate adaptation practices often feature prominently in works exploring their impacts on society.
Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret is a 2014 American documentary film produced and directed by Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn. The film explores the impact of animal agriculture on the environment—examining such environmental concerns as climate change, water use, deforestation, and ocean dead zones—and investigates the policies of several environmental organizations on the issue.
An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power is a 2017 American concert film/documentary film, directed by Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk, about former United States Vice President Al Gore's continuing mission to battle climate change. The sequel to An Inconvenient Truth (2006), the film addresses the progress made to tackle the problem and Gore's global efforts to persuade governmental leaders to invest in renewable energy, culminating in the landmark signing of 2016's Paris Agreement. The film was released on July 28, 2017, by Paramount Pictures, and grossed over $5 million worldwide. It received a nomination for Best Documentary at the 71st British Academy Film Awards.
An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power: Your Action Handbook to Learn the Science, Find Your Voice, and Help Solve the Climate Crisis is a book by former Vice President and environmental activist Al Gore. It was written in conjunction with his 2017 documentary film, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, and is a sequel to his 2006 book An Inconvenient Truth, published concurrently with his documentary of the same name. It was published on July 25, 2017 by Rodale, Inc. in Emmaus, Pennsylvania.
Our Planet is a British nature documentary series made for Netflix. The series is narrated by David Attenborough and produced by Silverback Films, led by Alastair Fothergill and Keith Scholey, who also created BBC documentary series Planet Earth, Frozen Planet and The Blue Planet, in collaboration with the conservation charity World Wildlife Fund (WWF). The soundtrack was composed by Steven Price.