Introduction: The American Climate Emergency Narrative

Abstract

AbstractThe introductory chapter problematises the prevalent notion that climate fiction written in North America is about a ‘climate crisis’ and that consuming such fiction can help readers move towards more sustainable futures. The introduction thus observes that the present biospheric crisis has been caused not by humans as a species, but by capitalism as a system and that this crucial fact is elided by many climate narratives. The introduction then argues that much of what has been called climate fiction in fact narrates the ongoing socio-ecological crisis as an emergency for capitalism rather than for the planet. In view of this, a better name for these texts is the American Climate Emergency Narrative. With the help of the world-literature perspective, the introduction explains how this is a type of text that emerges out of the core of the world-system and how it participates in the securitization of this world-system and of the US as its hegemon at a time of planetary socio-ecological crisis.