Climate Change Literacy (Elements in Environmental Humanities)

By: Jens Martin Gurr and Roman Bartosch and Julia Hoydis

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Synopsis: This Element presents a necessary intervention within the rapidly expanding field of research in the environmental humanities on climate change and environmental literacy. In contrast to the dominant, science-centred literacy debates, which largely ignore the unique resources of the humanities, it asks: How does literary reading contribute to climate change communication? How does this contribution relate to recent demands for environmental and related literacies? Rather than reducing the function of literature to a more pleasurable form of information transfer or its affective dimension of evoking sympathy, climate change literacy thoroughly reassesses the cognitive, affective, and pedagogic potentials of literary writing. It does so by analysing a selection of popular climate novels and by demonstrating the role of fiction in fostering a more adequate understanding of, and response to, climate change. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.