The Anthropocene ( ) is a proposed geological epoch dating from the commencement of significant human impact on Earth until now. It affects Earth's geology, landscape, limnology, 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 as a starting date.
Gilbert Sorrentino was an American novelist, short story writer, poet, literary critic, professor, and editor.
George Saunders is an American writer of short stories, essays, novellas, children's books, and novels. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, McSweeney's, and GQ. He also contributed a weekly column, "American Psyche", to The Guardian's weekend magazine between 2006 and 2008.
Amitava Kumar is an Indian writer and journalist who is Professor of English, holding the Helen D. Lockwood Chair at Vassar College.
Chet Raymo is a noted writer, educator and naturalist. He is Professor Emeritus of Physics at Stonehill College, in Easton, Massachusetts. His weekly newspaper column "Science Musings" appeared in the Boston Globe for twenty years. This is now a daily blog by him. Raymo espouses his religious naturalism in When God is Gone Everything is Holy – The Making of a Religious Naturalist and frequently in his blog. As Raymo says – "I attend to this infinitely mysterious world with reverence, awe, thanksgiving, praise. All religious qualities." Raymo has been a contributor to The Notre Dame Magazine and Scientific American.
Lynn Freed is a writer known for her work as a novelist, essayist, and writer of short stories.
Jay Parini is an American writer and academic. He is known for novels, poetry, biography, screenplays and criticism. He has published novels about Leo Tolstoy, Walter Benjamin, Paul the Apostle, and Herman Melville.
Naomi Oreskes is an American historian of science. She became Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University in 2013, after 15 years as Professor of History and Science Studies at the University of California, San Diego.
Laila Lalami is a Moroccan-American novelist, essayist, and professor. After earning her licence ès lettres degree in Morocco, she received a fellowship to study in the United Kingdom (UK), where she earned an MA in linguistics.
Peter Orner is an American writer. He is the author of two novels, two story collections and a book of essays. Orner holds the Professorship of English and Creative Writing at Dartmouth College and was formerly a professor of creative writing at San Francisco State University. He spent 2016 and 2017 on a Fulbright in Namibia teaching at the University of Namibia.
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.
John B. Logan was an American poet and teacher.
Tony D'Souza is an American novelist, journalist, essayist, reviewer, travel, and short story writer. He has published three novels with the publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt including: Whiteman (2006), The Konkans (2008), and Mule (2011).
Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming is a 2010 non-fiction book by American historians of science Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway. It identifies parallels between the global warming controversy and earlier controversies over tobacco smoking, acid rain, DDT, and the hole in the ozone layer. Oreskes and Conway write that in each case "keeping the controversy alive" by spreading doubt and confusion after a scientific consensus had been reached was the basic strategy of those opposing action. In particular, they show that Fred Seitz, Fred Singer, and a few other contrarian scientists joined forces with conservative think tanks and private corporations to challenge the scientific consensus on many contemporary issues.
John D'Agata is an American essayist. He is the author or editor of six books of nonfiction, including The Next American Essay (2003), The Lost Origins of the Essay (2009) and The Making of the American Essay—all part of the trilogy of essay anthologies called "A New History of the Essay". He also wrote The Lifespan of a Fact, "Halls of Fame", and "About a Mountain".
Climate fiction is literature that deals with climate change. Generally speculative in nature but inspired by climate science, works 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. The genre typically focuses on 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.
Andreas Malm is a Swedish author and an associate professor of human ecology at Lund University. He is on the editorial board of the academic journal Historical Materialism, and has been described as a Marxist. Naomi Klein, who quoted Malm in her book This Changes Everything, has called him "one of the most original thinkers on the subject" of climate change.
How to Blow Up a Pipeline: Learning to Fight in a World on Fire is a nonfiction book written by Andreas Malm and published in 2021 by Verso Books. In the book, Malm argues that sabotage is a logical form of climate activism, and criticizes both pacifism within the climate movement and "climate fatalism" outside it. The book inspired a film of the same name.
War Porn is a anti-war novel by Roy Scranton completed in 2011 and published in 2016 by Soho Press.
The Capitalocene is a proposed epoch of human and natural history, posed as an alternative to the “Anthropocene” era. The Anthropocene is a geologic era defined by the human species' impact on the Earth, as exemplified by deforestation, mass extinction, and the introduction of manmade waste materials into the environment, but above all by anthropogenic global warming. Scholars of the Capitalocene, in contrast, attribute these changes not to humanity as such, but to the capitalist mode of production and its need for infinite growth, its dependence on fossil fuels, and its compulsion of capitalists to seek profit without regard to “external” or long-term consequences.
