Q. Could you please share with us your inspiration for coining the term cli-fi? How did it come to you?
I had been thinking about climate change and global warming very seriously since 2006, and since I am not a scientist, I wanted to try to find a way to use novels and short stories and poems and movies about climate to try to wake people up around the world about the future we might face if we cannot solve the major climate problems of today. So I came up with cli fi, modelling it after the sci fi genre term, and while sci fi is usually about space and trips to Mars, cli fi is about our life on Earth now and in the coming future. I am not a novelist. But I have worked for 40 years as a newspaper reporter in the USA and Japan and Taiwan, so I know the power of words to influence people.
Q. Why do you feel climate fiction requires its own genre? How is it different from science fiction?
I feel that by giving a label to climate-themed novels and movies, it can help readers and viewers focus on the issues involved. What is different is that sci fi is about clocks that strike 13 and trips to far away planets. Cli fi is about the here and now or about the near future, say in 500 to 100 years. It could also be about the distant future or even the past, like the Biblical story of Noah and the flood that will soon be a movie from Hollywood titled NOAH and starring Russeel Crowe. It is a cli fi movie, for sure.
Q. Can you please tell us a little bit about the response you have received so far? Any memorable experience that have stayed with you?
The response so far, over the past year especially when the USA and UK media began to talk about cli fi in news stories, has been positive and welcoming. Many writers have written to me and told me about the novels they are writing now and they are so glad there is now a genre that they can their climate novel into.
Q. Could you please name your top three cli-fi recommendations? Could you also suggest some titles for children and young adults?
There are many good cli fi novels to choose from and I am not a literary critic, so I prefer to stay in the background and let readers find their own books. But a woman in Canada named Mary Woodbury, who also writes cli fi novels under the pen name of Clara Hume, titled "Back to the Garden", has created a website that lists all cli fi novels past and present at CLI FI BOOKS and see http://clifibooks.com
A writer named Mindy McGinnis has written a very good YA cli fi novel titled "Not A Drop to Drink". And Indian film director Shekar Kapur is currently working on a script for a cli fi movie tited "PAANI" about water wars in the future.
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Q. Could you please share your opinion on mainstreaming climate science? Do you foresee a shift in perspectives regarding climate change, post cli-fi?
I am not a scientist or an educator, so I really cannot respond to the question about mainstreaming climate science, but please explain this idea to me. I want to know what it means. Post cli-fi, if we ever get to that point where humankind has gone beyond cli fi, I envision a world where humans cling to hope and optimism that we will have solved the climate problems using our brains and our technology. I am an optimist. I also hope many Indian novelists will start writing cli fi novels.
Q. Could you please share your future plans with us? What are you working on now?
I am 65 and I hope to live for another 20 years. I plan to spend the rest of life promoting cli fi as a genre to the world media, and this is now my life's work, not for money or fame, I get no money from this and I do not care about fame or status. UI am an independent dreamer and visionary. My current project within the cli fi work is to set up a world literary prize for the best cli fi novel and award the first award in 2020. So I am working on raising funds now for the award,which will be open to writers in all nations in any language and come with a purse of US$1 million. This my dream.