The Political Nature of Fiction
By: Amanda Khong and Community Team
In the wake of two simultaneous record-breaking fires in Los Angeles and the devastation of Hurricane Milton, President Trump signed an executive order to abandon the Paris Agreement and pledged to “drill, baby, drill” in both his inauguration speech and the State of the Union. The USA has decided to opt out of taking precautions to slow the rise in global surface temperatures, just as we are beginning to see climate change knock on our door. As we begin to see climate change affect us, we will also start to see it reflected more in our fiction and our media. And the more that it is reflected in our fiction, the more unpopular these policies surrounding climate change will become.
However, we’d be very mistaken to say that climate change hasn’t been showing up in our collective fiction for years, even decades. Octavia Butler wrote about a fire breaking out in Los Angeles in February of 2025 in Parable of the Sower, which was published in 1993. Through artists with the imagination and creativity to dream up future scenarios based on their (and our) present, like Octavia Butler, it can help those who can’t. And for those who can’t, if we’re wise, we’ll let our fiction open our collective imagination to understand what our world will look like in the future. If we, collectively, work to imagine the consequences of climate change, we can all begin to collectively imagine what we can do to fight back too.
In recognition of Earth Day on April 22, the Readin’ Community Team has compiled a list of books connected to climate-related current events and/or policies to emphasize our broadening collective imagination:
Book List
Rising Sea Levels
Almost a third of the United States population and 80% of the world’s largest cities live in coastal areas that are directly affected by rising sea levels in the form of floods, shoreline erosion, and hazardous storms. Rising sea levels threaten our existing infrastructure, making the economic and social impacts severe and far-reaching. They can even compromise our access to drinking water if salt water intrudes on fresh water sources. Rising sea levels are a result of two issues: melting glaciers and ice sheets, and the volume of the ocean is increasing due to thermal expansion. The global sea level will continue to rise as global temperatures do. How much and when depends mostly on the future rate of greenhouse gas emissions. This article by the World Economic Forum provides a great overview of this global issue.
Fable for the End of the World (2025) by Ava Reid is a standalone sapphic YA dystopian romance that takes place in a town half-submerged in water due to rising sea levels.
Society is controlled by a single corporation, Caerus, who charges an exorbitant amount for anything and everything needed to live, forcing many to go into massive amounts of debt. Caerus’ payoff solution for its most debt-ridden citizens is to enter the Lamb’s Gauntlet: a live-streamed assassination. Isena is unknowingly entered by her mother and is forced to work with the Caerus cyborg assassin Melinoë in order to stay alive.
Supreme Court & The Clean Water Act
Rising sea levels aren’t the only thing that risks our access to clean drinking water. The Clean Water Act, enacted in 1948 and expanded in 1972, is an important piece of legislation that protects access to clean water in the United States by regulating the discharge of pollutants into the waters of the USA. It is one of the first and most influential pieces of modern environmental laws, administered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). A recent decision by the United States Supreme Court limits the EPA’s ability to regulate industry waste being dumped into water bodies and has sparked large concerns over waste contaminants in drinking water. This is not the first time The Supreme Court has limited the EPA’s power. In 2023, they scaled back wetland protections in the United States. The implications of this recent decision are not yet known, but this breakdown from lawyers at leading international law firm WilmerHale provides some great information.
The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store (2023) by James McBride is a historical fiction book about the Black and Jewish residents of Chicken Hill, a neighborhood in Pottstown, Pennsylvania.
In 1972, human remains are discovered by workers digging foundations for a new housing development. Who the remains belong to and how they got there is a secret long-held by Chicken Hill residents. The novel takes us back to 1920s Chicken Hill to the struggles of residents living on the outskirts of white, Christian America. Residents deal with systemic issues like access to water and interpersonal issues such as bigotry and hypocrisy. This book has elements of murder mystery and suspense while also highlighting the importance of love and community to sustain us through our struggles.
Keystone XL Oil Pipeline
President Donald Trump has stated that he wants the Keystone XL Oil Pipeline resumed and would proceed with an easy approval for the project. The Pipeline was originally proposed in 2008 to carry over 800,000 barrels of oil a day from Canada to the United States, and Trump approved a key permit in 2017. After being delayed for a year due to environmental concerns (including oil spills) and pushback from Indigenous groups, President Biden revoked the permit in 2021 and the construction was cancelled. If Trump does continue to push for the pipeline to be built, which looks likely, then this project will likely be met with legal challenges as it was before.
The Kingmaker by Kennedy Ryan
The Kingmaker (2019) by Kennedy Ryan is the first book in a romance duology following Maxim Cade, environmentalist and son of a billionaire oil tycoon, and Lennix Hunter, activist and member of the Yavapai-Apache Nation.
Maxim and Lennix first meet at a protest of an oil pipeline threatening Indigenous land and become romantically involved years later. Their story is both a beautiful love story with some surprising twists throughout, and a thought-provoking exploration of issues facing Indigenous groups in the United States. The duology also sheds light on the epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous women.
Pandemics & the Spread of Infectious Diseases
When thinking about climate change, many people don’t always see the spread of infectious diseases as being directly connected. But rising global surface temperatures expand the geographic range of diseases and prolong transmission seasons. Additionally, destroying natural environments through deforestation and water-air-soil quality damage increases the likelihood of zoonotic diseases like COVID-19. As climate change continues to worsen, we will likely begin facing much more frequent pandemic-level diseases. In fact, we already have what looks like a quademic on the way (and “quademic” doesn’t even include bird flu). And even though right now is the most critical time for us to be informed of these infectious diseases, Trump announced the US withdrawal from the World Health Organization and began restricting what the Center for Disease Control is allowed to share with the public.
How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu
How High We Go in the Dark (2022) by Sequoia Nagamatsu is a speculative fiction novel about a long-dormant virus unearthed from melting permafrost in the Arctic Circle.
Written in an intricately linked anthology of stories about life on Earth, we’re able to follow the virus’ impact through hundreds of years as humanity tries to restore the balance of the world. How High We Go in the Dark is a stark reminder of the link between climate change and the spread of infectious diseases, but also of how widespread infection can affect the Earth for generations to come. After all, we’re still living alongside the Spanish Flu of 1918 and COVID-19 to this day.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence (AI), a catch-all term for a group of technologies that can process information and mimic human thinking, has evolved at a rapid speed over the last few years. AI is stored in data centers, powered by massive amounts of energy, typically created by burning fossil fuels, of which is the biggest contributor to climate change. These centers create local air pollution, thermal water pollution, the production of solid waste, elevated carbon emissions, strain on local freshwater resources, and many other socioeconomic disparities between geographical regions and communities. It’s no surprise that AI’s negative environmental impact is seen in regions with historical settler colonialism and racial capitalism. Trump’s executive order, “Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence,” is deeply concerning because it positions the United States as the leader in AI and demands that AI systems be free from ideological bias or engineered social agendas.
Machinehood by S.B. Divya
Machinehood (2021) by S.B. Divya is a sci-fi thriller about AI, sentience, and labor rights in the year 2095.
Humanity is entirely dependent on pills that not only help them stay alive but allow them to compete with artificial intelligence in an increasingly competitive gig economy. Welga witnesses her client’s murder at the hands of The Machinehood, a terrorist group that is attacking major pill funders. Their ultimatum: to stop all pill production in one week. This book provokes questions about the demand for productivity and the brutality of a society that sees its citizens as sources of endless labor. If we won’t see machines as human, will we instead see humans as machines?
Conclusion
Climate-related issues in our fiction and media aren’t new, but their prevalence is increasing with the rise of climate change-related events happening so close to home. 78% of Americans believe in climate change and 54% believe in human-driven climate change. Climate mitigation is far from a polarizing policy choice. And yet, President Trump and many others in office are determined to invest in harming our planet and the people living on it in order to save industries that are destined to die. We could be working toward replacing harmful pillaging industries with more sustainable ones, and one day we will, but for now, we will continue to push back through our fiction and our media, and through protest.
So for Earth Day, the Community Team invites you to watch the rise of climate issues in our fiction and media with us. And more importantly, we invite you to be loud about your dissent toward harmful anti-climate policies.