ECO-FICTION
Storm warning
Cli-fi is how writers are responding to one of the most pressing issues of our times. Leading exponent Greg Mosse explains how he turns scientific predictions into thrilling action, and how you can write your own powerfully effective climate-change fiction
Iset The Coming Storm in the future, because I wanted everything that worries us today to feel more urgent – environmental degradation, wars over water or agricultural land or access to the sea, depletion of natural resources, refugees, growing inequality between rich and poor. Originally set in 2048, in homage to George Orwell’s 1984, I soon realised that I needed to bring the action closer – to 2037, less than a generation away.
The Coming Storm is the product of a huge amount of research into the future. Luckily, every serious organisation – governments, companies, health services, the military – has an eye on what’s to come. Anyone who doesn’t will soon find themselves overtaken by events for which they have no contingency plan. Difficult circumstances are always made harder by not being prepared, but having no slack in the system.