Wild Dark Shore

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of animal death.

Climate fiction is a term given to a genre of works like Wild Dark Shore that explore the impact of climate change on humans and the environment. Climate change is a topic that can feel abstract and difficult to understand, particularly when described in clinical, scientific language. Climate fiction, or “cli-fi,” bridges this gap by depicting people confronting the material challenges posed by climate change within a narrative. In the case of Wild Dark Shore, the characters and wildlife face rising sea levels due to climate change and more frequent and intense storms that result from a warming, rising ocean.

While many works of climate fiction include elements of science fiction, Wild Dark Shore takes a generally realist approach. It is set in the near future when the outcome of climate change has intensified, but the setting is otherwise identical to the contemporary world. In this way, it illustrates what could happen if greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase. This book and others in the climate fiction genre help people process their feelings of anxiety about climate change while also raising the alarm about threats to the environment.