I seek the truth wherever it lies.

The Jewish literary/climate activist you never heard of

Aug 23, 2021, 12:56 PM

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I’m sure that most of you reading this blog post have never heard of the “Cli-fi” literary term before, and that’s exactly why I’m posting this here.

I coined the literary genre term in 2011 as my personal way to help “repair the world” (tikkun olam).

So Cli-fi? What’s it all about? Let me explain:

It’s a post-science fiction term for novels and movies that deal with the reality of global warming. It’s not about entertainment or escapism. And it’s not about generation ships travelling to distant planets. My teachers were Isaac Asimov and Jesse Ausubel back in the 1980s. They spoke up, I listened.

If you Google the Cli-fi term today, you will see that it has found its place now in the culture at large, as a buzzword, a cri de coeur, a wake-up call.

It’s not a Jewish term. It’s a post-religious “call to action” for our descendants.

About the Author

Dan Bloom curates The Cli-Fi Report at www.cli-fi.net. He graduated from Tufts University in Boston in 1971 with a major in Modern Literature. A newspaper editor and reporter since his days in Washington, D.C., Juneau, Alaska, Tokyo, Japan and Taipei, Taiwan, he has lived and worked 5 countries and speaks rudimentary French, Japanese and Chinese. He hopes to live for a few more years.