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Cli-fi
A new literary term is on NPR radio host Scott Simon's mind -- cli fi. A five-minute NPR clip featured sound bytes from cli-fi authors Nathaniel Rich and Barbara Kingsolver and quoted climate scientist Judith Curry, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology's School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, as saying, When novelists tackle climate change in their writing, they reach people in a way that scientists can't.

"You know, scientists and other people are trying to get their message across about various aspects of the climate change issue," Curry told NPR. "And it seems like fiction is an untapped way of doing this -- a way of smuggling some serious topics into the consciousness of readers who may not be following the science."

Curry began assembling a list of cli-fi novels last December and included a recent book that this blogger produced and packaged, "Polar City Red" by Jim Laughter. Curry wrote on her blog that she first saw a renewed interest in cli-fi with Michael Crichton's 2004 novel, State of Fear, which is about eco-terrorists, and "Flight Behavior'' by Kingsolver.

Husna Haq at the Christian Science Monitor pickewd up the NPR and story and wrote a follow-up, adding: "We're fascinated by this emerging genre, and if one cli-fi writer is on the mark, we'll be seeing a lot more of it in coming years."