Once again, spring rolls around and folks start thinking about gardening, outdoor activities, and enjoying nature, which is why it is the perfect time to recognize Earth Day on April 22. The theme for Earth Day 2025 is "Our Power, Our Planet." This theme emphasizes the collective responsibility of individuals, organizations, and governments to transition to renewable energy and build a sustainable future. Specifically, it calls for the tripling of globally generated electricity from renewable sources by 2030. Well, that would make a happy ending for any story, right? But because we humans don't seem to get the message until it is staring us right in the face, find here a collection of climate and eco fiction stories that are guaranteed to have you thinking about how we can possibly save this beautiful planet we call home.
All the Water in the World by Eiren Caffall - Nonie, a girl deeply connected to water, narrates this story. After the glaciers melt, she, her sister, parents, and researcher friends create a settlement on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History in nearly deserted New York City, following the rule to take from exhibits only in dire need. They hunt and grow food in Central Park while preserving human history and science. When a superstorm breaches the flood walls, they must escape north on the Hudson, carrying a book of lost collections. As they race toward safety, they encounter communities that have adapted in various and sometimes frightening ways, but they remain determined to build a new world that honors what they’ve saved.
Dengue Boy by Michel Nieva - It’s 2272 and the Caribbean Sea extends into South America’s Pampas, Buenos Aires has sunk into the ocean, and the Antarctic has thawed into a humid new Patagonia. The global economy is tied up in “virofinance,” from which investors have grown rich by speculating on pandemics. Dengue Boy, a child-mosquito hybrid spawned from a vaccine experiment gone wrong, battles bullies at school, renames herself Dengue Girl, and goes on a quest to discover the truth of her parentage. Her journey takes her from the La Pampa Stock Exchange to the terraformed Antarctic Caribbean as she vows to see mosquitoes “reign over this world!”
Tasmania by Paolo Giordano - In late 2015, Paolo feels his life coming apart: While his wife, Lorenza, has decided to give up on pregnancy after years of trying, he clings to the dream of becoming a father, not just a father figure to Lorenza's son. As their marriage strains, Paolo immerses himself in work, traveling to Paris to report on the UN Climate Change Conference in the wake of terrorist attacks that shook the world. His journalism dovetails with a book he hopes to write on the atomic bomb and its survivors, a growing obsession that will take him to cities across Europe and ultimately Japan.
Self-Esteem and the End of the World by Luke Healey - Set against the backdrop of a dangerously changing global climate, with melting ice-caps and flooding cities, this graphic novel spans two decades of tragicomic self-discovery. From self-help books to summiting Greek mountaintops, and workplace murder mysteries to a Hollywood revival of Healey’s early work, readers see the protagonist grappling with his identity as the world crumbles. Quietly funny, smartly introspective, and grounded in deeply-felt familial highs and lows, this book ponders what happens when the person you are isn’t who you need to be, who you are when nobody’s watching, and ultimately: Who can you possibly be at the end of the world?
Pearce Oysters by Joselyn Takacs - This title, a family drama set on the Louisiana coastline during the historic 2010 oil spill, follows the Pearces, local oyster farmers whose business, family, and livelihood are on the brink of collapse. This is eye-opening eco-fiction at its best — a story that highlights the grit and beauty of lives lived in an overlooked corner of the American South. Diving deep into the bonds of family, culture, class, and industry, the novel elevates the voices of deeply sympathetic characters: Jordan, the reluctant head of his family's storied oyster company; May, his distressed, widowed mother; and Benny, his beatnik musician brother, who returns from New Orleans in their time of crisis.
The Flat Woman by Vanessa Saunders - In The Flat Woman, women exclusively are blamed for the climate crisis. Seagulls drop dead from the sky and the government, instead of taking responsibility, scapegoats a group of female ecoterrorists. When a girl’s mother is incarcerated for climate crimes, she is forced to raise herself alone. As a young woman, she begins a romance with an environmental activist whose passion makes her question her own role in the world. Saunders crafts a world of relevant strangeness that points to a growing contempt for women amidst a dying world, raising the alarm on climate change, male privilege, and surviving in corrupt institutional systems.
I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger - The book is set in the not-so-distant future on the banks of Lake Superior. Rainy and Lark live simply in this version of our climate-stricken potential future. Rainy plays bass and does casual labor, while Lark runs a bookstore, a somewhat risqué business in a society that eschews education and proudly has elected its first illiterate president. Rainy narrates and readers see how he fell in love with books along with falling in love with Lark. He adores her and they live simply and generously. When they take in a wandering young man, however, danger follows him.
Honeymoons in Temporary Locations by Ashley Shelby - What will a post-climate-disaster America look like? In Ashley Shelby’s short story collection, the results range from devastating to absurd to all-too-plausible. This trifecta is what makes this eclectic mix of stories unique in a genre that tends toward the dystopian. In the title story, the narrator, a wealthy climate refugee, recounts her bizarre journey from storm-damaged New York City to “climate-stable Duluth” during which she loses the “Chapstick lesbian”-turned-wife she met at a dive bar. The story mixes laugh-out-loud humor with sharp commentary on inequality, government bureaucracy, and climate-change denialism, as does the bulk of this collection.
The Ancients by John Larison - Some 230 generations after a great environmental disaster, villagers who have long fished or hunted elk find themselves once again forced to decamp from their homes in the face of a terrifying change. Deserts are swallowing lands that, readers soon learn, once were known as Alaska. On their journey, siblings encounter other tribes, other ways of living and thinking, and even a city that teems with all that’s great and cruel in civilization. This is a richly imagined epic set in a post-climate apocalypse world, which weaves together three narratives to tell a story of human resilience, hope, and the stewardship of our world for future generations.
Elegy, Southwest by Madeleine Watts - This novel takes place in 2018, at the time of the Camp Fire, which destroyed communities and covered California in smoke. This threat remains ever present, with the recent 2025 fires having a similar devastating effect. Readers follow young narrator Eloise and her partner, Lewis, as they take a road trip through California, Nevada, Utah and Arizona. Lewis, an artist working for a prominent land art foundation, is grieving the recent death of his mother, while Eloise is an academic researching the past and future of the Colorado River as it threatens to run dry. Over the course of their trip, Eloise, beginning to suspect she might be pregnant, helplessly witnesses Lewis’s descent as he struggles to find a place for himself in the desert where he never quite felt at home. Eloise narrates these events from somewhere in the future, after an unnamed calamity has overtaken Lewis, leaving her raking over the events of those weeks for some clue to explain what happened.
Awake in the Floating City by Susanna Kwan - In Kwan's meditative and affecting first novel, a near-future San Francisco is plagued by flooding events. Bo, a painter and caregiver, continues to hold onto hope that her mother survived being washed away two years ago. Concerned about the city's deteriorating infrastructure, Bo hesitantly agrees to join what remains of her family in Canada, but then a note is slipped under her door, requesting her services. Bo abandons her plans to relocate and begins her tenure as caregiver to centenarian Mia. Their relationship is never easy, but a deep connection begins to grow between the two women, both of whom refuse to leave San Francisco behind.
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