Environmental Ethics: Supplemental cli-fi/eco-fiction lists

Monday, October 19, 2026

Supplemental cli-fi/eco-fiction lists

I gave Claude this prompt:

At the southern festival of books yesterday, I met the authors Alice Martin, Erin McCoy, and Deb Olin Unferth. I told Unferth that I plan to teach environmental ethics with a cli-fi/eco-fiction theme next semester, using Richard Powers’ trilogy beginning with The Overstory. I’m also going to use Jill Lepore‘s The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State in that course. I asked Unferth what other titles she thinks would be appropriate. She mentioned her own book, Earth 7, and author Kim Stanley Robinson.

Claude’s lists:

Stephen Markley, The Deluge (2023)
Charlotte McConaghy, Wild Dark Shore (2024)
George Saunders, Vigil (2024)
Eric Puchner, Dream State (2025); Megha Majumdar, A Guardian and a Thief (2025)
Lily Brooks-Dalton, The Light Pirate (2022)
Neal Stephenson, Termination Shock (2021)

Nonhuman life, ecology, and the weird

Ray Nayler, The Mountain in the Sea (2022), on octopus intelligence
Gina Chung, Sea Change (2022)
Ned Beauman, Venomous Lumpsucker (2022), on extinction and its economics
Jeff VanderMeer, Absolution (2024)

Tech, power, and the "Artificial State" thread

Naomi Alderman, The Future (2023)

Here's a trimmed list of ten, each with a theme tag and a report prompt. The short descriptions of the titles I didn't confirm by search come from my own knowledge, so check them before distributing.

Deb Olin Unferth, Earth 7 (2026) · Technology, extinction. What does the novel suggest we owe a planet we've used up, and does saving a "trace" of Earth count as preservation?
Stephen Markley, The Deluge (2023) · Climate politics, justice. Which obstacles to climate action does the novel locate in institutions rather than individuals?
Charlotte McConaghy, Wild Dark Shore (2024) · Preservation, loss. What is being preserved, for whom, and at what cost to the people doing it?
George Saunders, Vigil (2024) · Complicity, responsibility. How does the novel treat moral responsibility for harms that are diffuse and long-term?
Ray Nayler, The Mountain in the Sea (2022) · Nonhuman minds. If octopuses are persons, what changes about environmental ethics and our standing as moral agents?
Ned Beauman, Venomous Lumpsucker (2022) · Valuing species. Satirize or defend: can extinction be priced? What does the book assume about instrumental versus intrinsic value?
Jeff VanderMeer, Absolution (2024) · Nature's agency. Is nature here a victim, an agent, or something that resists both categories?
Gina Chung, Sea Change (2022) · Ocean, grief. How does personal loss shape the narrator's relationship to ecological loss?
Samantha Harvey, Orbital (2023/24) · Planetary perspective. How does seeing Earth whole change the ethical questions, compared with Powers' view from inside the forest?
Naomi Alderman, The Future (2023) · Tech billionaires, escape fantasies. Pair with Lepore: where do the novel's elites match her "Artificial State"?

2010–2015

Ian McEwan, Solar (2010): a comic study of a physicist's self-interest and climate action
Paolo Bacigalupi, Ship Breaker (2010): YA, post-collapse Gulf Coast
Barbara Kingsolver, Flight Behavior (2012): monarch butterflies and climate belief in rural Appalachia
Kim Stanley Robinson, 2312 (2012): solar-system ecology and terraforming ethics
Margaret Atwood, MaddAddam (2013): concludes her trilogy on bioengineering and ecological collapse
Nathaniel Rich, Odds Against Tomorrow (2013): risk, prediction, and disaster profiteering
Ruth Ozeki, A Tale for the Time Being (2013): ocean plastic, Fukushima, and Zen
Alexis Wright, The Swan Book (2013): Aboriginal perspectives on a climate-altered Australia
Jeff VanderMeer, Annihilation (2014): the first Southern Reach book; nature as inscrutable agent
Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven (2014): what survives after collapse
Nnedi Okorafor, Lagoon (2014): first contact, Lagos, and the oil-polluted sea
Kim Stanley Robinson, Aurora (2015): the ethics of leaving Earth
Maja Lunde, The History of Bees (English 2017; Norwegian 2015): three eras of pollinator collapse

2016–2020

Annie Proulx, Barkskins (2016): three centuries of deforestation
Lily Brooks-Dalton, Good Morning, Midnight (2016)
Omar El Akkad, American War (2017): climate-driven second civil war
Louise Erdrich, Future Home of the Living God (2017): reproduction and reverse evolution
Kim Stanley Robinson, New York 2140 (2017): flooded city, capital, and collective action
Sue Burke, Semiosis (2018): plant intelligence; a natural companion to The Overstory
Barbara Kingsolver, Unsheltered (2018): two eras of ecological and economic precarity
Michael Christie, Greenwood (2019): a century of one family and one forest
Amitav Ghosh, Gun Island (2019): migration, myth, and the Sundarbans
Kim Stanley Robinson, The Ministry for the Future (2020): policy-level climate fiction
Rumaan Alam, Leave the World Behind (2020): crisis and class
Diane Cook, The New Wilderness (2020): a community living in a protected wilderness state
Lydia Millet, A Children's Bible (2020): generational anger at climate inaction
Charlotte McConaghy, Migrations (2020): the last Arctic terns

For a philosophy course, a few of these pair well with specific topics:

Intrinsic vs. instrumental value: Barkskins, Semiosis, Venomous Lumpsucker
Intergenerational ethics: Unsheltered, A Children's Bible, Vigil
Geoengineering and policy: The Ministry for the Future, New York 2140
Indigenous and non-Western perspectives: The Swan Book, Lagoon, Gun Island

2. Climate politics, justice, and policy

Majumdar, A Guardian and a Thief (2025)
Puchner, Dream State (2025)
Markley, The Deluge (2023)
Robinson, The Ministry for the Future (2020)
Alam, Leave the World Behind (2020)
Robinson, New York 2140 (2017)
El Akkad, American War (2017)
Rich, Odds Against Tomorrow (2013)
McEwan, Solar (2010)

3. Responsibility and intergenerational ethics

Saunders, Vigil (2024)
Millet, A Children's Bible (2020)
Kingsolver, Unsheltered (2018)
Kingsolver, Flight Behavior (2012)

4. Nonhuman life and intrinsic value

Arnott, Dusk (2025)
Guha, The Tiger's Share (2025)
Reva, Endling (2025)
VanderMeer, Absolution (2024)
Nayler, The Mountain in the Sea (2022)
Beauman, Venomous Lumpsucker (2022)
McConaghy, Wild Dark Shore (2024) and Migrations (2020)
Christie, Greenwood (2019)
Burke, Semiosis (2018)
Proulx, Barkskins (2016)
Lunde, The History of Bees (2015, English 2017)
VanderMeer, Annihilation (2014)

5. Oceans, grief, and planetary perspective

Thien, The Book of Records (2025)
Kwan, Awake in the Floating City (2025)
Harvey, Orbital (2023/24)
Chung, Sea Change (2022)
Ozeki, A Tale for the Time Being (2013)

6. Indigenous and non-Western perspectives

Ghosh, Gun Island (2019)
Okorafor, Lagoon (2014)
Wright, The Swan Book (2013)

7. Collapse, survival, and community

Brooks-Dalton, The Light Pirate (2022)
Cook, The New Wilderness (2020)
Erdrich, Future Home of the Living God (2017)
Brooks-Dalton, Good Morning, Midnight (2016)
Mandel, Station Eleven (2014)
Atwood, MaddAddam (2013)
Bacigalupi, Ship Breaker (2010)

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Also recommended

Cli-Fi (climate fiction) - This list collects novels that deal with climate change. https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/36205.Cli_Fi_Climate_Change_Fiction
More Cli-Fi https://share.google/aimode/uctzpNGvnO2a2rMGO
More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley's Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity by Adam Becker - "Tech billionaires have decided that they should determine our futures for us. According to Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Sam Altman, and more, the only good future for humanity is one powered by technology: trillions of humans living in space, functionally immortal, served by superintelligent AIs. In More Everything Forever, science journalist Adam Becker investigates these wildly implausible and often profoundly immoral visions of tomorrow—and shows why, in reality, there is no good evidence that they will, or should, come to pass."

TEXTS Fall '24

First things first--a proper education

“The complexity of our present trouble suggests as never before that we need to change our present concept of education. Education is not properly an industry, and its proper use is not to serve industries, either by job-training or by industry-subsidized research. It's proper use is to enable citizens to live lives that are economically, politically, socially, and culturally responsible. This cannot be done by gathering or "accessing" what we now call "information" - which is to say facts without context and therefore without priority. A proper education enables young people to put their lives in order, which means knowing what things are more important than other things; it means putting first things first.” ― Wendell Berry

The college project

“The American college may be considered a continuation, at the human level, of the self-education process of the earth itself: universe education, earth education, and human education are stages of development in a single unbroken process...The entire college project can be seen as that of enabling the student to understand the immense story of the universe and the role of the student in creating the next phase of the story.” --Thomas Berry, “The American College in the Ecological Age,” in The Dream of the Earth

“Odd as I am sure it will appear to some, I can think of no better form of personal involvement in the cure of the environment than that of gardening. A person who is growing a garden, if he is growing it organically, is improving a piece of the world. He is producing something to eat, which makes him somewhat independent of the grocery business, but he is also enlarging, for himself, the meaning of food and the pleasure of eating.”
― Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays

“Nature shrinks as capital grows. The growth of the market cannot solve the very crisis it creates.”
― Vandana Shiva, Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis

“Why should we tolerate a diet of weak poisons, a home in insipid surroundings, a circle of acquaintances who are not quite our enemies, the noise of motors with just enough relief to prevent insanity? Who would want to live in a world which is just not quite fatal?”
― Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

“How can we be so arrogant? The planet is, was, and always will be stronger than us. We can't destroy it; if we overstep the mark, the planet will simply erase us from its surface and carry on existing. Why don't they start talking about not letting the planet destroy us?”
― Paulo Coelho, The Winner Stands Alone

“When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: if you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren't pessimistic, you don't understand the data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren't optimistic, you haven't got a pulse.”
― Martin Keogh, Hope Beneath Our Feet: Restoring Our Place in the Natural World

“When the last tree is cut and the last fish killed, the last river poisoned, then you will see that you can't eat money.”
― John May, The Greenpeace Story

“We are being made aware that the organization of society on the principle of private profit, as well as public destruction, is leading both to the deformation of humanity by unregulated industrialism, and to the exhaustion of natural resources, and that a good deal of our material progress is a progress for which succeeding generations may have to pay dearly.”
― T.S. Eliot

“There is a tendency at every important but difficult crossroad to pretend that it's not really there.”
― Bill McKibben, The End of Nature

“We know, at least, that this decision (ending factory farming) will help prevent deforestation, curb global warming, reduce pollution, save oil reserves, lessen the burden on rural America, decrease human rights abuses, improve publish health, and help eliminate the most systematic animal abuse in history.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals

“An attitude to life which seeks fulfilment in the
single-minded pursuit of wealth - in short, materialism - does not fit into this
world, because it contains within itself no limiting principle, while the
environment in which it is placed is strictly limited.”
― Ernst F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered

“One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds.”
― Aldo Leopold

“Saving the world requires saving democracy. That requires well-informed citizens. Conservation, environment, poverty, community, education, family, health, economy- these combine to make one quest: liberty and justice for all. Whether one's special emphasis is global warming or child welfare, the cause is the same cause. And justice comes from the same place being human comes from: compassion.”
― Carl Safina, The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World

“The re-establishment of an ecological balance depends on the ability of society to counteract the progressive materialization of values. The ecological balance cannot be re-established unless we recognize again that only persons have ends and only persons can work towards them.”
― Ivan Illich

Environmental Ethics

Monday, October 19, 2026

Supplemental cli-fi/eco-fiction lists

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Peripatetics

	Michael Pollan (@michaelpollan) http://michaelpollan.com/
5/14/15, 10:57 AM All the lectures and talks from Edible Education 101 are now online. All told, a great introduction to food politics bit.ly/1Fausvx