‘Cli-fi’ can help us get ‘woke’ about climate change’s gut issues

For American Lutheran pastor Leah Schade, good fiction has the ability to change lives and spur action. She goes even further, tweeting the other day that “Cli-fi writers can help us get “woke” about climate change.”

I liked that way of putting it: that climate fiction, a new genre also known as cli-fi, can help get people “woke” about global warming issues worldwide, not from a scientific angle so much as from an emotional, gut reaction angle. That’s the power of literature. That’s the power of cli-fi.

A professor of preaching and worship in the USA, and the author of book titled “Creation-Crisis Preaching,” Dr Schade is a climate and environmental activist, an active and articulate blogger on religion and culture. I call her an ”EcoPreacher.”

In a recent blog post, Dr Schade started with a headline that reads ”We’ve Lost the Climate War, It’s Time to Surrender.”

It’s a fascinating read, and the entire blog post is here. She ends the piece with these four sentences.

I, for one, am willing to surrender. I want our leaders to come to the table and accept Nature’s terms. I want us to survive. I want peace with this planet.

To find out what she meant, and to read more about this pioneering Christian thinker with an eye firmly on the dangers and risks of runaway climate change, read her blog posts. New articles go up weekly.