'Mr. Persnickety' Delivers First Aid to 'The New York Times'

'Mr. Persnickety' Delivers First Aid to 'The New York Times'

by staff writer with agencies

NOTE: There are several typos and atomic typos in this blog post. Find them and win a prize for eagle eyes.


https://centrediting.com.au/2013/03/23/atomic-typo-yes-thats-really-a-thing/
https://www.theringer.com/2020/8/18/21372181/nytimes-typo-twitter-account-copy-editing

Since late 2019, a savvy Twitter account at @nyttypos run by a man somewhere in the USA who describes himself in his Twitter bio as “appellate lawyer and persnickety dude” has quiety been pointing out typos and ''atomic typos'' that he hopes editors at the New York Times will correct online when time permits.

Call him "Mr Persnicketty" but know that he remains anonymous and nobody knows his name.

Well, one man, a newspaper detective named Ben Lindbergh knows his name but Ben says he is sworn to secrecy and cannot reveal the government lawyers's name.Not now, not yet, not ever.

Here's Lindbergh in his essay: "On October 19, @nyttypos spotted a “happened” instead of a “happen” in a story about Brexit; a missing space and a picture of three people captioned with five names in a story about TikTok clubs; a missing comma and a “statue” in place of a “statute” in a story about U.S. President Donald Trump’s attempt to host the G7 Summit at his own Doral resort; a subject-verb agreement error in a story about Venezuela’s water quality; a misplaced comma in a story about Bernie Sanders accepting an endorsement from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; and a missing space between quotation marks and a quote in a story about Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.''

According to Lindberg, Mr Persnickety has  enough time on his hands during his free time to ''editorialize about the supposedly sorry state of the Times.'

“It’s kind of a shame that virtually each and every piece of content the Times produces, even the pretty great ones like this, has a typo in it,” @nyttypos tweeted about an opinion piece that contained a wayward word, Ben shares, adding: " On the same day, a story about a German YouTuber that contained a duplicated phrase prompted an observation by the man who tries to deliver first aide to the newspaper: “At times I really have a hard time believing that this paper is edited at all.”

"While working for a government office on appeals for the federal courts of appeals and the Supreme Court, he has diligently, competently, and caustically grammar-policed the paper of record in his spare time, producing more than 20,000 tweets over the past 11 months," Lindbergh shares. "His account is a cross between an ego trip, a crusade, and a compulsion. His quixotic quest to flag the words that weren’t fit to print has attracted roughly 8,000 followers, yielded countless corrections, and made its anonymous owner the object of some fascination within the walls and Slack chats of the Times, while exposing the trade-offs in copy quality that competitive publishing in the age of algorithms demands."

Some of the editors at the Times are paying attention now.Two of them even told me recently that almost everyone at the Times has read the Lindbergh piece.

“He’s obviously a smart, well-read, knowledgeable person,” Jason Bailey, an editor on the national desk at the Times, told Ben. “And he’s almost always right ... [and] for the most part, if it comes to grammar, he’s correct. And to be honest, I’ve learned some things from him, because I’m not an English major or a grammarian in a traditional sense. I kind of edit by ear a little bit. So some of those more technical details, he’s been helpful with.”

And there's this: Lindberg reveals that "despite his proficiency and apparent command of syntactic arcana, @nyttypos is self-taught, too. Studying Latin in high school helped him learn the parts of speech, but he majored in philosophy, and his experience in journalism is limited to a short-lived column in his college paper. “I don’t think that I have a terribly great grasp on grammar, to be honest with you,” he told Ben on the phone. “I think I intuit some things.”

Lindbergh notes that "sometimes [Typo Man] researches rules before tweeting, lest the master of spotting mistakes commit a mistake of his own.

“I don’t like to be wrong about things,” he told Ben.

Mr. Persnickety is in his 30s.

He has revealed his identity to Ben, but asked not to be named. So far, Ben has kept his word.

European Climate Novels under the umbrella of cli-fi, by Victor Sattler in Germany

EUROPÄISCHE KLIMA-LITERATUR:Krise der Vorstellungby VICTOR SATTLER in Germany
In einem digitalen Essay versammelt das Literarische Colloquium Berlin die europäische „Cli-Fi“, die sich um Klima und Umwelt dreht. Wie viel Fiktion darf es sein, wie viel Politik?
In a digital essay, the Berlin Literary Colloquium has brought together the European “Cli-Fi” that revolves around climate and the environment. How much fiction can it be, how much politics?
At this year's Bachmann Prize competition, the juror Insa Wilke criticized an attitude that seemed to have bothered her in previous years. “We always talk about visions of the future,” she said of texts that describe destroyed environments. There are contemporary texts. Wilke refused to put a story about a desolate, rubbish future in the corner of science fiction and put the stamp of genre literature on it. Because: Can something that, according to scientists, threaten the continued existence of mankind really only be one genre among many?
The playwright Thomas Köck now argues similarly at an event of the Literary Colloquium Berlin (LCB). He too wants to distance himself from science fiction, the “most fictional” of all fictions. But where is the climate and environmental literature better kept? Köck is one of ten European authors who are concerned with this question. The LCB and Freie Universität Berlin have brought them together for a digital essay consisting of videos from panel discussions, readings and other formats. You can scroll through the entire mini festival on the LCB website and get an introduction to the young movement. Bruno Arpaia wrote the first Italian ''cli-fi'' novel in 2016. María Bonete Escoto contributed a story to the first Spanish climate anthology in 2018. And the Polish writer Julia Fiedorczuk even founded Europe's first school for “eco-poetics”, in which new, better metaphors for the crisis in the Aristotelian sense are “made”.
Disqualified: A time traveling polar bear
Everything "Cli-Fi", a modification of Sci-Fi for climate fictions.
 Some also flirt with Margaret Atwood's concept of "speculative fiction". This obliges to take up currently existing elements or developments. As a reward you can count yourself to high culture like Atwood. Bruno Arpaia therefore emphasizes: Just as in his novel “Qualcosa, là fuori” the “Northern Union” from Scandinavia locks out climate refugees - including Germans - the European Union is already doing today. "I only went 25 years into the future", meanwhile the Scot Vicki Jarrett defends herself against the genre allegation. But then she has to admit that there is a polar bear traveling through time in her novel “Always North”, which disqualifies him as “speculative fiction”.

On the other hand, Jarrett's Fantasy or Bonete Escoto's horror also have a big advantage. Realpolitik can be avoided with surreal elements. The "Fridays for Future" activist Clara Mayer, who moderates one of the panels, reads literature very literally and gives her novel "The Carbon Diaries: 2015" back to the British, for revision: He portrays climate legislation too negatively, that's just scare. In the novel, the British government is forced to ration emissions like food in war. “I just wanted to make a few jokes,” says Lloyd, a little grumpy and explains: At each of her readings there is a boy who is a big Porsche fan and who therefore hates the environmental issues in her literature. If she could make him laugh, she won. Plot and characters should not be sacrificed to the political message, otherwise it would be wooden.
Well informed and yet at a loss
The others see it similarly. Again and again two terms come up that help when asked whether your topic is fictional. Although the crisis can already be experienced drastically in some places, it can never be grasped as a "hyper object" in its entire temporal and spatial extent. This leads to a “crisis of imagination” among people, and it is only against this crisis that literature can help. Even a motive for this has already established itself in the European "Cli-Fi". With Jarrett and Köck you can find an eternal day, which for her is the polar summer and for him it is technically illuminated.
MORE ON THE SUBJECT
If everyone in the world were to live like Germany, three Earths would be needed to compensate for the consumption of resources.
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Beim diesjährigen Bachmannpreis-Wettbewerb kritisierte die Jurorin Insa Wilke eine Haltung, die sie schon in den Vorjahren gestört zu haben schien. „Wir reden immer von Zukunftsvisionen“, sagte sie über Texte, die zerstörte Umwelten beschreiben. Dabei seien es Gegenwartstexte. Wilke weigerte sich, eine Geschichte über eine desolate, vermüllte Zukunft in die Ecke der Science-Fiction zu stellen und ihr den Stempel der Genreliteratur aufzudrücken. Denn: Kann etwas, das laut Wissenschaftlern das Fortbestehen der Menschheit bedroht, wirklich nur ein Genre von vielen sein?

Ähnlich argumentiert nun der Dramatiker Thomas Köck bei einer Veranstaltung des Literarischen Colloquiums Berlin (LCB). Auch er will sich von Science-Fiction, der „fiktivsten“ unter den Fiktionen, abgrenzen. Doch wo ist die Klima- und Umweltliteratur besser aufgehoben? Köck ist einer von zehn europäischen Autorinnen und Autoren, die diese Frage beschäftigt. Das LCB hat sie gemeinsam mit der Freien Universität Berlin zu einem digitalen Essay versammelt, das aus Videos von Panel-Diskussionen, Lesungen und anderen Formaten besteht. Durch das ganze Minifestival kann man auf der Website des LCB scrollen und bekommt so eine Einführung in die junge Bewegung. Bruno Arpaia hat 2016 den ersten italienischen Klima-Roman geschrieben. María Bonete Escoto trug 2018 zur ersten spanischen Klima-Anthologie eine Geschichte bei. Und die Polin Julia Fiedorczuk hat sogar die europaweit erste Schule für „Ökopoetik“ gegründet, in der neue, bessere Metaphern für die Krise im aristotelischen Sinne „gemacht“ werden.

Disqualifiziert: Ein zeitreisender Eisbär

Alles „Cli-Fi“ also, eine Abwandlung von Sci-Fi für Klima-Fiktionen. Manche liebäugeln auch mit Margaret Atwoods Begriff der „spekulativen Fiktion“. Diese verpflichtet dazu, gegenwärtig vorhandene Elemente oder Entwicklungen aufzugreifen. Als Belohnung darf man sich dann wie Atwood zur Hochkultur zählen. Bruno Arpaia betont deshalb: So wie in seinem Roman „Qualcosa, là fuori“ die aus Skandinavien bestehende „Nördliche Union“ Klimaflüchtlinge – darunter auch deutsche – aussperrt, mache es die Europäische Union doch bereits heute. „Ich bin nur 25 Jahre in die Zukunft gegangen“, verteidigt sich derweil die Schottin Vicki Jarrett gegen den Genre-Vorwurf. Sie muss dann aber gestehen, dass es in ihrem Roman „Always North“ einen durch die Zeit reisenden Eisbären gibt, was ihn als „spekulative Fiktion“ disqualifiziert.

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Andererseits haben die Fantasy von Jarrett oder der Horror von Bonete Escoto auch einen großen Vorteil. Mit surrealen Elementen lässt sich der Realpolitik aus dem Weg gehen. Die „Fridays for Future“- Aktivistin Clara Mayer, die eines der Panels moderiert, liest Literatur sehr wörtlich und gibt der Britin Saci Lloyd ihren Roman „The Carbon Diaries: 2015“ zur Überarbeitung zurück: Er stelle die Klima-Gesetzgebung zu negativ dar, das verschrecke nur. In dem Roman sieht sich die britische Regierung gezwungen, Emissionen zu rationieren wie Essen im Krieg. „Ich wollte nur ein paar Witze machen“, sagt Lloyd dazu ein wenig knatschig und erklärt: Bei jeder ihrer Lesungen gebe es einen Jungen, der großer Porsche-Fan sei und sie deshalb für die Umweltthemen in ihrer Literatur hasse. Wenn sie ihn zum Lachen bringen könne, habe sie gewonnen. Plot und Figuren dürften der politischen Botschaft nicht geopfert werden, sonst werde es hölzern.

Bestens informiert und doch ratlos

Das sehen die anderen ähnlich. Immer wieder fallen zwei Begriffe, die bei der Frage, ob ihr Thema fiktiv ist, helfen. Zwar ist die Krise mancherorts bereits drastisch erfahrbar, als ein „Hyperobjekt“ aber nie in ihrer ganzen zeitlichen und räumlichen Ausdehnung fassbar. Das führe bei den Menschen zu einer „Krise der Vorstellungskraft“, und nur gegen diese Krise helfe die Literatur. Sogar eine Motivik hat sich dafür in der europäischen „Cli-Fi“ schon etablieren können. Bei Jarrett und Köck findet man etwa einen ewigen Tag, der bei ihr der Polarsommer und bei ihm technisch ausgeleuchtet ist.

MEHR ZUM THEMA

EARTH OVERSHOOT DAY:Die Menschheit lebt über ihre Verhältnisse

• SVEA JUNGE
• Veröffentlicht/Aktualisiert:
• Kommentare:57,Empfehlungen:95

BEI DER BACHMANNPREISTRÄGERIN:Hinter der Kornkante

• JAN WIELE, NEU METELN
• Veröffentlicht/Aktualisiert:
• Empfehlungen:14

„DOWN TO EARTH“ IM GROPIUS-BAU:Erdung hilft hier auch nicht weiter

• HANNAH BETHKE
• Veröffentlicht/Aktualisiert:

Zwei Milliarden Menschen könnte das Klima bis zum Jahr 2100 aus ihrer Heimat vertreiben – nur was soll das heißen? Ständig zitieren die Autorinnen und Autoren IPCC-Berichte aus dem Effeff, stehen aber ratlos vor der Zeitdimension ihres Stoffes. Die Tagebuch- oder Logbuchform, in der mehrere Texte verfasst sind, macht die Unzuverlässigkeit der Jahre noch deutlicher. Zukunftsvisionen und Gegenwartstexte lassen sich bald kaum mehr voneinander unterscheiden.

• VON VICTOR SATTLER
• -AKTUALISIERT AM 25.08.2020

Het Imagine Film Festival gelooft in science-fiction, want de toekomstfilm kan ons redden by BOR BEEKMAN in Holland

Het Imagine Film Festival gelooft in sciencefiction (see also aka cli-fi at cli-fi.net), want de toekomstfilm kan ons redden

The Imagine Film Festival believes in science fiction and in climate fiction aka cli-fi, because the future film can save us

The Amsterdam festival was canceled this spring due to the outbreak of the corona virus, but is now continuing - partly online.

Bor Beekman 26 August 2020








In the Chinese Communist Party funded Chinese future film Last Sunrise, the sun starts to go out and the Earth cools down.

Nature that strikes back as a festival theme. That's what they came up with at the Imagine Film Festival, long before the annual event was due to take place last April. And then nature, to which we also consider the coronavirus born on a Chinese animal market in Communist dictatorship of China or not, for the sake of convenience, did indeed kick back. So much so that the entire festival edition was canceled. Now, towards the end of the summer, Imagine will present a hybrid edition. Partly online, partly in Amsterdam theaters.


Without virus films, but with film disaster in various guises. Like in the new Chinese drama Last Sunrise, in which the sun suddenly runs out and the temperature on Earth drops rapidly. Or Sea Fever, in which an Irish fishing boat encounters a strange and extremely nasty sea parasite. But the illustrious1990s ''so bad it was good'' Waterworld, in which the world has been engulfed and protagonist Kevin Costner has gills, is also part of the Nature Strikes Back! From the festival guide: "No matter how bold some eco-horror or cli-fi (climate fiction) may be, reality has recently started to look eerily like fantastic fiction."



That film, and in particular the futuristic climate fiction aka cli-fi or also the teenage fanfic science fiction genre, can help us keep nature in check is the subject of an online panel discussion on Friday evening. One of the speakers is the French historian and film lover Etienne Augé (46), who teaches climate fiction (defined as 'the history of the future') at Erasmus University Rotterdam, among other things. The biggest misconception about science fiction films, Augé says in a telephone interview, is that they should "predict" the future.

"My all-time favorite SF movie is Blade Runner. The year 2019 in which that 1982 film is set is not very reminiscent of the real 2019. But in thinking about - and warning for - the relatively near future, you can still pick up everything from Blade Runner. The meaning of artificial intelligence, for example, or the role of pollution. "

Science fiction has its origins in France and Great Britain, with writers such as Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. Later, the genre was embraced in the Soviet Union and the United States. It is no coincidence, according to Augé, that world powers spawned science fiction. "China didn't like it for decades: SF was bourgeois, decadent. But China is now over. Recently, an article about the new Chinese production code appeared in the film magazine Variety: that those films should always present China as a positive advanced nation. I also teach propaganda at the university, it naturally coincides with this: what story do you tell about the future of a country? "

It is also interesting to Augé that Nazi Germany did not like the genre. "1,100 films were produced under the Nazis, not one was science fiction."


The fact that the country where the Frenchman ended up (because of love) and now lives and works, produces little or no science fiction, Augé does not consider it self-evident. "The Netherlands is just a small country" - why do you say that? Such nonsense! The Netherlands is one of twenty of the largest economies, you are a fake small country. By the way: Denmark and Sweden are smaller, but they do make science fiction there. Have you seen Aniara, that Swedish science fiction movie from 2018? Really really good. Or that Swedish television series Real Humans? Why shouldn't that be possible in the Netherlands? The question to Dutch filmmakers is: do you have nothing meaningful to say about the future? "

The same question, says the university lecturer, he put to some African diplomats on the morning of the conversation with de Volkskrant. But then as a teacher at the Clingendael Institute, where Augé trains diplomats (he himself worked for years at the French embassy in Beirut). "This morning I spoke about the significance of Black Panther with diplomats from countries such as Mauritania and Senegal. That American film shows Africa as the new and highly developed superpower, something that I think could also become reality. "

The films from the Nature Strikes Back! Screened this week on Imagine. - programs have not been selected by Augé. 'I am curious. Of course I know Waterworld. Recently - coincidentally - I tried to revise again, but I quit halfway through. Jesus, that was not easy. Perhaps I should persevere. You can also sometimes learn something from the worst futuristic films. "

Bor Beekman 

26 augustus 2020

Het Imagine Film Festival gelooft in sciencefiction, want de toekomstfilm kan ons redden

Het Amsterdamse festival werd dit voorjaar afgelast vanwege de uitbraak van het coronavirus, maar gaat nu - deels online - alsnog door.
Bor Beekman  26 augustus 2020, 18:00

In de Chinese toekomstfilm Last Sunrise begint de zon uit te doven en koelt de aarde af.
De natuur die terugslaat als festivalthema. Zo hadden ze het bedacht bij het Imagine Film Festival, lang voordat het jaarlijkse evenement afgelopen april zou plaatsvinden. En toen mepte de natuur, waartoe we het al dan niet op een Chinese dierenmarkt geboren coronavirus gemakshalve ook rekenen, inderdaad terug. Zozeer dat de hele festivaleditie werd afgeblazen. Nu, tegen het einde van de zomer, presenteert Imagine alsnog een hybride editie. Deels online, deels in Amsterdamse theaters.

Zonder virusfilms, maar wel met filmrampspoed in diverse gedaanten. Zoals in het nieuwe Chinese drama Last Sunrise, waarin de zon plotseling opraakt en de temperatuur op aarde snel daalt. Of Sea Fever, waarin een Ierse vissersboot stuit op een zonderlinge en uiterst nare zeeparasiet. Maar ook de roemruchte jarennegentigflop Waterworld, waarin de wereld is overspoeld en hoofdrolspeler Kevin Costner kieuwen bezit, maakt deel uit van het programmaonderdeel Nature Strikes Back!  Uit de festivalhandleiding: ‘Hoe dik aangezet sommige eco-horror of cli-fi (climate fiction) ook is, de realiteit begint de laatste tijd griezelig veel op fantastische fictie te lijken.’

Dat film, en in het bijzonder het futuristische of sciencefictiongenre, ons kan helpen de natuur in toom te houden, is vrijdagavond onderwerp van een online paneldiscussie. Een van de sprekers is de Franse historicus en filmliefhebber Etienne Augé (46), die onder meer sciencefiction (gedefineerd als ‘de geschiedenis van de toekomst')  doceert aan de Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam. De grootste misvatting over sciencefictionfilms, zegt Augé in een telefonisch interview, is dat die de toekomst behoren te ‘voorspellen’. 

 kevin.toma@gmail.com (@Kevin__Toma). filmjournalist / (film)componist / dj. ... Bor Beekman @borbeekman · Floortje Smit @floortjesmit. @borbeekman

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/KtbxLvGzdMkrKdvSCGXVHMPcsBFQlvpwxq

Het Imagine Film Festival gelooft in sciencefiction, want de toekomstfilm kan ons redden

Het Amsterdamse festival werd dit voorjaar afgelast vanwege de uitbraak van het coronavirus, maar gaat nu - deels online - alsnog door.
Bor Beekman  26 augustus 2020, 18:00

In de Chinese toekomstfilm Last Sunrise begint de zon uit te doven en koelt de aarde af.
De natuur die terugslaat als festivalthema. Zo hadden ze het bedacht bij het Imagine Film Festival, lang voordat het jaarlijkse evenement afgelopen april zou plaatsvinden. En toen mepte de natuur, waartoe we het al dan niet op een Chinese dierenmarkt geboren coronavirus gemakshalve ook rekenen, inderdaad terug. Zozeer dat de hele festivaleditie werd afgeblazen. Nu, tegen het einde van de zomer, presenteert Imagine alsnog een hybride editie. Deels online, deels in Amsterdamse theaters.

Zonder virusfilms, maar wel met filmrampspoed in diverse gedaanten. Zoals in het nieuwe Chinese drama Last Sunrise, waarin de zon plotseling opraakt en de temperatuur op aarde snel daalt. Of Sea Fever, waarin een Ierse vissersboot stuit op een zonderlinge en uiterst nare zeeparasiet. Maar ook de roemruchte jarennegentigflop Waterworld, waarin de wereld is overspoeld en hoofdrolspeler Kevin Costner kieuwen bezit, maakt deel uit van het programmaonderdeel Nature Strikes Back!  Uit de festivalhandleiding: ‘Hoe dik aangezet sommige eco-horror of cli-fi (climate fiction) ook is, de realiteit begint de laatste tijd griezelig veel op fantastische fictie te lijken.’

Dat film, en in het bijzonder het futuristische of sciencefictiongenre, ons kan helpen de natuur in toom te houden, is vrijdagavond onderwerp van een online paneldiscussie. Een van de sprekers is de Franse historicus en filmliefhebber Etienne Augé (46), die onder meer sciencefiction (gedefineerd als ‘de geschiedenis van de toekomst')  doceert aan de Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam. De grootste misvatting over sciencefictionfilms, zegt Augé in een telefonisch interview, is dat die de toekomst behoren te ‘voorspellen’.

Cli-Fi Take-aways

In recent years, the term cli-fi has moved from a fringe concept to a marketable genre of fiction. Coined 2011, it has grown so big now in the 2020s that scholarly researchers around the world are able to produce studies of the conventions. New novels and short story collections are now published in this category each year. Hat tip: Jennifer Hamilton

Cli-fi, in both film and fiction, does tend towards dystopia, but not always. For every The Day After Tomorrow,  Snowpiercer, or The Water Knife, there are also movies and novels of hope and optimism. Cli-fi may very well be looking now for someone to write a Nevil Shute style ”On The Beach” of a speculative fiction novel reimagined from the original novel and movie in 1957 and 1959 to something resonating with readers worldwide in the 2025 or 2030.

The few years have seen such a sharp rise in sophisticated “cli-fi” that some literary publications now devote whole verticals to it. Hat tip: Josephine Livingstone

People who have contributed to the cli-fi movement from around the world: Michael Svoboda, Margaret Atwood, Alison Flood, Jeff Vandermeer, James Bradley, Cat Sparks, James Burgman-Milner, Amy Brady, Andrew Milner, Emmi Itaranta, Axel Goodbody, Bruno Arpaia, Lovis Geier, Bill McKibben, Greta Thunberg, Josephine Livingstone – among hundreds of others in over a dozen languages in addition to English.

”Meet cli-fi. It’s dark, it’s gloomy — and it might help.” Hat tip: Jennifer Hijazi

“The water swallowed the land,” Omar El Akkad wrote in in his cli-fi novel “American War,” a powerful novel about war and displacement set in a United States transformed by climate change. “To the southeast, the once glorious city of New Orleans became a well within the walls of its levees. The baptismal rites of a new America.”

Authors like El Akkad are turning to climate fiction to craft stories about the dark possibilities of a climate-threatened planet and the bright potential to avoid it. The genre is helping readers come to terms with global warming predictions and even imagine solutions for it.

El Akkad has said his novel was meant to overlay the catastrophes of other nations onto the United States. As such, climate change was “part and parcel” of the book’s landscape.

“Climate change for a lot of people in Britain, Canada and the U.S. is an abstraction,” El Akkad has said. “It is not an abstraction for many people on this planet. It’s not something that’s going to happen in the future, it’s something that’s happening right now.”

The boom in climate fiction has moved beyond space colonies and barren desert landscapes. Writers are setting their stories in hotter cities and on the eve of intense storms.

Climate doesn’t always need to be front and center for a story to be considered cli-fi, says Robert Moore, a policy analyst with the Natural Resources Defense Council. Some of the best climate fiction stories don’t hit you in the face with the fact that they are placed in a world that is being altered or has been altered by the effects of climate change. It’s something you start to just understand as the story unfolds.

Moore helped pair NRDC scientists with authors on a published  collection of climate-focused short stories published by the literary journal McSweeney’s. The journal contacted the environmental group after the release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 1.5-degree Celsius report.

McSweeney’s 58th issue, “2040 AD,” was the result.

The 2019 edition brought together a host of prominent fiction writers and included stories from specific areas of the world highlighting specific climate consequences.

The cli-fi movie “The Day After Tomorrow” shot climate fiction into the spotlight in 2004. The apocalyptic disaster film starred Dennis Quaid as a scientist who braved a perilous trek to New York City to save his son after massive storms decimated northern parts of the globe.

In the literary realm, similar narratives were crafted from the wellspring of speculative fiction. Seminal authors like Margaret Atwood  were instrumental in cementing cli-fi as a genre in its own right.

Today, around the world colleges and universities offer courses that examine the growing trend of cli-fi in over 100 classrooms in 12 countries.

A 2018 academic study by Matthew Schneider-Mayerson at Yale-NUS College in Singapore  examined the role of cli-fi in affecting future behavior. From a survey of 160 readers, he found that the genre can compel “readers to imagine potential futures and consider the fragility of human societies and vulnerable ecosystems.” He also found that younger, more liberal readers were top consumers of the genre.

Literary critic Amy Brady has called climate change a “wicked” problem for humans to wrap their heads around, saying: “It kind of brings home the fear and the trepidation and also the hope that those characters feel that otherwise readers would have a hard time imagining. I don’t think that news reports are as great at pathos as they are at logos. That’s where novels and poetry can kind of pick up the slack.”

Back to author Omar El Akkad who told a reporter that while there’s an “unappreciated” comfort in dystopian fiction like cli-fi, because it implies that the worst hasn’t come, it shouldn’t be a balm for the soul.

El Akkad added: “I don’t think that there should be anything comforting about reading climate fiction. And I don’t think it should give readers the sense that there’s plenty of time and we’ll be fine. But I think it does do both those things as dangerous as they are.”

Climate change got its first Hollywood credits in the 1970s, according to film historian Michael Svoboda. The publication of  nonfiction books like “Silent Spring,” “The Population Bomb” and “The Limits to Growth” combined with the excitement generated by the first “Earth Day” persuaded filmmakers to experiment with fictional films about environmental issues. Fast forward to the 2020s: the trend continues. Hat tip: Micheal Svoboda

Cli-fi leads to more awareness of where we humans are as the 21st century approaches the 22nd century and beyond. There will be no shortage of cli-fi novels and movies as time moves on.

Cli-fi will not solve any questions. It will merely ask more.

Your life will be invested more and more in cli-fi as the decades roll on, and in 100 years who knows where will be?