Disaster distortion occurs when catastrophic events dominate fictional representations of climate change. This distortion overshadows the slower, systemic forms of environmental violence that disproportionately affect vulnerable populations and makes it more difficult to pay more attention to transformative politics of care. While disasters are an effective dramatic device, their prevalence in fiction can obscure the gradual deterioration of ecosystems and communities that characterizes much of the climate crisis and stunt our ability to imagine alternatives.
This project examines two key manifestations of disaster distortion.
- Analyze how disaster narratives potentially distort our perception of the climate crisis by overemphasizing catastrophic events over slow-developing environmental threats.
- Examine the limitations of disaster dystopias in representing the climate emergency, particularly their tendency to frame climate change as a hypothetical future concern.
- Explore how representations of interpersonal and environmental care in climate fiction can offer alternative frameworks for understanding human agency and responsibility.
These distortions ultimately limit our ability to imagine and enact meaningful climate action.