In a world of woe, from the Middle East to Trumplandia and China, whither ‘cli-fi’ in the next 100 years?

The quiet blogging work I am doing now and have been doing for the past six years with the cli-fi genre hasn’t born any fruit and won’t bear fruit — if any fruit at all — who knows? — until 50 years from now, maybe 100 years from now, around 2117. Until then, will there be any full-fledged cli-fi novels or movies written and publicized to wide, receptive audiences in several languages worldwide?

Most likely, this will take time, and time is running out. Will the new literary and movie genre of cli-fi ever bear fruit or will it be forgotten and assigned to the dustbin of the early 21st century? Time will tell.

And what can cli-fi do, you ask? Well, a mere novel or a mere movie cannot stop man-made global warming. Perhaps dozens of such novels and movies over the next 50 years might have some impact, but it’s doubtful. The Earth is not in the mood for literary things.

But what cli-fi novels and movies perhaps can do is help prepare future generations around the world for what’s coming down the road in terms of climate change impact events that at the moment are just guesswork and scientific estimates. Maybe, just maybe, cli-fi works of literature and cinema can help us prepare for a possibly dark and unspeakable future that is coming within the next 30 generations of man. And woman.

We are not prepared. We are not ready. Will we ever be?

My blogging work a the Cli-Fi Report has involved being in touch by email and Twitter and Facebook with such writers as David Brin, Kim Stanley Robinson, Claire Vaye Watkins, Sarah Holding, Jean-Marc Ligny, Yann Quero, Bruno Arpaia and Margaret Atwood.

Media support has come mainly from editors and reporters at the New York Times and the Guardian,  as well from the BBC, NPR and the Atlantic. Over 100 global publications have gotten into the cli-fi meme. So this thing is happening.

But it will take even more time for anyone to see the results of this very new literary genre that appeared out of nowhere in the early years of the 21st century. I’d say 20 to 30 more years at least, and more likely not until 2080 or into the first decades of the 22nd century. We humans are slow at these things. Global warming perplexes us, and other daily anxieties plague humankind, from the Middle East to Trumplandia to China.

Who will be around to see cli-fi bear fruit, to serve as a warning for future generations at the planet heats up century by century until all hell breaks loose?