Books to Solve the Climate Change Problem?

In this winter of our discontent, The New York Times reports that speculative fiction about climate change is making its way into university curricula. 

"University courses on global warming have become common, and Prof. Stephanie LeMenager’s new class... at the University of Oregon has all the expected, alarming elements: rising oceans, displaced populations, political conflict, endangered animals.

"The goal of this class, however, is not to marshal evidence for climate change as a human-caused crisis, or to measure its effects — the reality and severity of it are taken as given — but how to think about it, prepare for it and respond to it. Instead of scientific texts, the class, “The Cultures of Climate Change,” focuses on films, poetry, photography, essays and a heavy dose of the mushrooming subgenre of speculative fiction known as climate fiction, or cli-fi, novels like “Odds Against Tomorrow,” by Nathaniel Rich, and “Solar,” by Ian McEwan.

“Speculative fiction allows a kind of scenario-imagining, not only about the unfolding crisis but also about adaptations and survival strategies,” Professor LeMenager said. “The time isn’t to reflect on the end of the world, but on how to meet it. We want to apply our humanities skills pragmatically to this problem.”

Very apropos.  In the last year I've led discussions in my library groups of both Barbara Kingsolver's Flight Behavior and McEwan's Solar.  The reaction has been mixed--Kingsolvler's book was criticized for including too much extraneous detail, while McEwan's hero was detested by some for his self-centeredness.  But the conversation about the role of fiction in the wider world and he problems the novels raised was stimulating and perhaps useful.

One of my conclusions is that in order not to  preach to the choir, writers with conviction have to widen their appeal by writing funny/controversial/non literaray books.  Kingsolver and McEwan have both done this, to their credit. McEwan, particularly, writes a good story too.

Teaching these books in university classes is probably a good idea, although, according to the story, the courses which use them tend to be specialized ones, attracting people already convinced .  The message nust go out to a wider audience.