Education
Study finds climate change largely missing from modern fiction stories – EnviroNews
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Climate change, despite being one of the world’s most pressing challenges, is largely absent from contemporary fiction, according to a new study by researchers from Rice University and Colby College.
The study, published in the journal Environmental Communication, found that more than 90% of short stories published in The New Yorker magazine between 2014 and 2023 did not meaningfully address climate change or other major environmental issues.
Researchers analysed 474 original short stories using a newly developed analytical framework known as the Strategic Environmental Narratives codebook, designed to measure how environmental themes are portrayed in works of fiction.
Lead author, Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, an associate professor of English and creative writing at Rice University and director of its Programme in Environmental Studies, said the findings reveal a disconnect between contemporary storytelling and one of humanity’s defining challenges.
“Climate change exacerbates economic, political and social problems, including inequality, migration and political instability,” Schneider-Mayerson said.
“Avoiding, marginalising and minimising the climate and nature crises in popular storytelling makes unimaginably catastrophic futures more likely.”
The researchers found that only 10.1% of the stories mentioned climate change in any meaningful way, while just 20.9% referred to broader environmental problems such as pollution, deforestation or biodiversity loss.
Even when environmental issues appeared, they were often mentioned only briefly or presented without linking them to human activities or meaningful solutions, the study found.
Schneider-Mayerson said fiction plays a significant role in shaping how people understand society and imagine the future, making its silence on climate change particularly significant.
“In an era saturated with narratives across media, it is the collective presence or absence of environmental content that exerts the most powerful and lasting impact on public attitudes, beliefs and behavior in relation to climate change and other environmental challenges,” he said.
The findings surprised researchers because The New Yorker has a reputation for publishing extensive climate-related journalism and nonfiction.
The team had expected its fiction to include environmental themes more frequently than mainstream films. Instead, they found climate change appeared in short stories at almost the same rate as in popular movies.
Researchers also noted that while previous studies showed climate issues becoming increasingly common in films over time, no similar trend was observed in the magazine’s fiction.
“We found that the presence of climate change was nearly the same in the overlapping years,” Schneider-Mayerson said. “Additionally, one of the major takeaways from the film study was that the rate of inclusion increased significantly over time. Surprisingly, we did not see that trend in the short stories. The trend was flat.”
The study argues that fiction does not need to become overtly political or educational to contribute to climate awareness.
Instead, researchers say simple narrative choices – such as depicting sustainable lifestyles, acknowledging environmental consequences or incorporating climate realities into everyday stories – could help reshape readers’ understanding of what is normal and possible.
“What qualifies as a good story in the midst of a climate crisis that threatens everything we hold dear?” Schneider-Mayerson asked.
“Our results suggest that contemporary fiction is failing to even acknowledge what is happening to and around us. If literature continues to largely ignore the climate and nature crises, it is, at best, distracting readers from the real world and, at worst, deluding them about it.”
The researchers say their findings highlight the growing importance of integrating environmental realities into cultural narratives as climate change increasingly affects societies worldwide through extreme weather, food insecurity, migration and biodiversity loss.
They argue that storytelling has the power not only to entertain but also to shape public imagination and influence how societies respond to global challenges.
By Winston Mwale, AfricaBrief