Like many aging North American baby boomers, I grew up in what I felt was a sweet time among very sweet people, and I never once thought about global warming or climate change until I reached my 60s.

Then it hit me: we are doomed, doomed — unless we mend our ways, fix our carbon dioxide emissions rates and start living a less plush and hectic life that depends on burning tons of fossil fuel worldwide on a 24/7 basis.

So I want to be a dedicated climate activist. I came up with a term that I borrowed from the sci fi literary genre and I dubbed it “cli fi” for climate fiction. Novels and movies that can serve as wake up calls about the very troubling climate issues our descendants will face 100 to 300 years from now. Or, as some see it, novels and movies that could be created by climate skeptics that deny there is anything to worry about it. Cli fi, as I see it, is an equal-opportunity cultural prism. All points of view are welcome, just as with sci fi.

So it’s out there now. Go to Google or Wikipedia and see how far the emerging genre of cli fi has come in the space of just a few years. Will its ascension into the literary and cultural world make any difference? I hope so. I’m from the generation that grew up wanting to make a difference.

I was born in 1949 and I plan to die in 2032, if the stent in my ticker holds up and keep my blood flowing. I had a heart attack when I was 60 and it wasn’t a pretty picture. But what I learned from 8 days in the ICU was to keep going, to never give up and to push the cli fi meme up the hill as far as I can before to take a time out and go the next level.

That’s why I wanted to be a climate activist when I retire. But now I can’t retire, I’m committed to the cli fi idea and I’m going to do everything I can as a PR man to try to make sure everyone hears of this term before I croak. I’ve got 20 years or so.

And it’s not just me. There’s a growing cli fi community worldwide now, mostly in English-speaking countries but also in Norway, Sweden, Italy and Spain. We are writers, readers, editors, book agents, publishers — climate activists, too.

Have you read a good cli fi novel recently? You will, soon. Seen a good cli fi movie recently? You will, soon.

Look, there’s not much time to get out act together and take the big steps we need to take to take back our planet from the damage we have done and are still doing — right now as you read this. You don’t have to be a climate activist to know what the score is. We are losing our precious Earth to forces beyond the scope of our imagination. Where sci fi once went, cli fi is now heading.

Global warming is not a hoax and it’s not a joke. Sure, there are many different points of view on the issues involved, and I am open to all points of view. I sup with climate denilaists and climate sketics, to each his or her own ideas. But my main community of “friemds” online and in the real world is with the growing cli fi community worldwide.

When I die, I don’t want any laurels or plaudits. I didn’t come with the cli fi term for fun or profit. I never copyrighted it and I do not own the term. I did not even coin it, since all I did was borrow the sci fi term and create a new rhyming sound for a new kind of cultural prism.

All I want from my next few years on this planet is to have the time to tweet as much as I can about cli fi and invite as many people as I can to join the global cli fi community. You don’t have to be a writer to join the group or to get the message. We are all climate activists now, or on the way to becoming ones.

Won’t you join me?

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About Author
Dan Bloom is a freelance writer who blogs
at CLI FI CENTRAL.

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