Cases

Climate fiction — cli-fi — now occupies a distinct literary genre with real influence on public perception of the ecological crisis. Authors face a recurring tension: should narrative power trump data fidelity, or must fiction stay tethered to the peer-reviewed record? Proponents of emotional primacy argue that the grief, wonder, and moral urgency a story generates are more likely to move readers to action than any confidence interval. A character losing her coastal village to rising waters may spark deeper engagement than an IPCC summary. 'Accurate enough' may be sufficient — what matters is that readers feel the stakes. Proponents of scientific fidelity counter that cli-fi with inaccurate timelines, exaggerated collapse scenarios, or misrepresented mechanisms undermines public trust. It enables bad-faith critics to dismiss the genre as alarmist, and risks distorting public understanding of which interventions actually work. Hopeful storylines built on currently non-existent technologies may generate false comfort rather than genuine agency. This question carries particular weight for educators and writers reaching younger audiences — and for institutions like residencies and MFA programs deciding what responsibility to build into craft curricula. It also sits at the heart of what 'hopeful dystopia' as a genre owes its readers.