第1620期:What is cli-fi?

If you could travel back in time, which period of history would you visit? It’s a great question to ask your friends, and time travel is the subject of many science fiction films. Of course, sci-fi is familiar to most of us, but what is cli-fi? The simple answer is climate fiction – a genre which focuses on the subject of climate change.

如果时光倒流，你会去哪个历史时期？问你的朋友是一个很好的问题，时间旅行是许多科幻电影的主题。当然，科幻对我们大多数人来说都很熟悉，但什么是 cli-fi？简单的答案是气候小说——一种关注气候变化主题的类型。

Many of the cli-fi examples we watch tend to be disaster films. It could be solar flares, ice ages devastating the planet, extreme flooding swamping the Earth with water, or super-storms that threaten life as we know it. While films and novels of this genre are often subject to the typical tropes of a hero or heroine battling to save the day, what sets it apart from most sci-fi films is that the plots will often draw on plausible outcomes in the present or near future.

我们观看的许多 cli-fi 示例往往是灾难片。它可能是太阳耀斑、冰河时代毁灭地球、极端洪水淹没地球，或者威胁我们所知道的生命的超级风暴。虽然这种类型的电影和小说经常受到英雄或女英雄为拯救世界而战的典型比喻，但它与大多数科幻电影的不同之处在于，情节往往会利用当前或近期的合理结果未来。

Climate change and the potential threats have long been established. Some believe that the issue of climate change has even led to more fans watching films to learn more about what’s happening to the world – seeing it as a form of edutainment. A study conducted by the Yale programme on Climate Change Communication tested the effects that two climate fiction novels can have on its readers and found “significant positive effects” in terms of their attitudes and beliefs towards the climate crisis – for example, understanding global warming will harm them and future generations.

气候变化及其潜在威胁早已确立。一些人认为，气候变化问题甚至导致更多的影迷观看电影以更多地了解世界正在发生的事情——将其视为一种寓教于乐的形式。耶鲁大学气候变化传播项目进行的一项研究测试了两本气候小说对其读者的影响，并发现他们对气候危机的态度和信念具有“显着的积极影响”——例如，了解全球变暖将伤害他们和后代。

Most climate films are not only blockbuster action films, but also prey on our fear of what some see as the impending doom of a climate catastrophe. This sounds bad, but according to a study conducted on 310 adults in the US, watching scary films can help us feel more prepared, resilient and less alone in situations such as the pandemic. So, it looks like cli-fi is here to stay – and there seem to be some benefits. Whether it’s there to educate, entertain or prepare you for a climate crisis, it might have a role to play.

大多数气候电影不仅是轰动一时的动作片，而且还利用我们对某些人认为气候灾难即将到来的厄运的恐惧。这听起来很糟糕，但根据对美国 310 名成年人进行的一项研究，观看恐怖电影可以帮助我们在大流行等情况下感到更有准备、更有弹性、更少孤独。所以，看起来 cli-fi 将继续存在——而且似乎有一些好处。无论是为了教育、娱乐还是为应对气候危机做准备，它都可能发挥作用。

time travel 时间旅行
science fiction film 科幻电影
climate fiction 气候变化类虚构作品，简称 “cli-fi”
genre （艺术）类型
disaster film 灾难片
solar flare 太阳耀斑
ice age 冰河时代
devastate 毁灭，摧毁
swamp 淹没
threaten 威胁到，危及
trope （艺术作品中的）典型形象、主题
hero （男）主角，（男）主人公
heroine 女主角，女主人公
plot 故事情节
plausible 可信的，有道理的
edutainment 寓教于乐，“educational entertainment” 的缩写
blockbuster （尤指商业）大片
action film 动作片
impending （坏事）迫在眉睫的
catastrophe 灾难