The gifts of fiction at the time of climate emergency

Marek Oziewicz

The Ecological Citizen Vol 8 No 2 2025: epub-134-1 to 6

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First published: 23 April 2025 | PERMANENT URL | DOWNLOAD CITATION IN RIS FORMAT

Abstract

Narrative fiction is an underappreciated tool for seeding ideas about transformational change. Although fiction cannot replace action, stories are the oldest human technology for shaping beliefs, emotions and attitudes that inform our responses to real-life situations. Today's audiences often feel trapped in a degenerative, extractive socio-economic system that makes us complicit in the destruction of our planetary home. But it doesn't have to be this way. Stories can also offer tools for imagining a different trajectory, empowering us to turn the emergency into an emergence. This article outlines three gifts of fiction relevant for our times: insight (into the present moment), metaphors (to think with) and agency (to envision ourselves as change-makers).

Keywords

Climate change, Environmental humanities, Societal change, Values

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