One other idea that I’m not quite sure how to place.
My son is obsessed with the Magic School Bus books. His two favorites are the last two Joanna Cole wrote MSB and the Climate Challenge and MSB Explores Human Evolution. I really like these two books because 1) they are gigantic in scale yet still accessible to kids 2) they address “controversial” topics and 3) they both include students from other countries who join the kids.
Anyway, when I was leaving to go do this Lab, I told my son that I was going to go work on the climate challenge. And I thought how much exciting that sounded than “I’m going to talk with some people about climate change.” For him and his generation, it certainly will be a challenge and not some far-off thing.
I am not proposing more wordsmithing on climate change/crisis— I think that topic is overdone. But I wonder if there is some way to tell this story so kids (and all of us) feel like they are part of the story and always have been… that it’s not an activist choice but just a part of being alive. Certainly my son cannot conceive of the idea of a world without Legos or Paw Patrol… for him those aren’t things that happened in history, but a part of his ongoing being.
I think epics are like that too — that’s what I recognize in the Star Wars comments. The scale makes you feel like this story has always been around and will always be around. I think that’s what we have to achieve.
I just wanted to say how happy I am about how *generative* all these comments have been. One thing I felt very aware of as I was writing was that I was not walking on untrodden ground… that people living and dead have also approached the problem of how we address this crisis with story. Now it seems even clearer to me that “epic” is just a way of organizing those ideas.
Those ideas include the works cited by LeGuin and Macy… I wonder what else might belong there. Certainly some works of fiction. It almost feels like the establishment of a new canon, but one that can still be alive in the present moment, the way religious people read their texts.
I like the idea of beginning to weave the epic with some of the stories from the recent past. I think we can use the way Greta’s story unfolded as a case study of that. I kept a picture of Greta on my desk for a long time — she was like my saint. Specifically, I felt like she reminded me to focus on being courageous and not viewing everything I do through the lenses of my career or what people might think. And that made me feel less alone.
I think that’s what we are going for, especially in a time when the narratives we might have felt we were once part of are collapsing. Some new story that can include all of us and our future on this planet.
TL;DR: We need both spears and carrier bags to map futures and navigate from the present.
I love this and as you know Anya, I’m fully on board. As for the “epic” framing, I understand the value, and agree we definitely need preferred and evocative images of the future that are rich, nuanced and afford navigation. I can see why the epic format would be an attractive candidate for that.
I want to offer another framing. I think it is compatible with the epic frame and may expand it further. The high priestess of SF, Ursula k. Le Guin, offered the anthropological framing of narrative structures as spears versus carrier bags. For anyone who hasn’t read this inspiring and funny short essay (in a while), please stop everything you’re doing and go read it (again) now: https://stillmoving.org/resources/the-carrier-bag-theory-of-fiction
Welcome back.
Le Guin offers The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction as a complex system of bits and pieces that are not aligned linearly like a spear directed towards a triumphant catharsis, but as fragments, sitting in the same bag mixing with each other and constantly evolving and changing:
“…full of beginnings without ends, of initiations, of losses, of transformations and translations, and far more tricks than conflicts, far fewer triumphs than snares and delusions; full of space ships that get stuck, missions that fail, and people who don't understand.”
I see Le Guin’s carrier bag as a map of an environment (!) to explore through the imagination, through anticipation. Some journeys through this map may indeed be epic. Others, less so. I focus my own activist work on exercising political imagination that creates images of the future as landmarks in a map, as fragments in a carrier bag.
If we reach our hand into the darkness of the bag, what futures can we sense? Some may feel prickly, others slimy. Yet, others may feel smooth and promising. How do we imagine what would these fragments afford us if we sink our teeth into them? And most importantly, how do we pull them out of the bag and into the present?
Le Guin continues the previous quote:
“I said it was hard to make a gripping tale of how we wrested the wild oats from their husks, I didn't say it was impossible. Who ever said writing a novel was easy?”
Mapping futures isn’t easy, but here is me trying:
The metaphor of stories as carrier bags is one of the amazing gifts Ursula K Le Guin gave us (I have that essay in its tiny purple print format, with an excellent introduction, that I keep by my side and read often, like a devotional).
I love that you use it as a framework for your political imagination.
I explicitly fold it into my novel-making process, asking myself what the shape of this particular carrier bag is and what can it hold? How can I construct it so that, structurally, it can hold more. In the exercise of imagination, it's a wonderful tool.
This is exciting, thanks so much, Anya and Andrew, for these efforts and for reaching out wide.
A few thoughts popping up…
- I’ve been hoping for a long time for mass-engaging, thrilling epic stories about the adventure of our time, that center not an individual or small group of heroes, but widespread, systemic, community-driven, diverse, ecological heroism. In these stories, I imagine the heroes as ANY and ALL the people and other species expressing their care in the thousands of forms of protecting, nurturing, regenerating, preserving, and transforming Life on Earth.
- There’s a big opportunity here to make a choice about whether anyone or anything is vilified - I wonder if certain qualities (are these the gods?) are involved in the concepts of heroes and villains: here in this oil drilling we see Insatiable Hunger showing up; here in these 50 people we see Compassion showing up strong…
- I would love to see humanity portrayed as part of the web of life, not separate at all - so any cruelty by humans to humans is just as destructive as - and even PART of - ecological destruction
- I love the idea of this story spanning generations, or even eons - like the Cosmic Walk in “deep time” exercises in the Work that Reconnects (John Seed has a great example of this).
- I can think of people from a variety of cultural backgrounds who might be open to a conversation about how they see the epic narrative of this moment - this could be really exciting
- I think Joanna Macy’s articulation of the 3 stories of our time, with the question of “what’s the central plot?” applies here. Business as Usual - central plot: getting ahead, progress, growth, etc. Great Unraveling - central plot: everything’s falling apart (doomscroll?). And the Great Turning - the adventure story of our time - where the plot is transformation, and the characters are everywhere, engaged in all kinds of actions to protect and defend; to remember and create new life-sustaining systems of food, energy, etc.; and deeply shifting our perspectives and sense of identity. In this great adventure story, full of beauty, tragedy, and uncertainty - the characters and the heroes can be anyone, and it’s not about heroic individuals, it’s about courageous, cooperative, emergent action.
Ok, I’ll stop there. I’m interested in the Zoom call, keep me posted! Big thanks, Anya and Andrew!
I love that you arrived at the need for a change in the way we tell stories about the climate crisis—this has been my full-time occupation for about five years now!
I write solarpunk and hopeful climate fiction and host the Bright Green Futures podcast about lifting up stories like this—in fact, I'm about to release an anthology from guests on the pod that showcases what these stories can do.
While I love the idea of an "epic" narrative structure for climate storytelling (please write one!), I don't agree at all that it's the "only" story that meets the challenge. I think the challenge is actually much deeper and broader.
As Amitav Ghosh identified nearly a decade ago (The Great Derangement), literature has substantively avoided engaging with climate for the same reason that society has: a failure of imagination rooted in how we tell stories (and the kind of stories we don't tell, namely writing community out of the narrative). This constrains how we can even talk about climate in stories (and when we do, it's mostly been doomer narratives). As my friend PJ Manney has been saying for nearly as long, we need a New Mythos — a new body of stories, not a single myth — that changes how we tell stories as well as what those stories are about.
I keep saying I don't tell stories about climate change but about how *we* have to change.
And that, by definition, cannot be a singular story—people are diverse, the planet is huge, the impacts are complex and manifold. We will need thousands of stories to grapple culturally with the climate crisis (and absolutely Indigenous stories and perspectives need to be part of that).
I firmly believe we need to not just have many stories, we need to change storytelling.
The stories we've told in the past got us here. We have to deeply interrogate why (hint: they are hero's journeys that write the collective out of the story; see Gail Carriger's Heroine's Journey for a community-focused alternative; this is just one of many ways storytelling needs to change). Solarpunk and hopeful climate fiction offer alternative ways of storytelling that begin to tackle this.
As part of the launch of the Bright Green Futures anthology, I asked the authors to pick theme words to describe their stories. They fit together almost like a meta-story themselves and the themes and the stories showcase what hopeful climate fiction can look like... and the breadth of what we need to tackle:
1 - CLIMATE ANXIETY
2 - CLIMATE RESTORATION
3 - CLIMATE ROLES
4 - CLIMATE CONNECTIONS
5 - CLIMATE RESILIENCE
6 - CLIMATE HERITAGE
The good news is that people all over are questioning the narratives we've been telling and seeking out different stories. The bad news is that the old stories still hold sway and the forces of both the status quo and the self-interested elites are tearing the world apart. But out of that comes also the possibility of change (which is how cultural change works as well).
It's compelling to me that people keep arriving at the same conclusion: that we need to change the stories we tell. That consistency, that shared wayfinding, tells me New Mythos stories are a robust solution — the concept is something that many people arrive at relatively quickly after grappling with the problem.
The creation of that body of work is just getting started.
I look forward to your further explorations on this! And I would be interested in staying in touch.
Hi Susan - there is a lot to think about in what you say, but I wanted to quickly acknowledge and accept correction. You are completely right that the epic is not the ONLY way to approach this problem.
My goal in saying that was to differentiate it from more modern Western forms like the novel, but you are right that the number of potential forms available to us humans is manifold. I like the idea of a more abstract term like "mythos" that suggests that the form we need hasn't even been invented yet. So maybe the right way of putting it is "we need stories that are epic in scale... including, perhaps, an actual epic." :-)
Yes, exactly! I think Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry for the Future was an attempt at "epic scale" with his ~50 POVs and wide-ranging narrative. But even he acknowledged the limitations of that form as it puts distance between the reader and the characters. Which is another reason why we need lots of stories, including ones that have epic scale, but also intimate tales of what it feels like to survive a wildfire or lose a national forest where you camped as a child.
It might not seem obvious the connection between a tale of survival and motivation to engage in the climate crisis, but we're beginning to actually study the connection between fiction (or other story-like narratives) and what moves people to engage in the climate crisis (as opposed to simply looking away or feeling hopeless). And (unsurprisingly), it varies vastly, between countries and even between genders: this is why we need whatever meets people where they are and draws them in.
One thing is for sure, we all need to bring all our various talents to the fight. It *is* a collective project, almost impossible in scale, and yet I continue to believe we're capable of doing anything we collectively decide to do. Discussions like this are exactly how we find the way.
KSR is always on my mind. I think it was actually reading "Blue Mars" as a kid that woke me up to the real impacts of climate change. And yeah, "Ministry of the Future" is so rewarding but also presses against the limits of the form, almost like James Joyce in a way. It's also a survival story, come to think of it.
I wonder if what we are really talking about is a new genre. Cf. Anya's exchanges about anime/manga elsewhere in the thread. Print ushered in the modern world that gave us our very privileged lives but also all these problems. Maybe in hundreds of years some emerging form will be seen as the equivalent of print... not just a genre, not just a form, but a whole cultural platform.
Here's hoping it's anime ;-) kidding not kidding -- I honestly feel so attached to my old novels and vinyl that it's impossible for me to know. We need a child to lead us.
I've loved reading this post and following the many responses. Thank you Anya and Andrew.
So many folks have already voiced thoughts I've had: Joanna Macy's Great Turning as a powerful narrative form, the need for centering more community-centric forms of narrative, the fact that we simply need as many narratives as possible to magnify the reach: grand, epic ones and deeply intimate ones. And that we might benefit from looking beyond conventionally western forms of narrative and centering Indigenous stories and storytellers in the conversation.
One thing I will echo here is Willow Batista's comment about telling the stories that have already happened. Yes, epics are fundamentally retrospective, but something like Star Wars is actually a great example of an ongoing epic with past actions that set up future victories. (Some of their more recent movies/tv are interesting examples of this: like Rogue One, which retroactively sets up the fourth chapter/first movie.) So much of what we have achieved in the climate movement in the past few decades is the work of a massive and dedicated group of actors. It's not hard to imagine an epic that is as sprawling as some of our modern narratives (for example the massive Marvel Cinematic Universe) but which highlights these stories that the public doesn't know and sees them as essential and interlinked actions, all of which are moving the plot forward in the story of how we face a changing climate. These stories of past victories and the groups and individual actors who worked to make them possible would then set up the next chapters in the narrative--those yet to be lived and written.
I teach and write Creative Nonfiction and I think a lot about which stories get told and why--and how those stories shape the stories we go on to tell next. It's not hard to imagine an ongoing real-world epic about real people told from multiple perspectives and across scales (from small community actions to massive political victories) that lays the groundwork for the heroic work that still needs to be done.
1) One potential place to start would be to write the chapters in this epic journey that have already happened. Think about how star wars is made up of a series of chapters, each with a clear shorter term objective, but also clearly linked to a larger imperative. For example, we are no longer on a course for 8* of warming, which was once the most likely outcome of the "BAU" path. I would love to hear the story of this rarely discussed and not-unremarkable success. And then maybe there can be a chapter about the rise of the youth movement and the impact of the Fridays for the Future protests. Greta seems like a clear hero figure, although I'm not sure if she's more of a Han or a Luke. ;)
2) The biggest problem with this idea (I think) is that an epic tends to be retrospective - telling the story of how some great deed was accomplished, and what we urgently need right now to catalyze change is some clear action or actions that people in the movement CAN take. The problem with climate change is that it doesn't seem to matter how many people "wake up" and join the movement because the people in power - who pull the strings of the world - are consistently and repeatedly choosing not to do what needs to be done. So what is the purpose of reframing the movement of we still don't have a clear path to success? Perhaps you will say that the path is to unseat those people in power (again similar to the star wars analogy!) but how are we actually going to do that? Are we taking up arms? (I hope not) if not, than what - the epic needs to inspire people to act and the action needs to feel both realistic and impactful. It has to grant more agency than just "vote" or "call your representatives" or "try to fly less". This epic needs to give people a way to engage in the rewriting of history (aka the future), and if we don't have that action figured out yet, than I'm not sure we are ready to focus on the comms (although I definitely don't mean to suggest that the comms is unimportant, we just need to make sure there is a plan to convey).
Thrilled to be a part of this effort, Anya and InsightLab! Grateful for these insights and would love to continue this epic exploration in more ways than one!
Hi Anya and Andrew: Thanks for the very thought provoking post.Here are my thoughts on the Epic Narrative Approach. It immediately reminded me of the work of educational psychologist Jerome Bruner, who likely came up in your “think tank” or whatever you called the 'brain picking" you both participted in in NYC! Bruner coined the term the “story mode of knowing” and argued that it was greatly underused at all levels of education, which, as you know, prioritizes logic and critical thinking—i.e., the scientific method.
As an educator, Bruner’s focus on the story mode of knowing profoundly influenced my work in teaching the African American historical experience—almost as much as Paulo Freire, the Brazilian pedagogist who also recognized the shortcomings of an over-reliance on empiricism. I think your group would find Bruner’s book, Actual Minds, Possible Worlds (1987), particularly insightful.
As an educator I would frame this issue as teaching/learning problem:
How can we teach about the climate crisis in a way that engenders behavioral change, leading to real-world impact?
Your group has identified a potential solution—an EPIC NARRATIVE. While rarely is any single strategy a silver bullet for behavior change (a multi-pronged approach is usually needed), I absolutely agree that storytelling needs to play a much larger role alongside the dominant facts-and-data approach. In addition to an EPIC NARRATIVE (which sounds like it could be a helluva serives on Netflix!), I suggest the value of incorporating analogies, metaphors, testimonials, short stories, novels, etc. But yes—if you could craft an overarching "Iliad" for climate change, that would be incredibly powerful!
Related Thoughts:
About 15 years ago, I attended a National Humanities Council meeting in DC, where Kathleen Woodward (Director of the Humanities Center at the University of Washington/Seattle) gave the keynote address and her topic was : Climate change is the defining humanities problem of our time.
I thought, "Wait… what? Isn’t this a problem for the sciences? "But she provided many insights, one being that humans struggle to grasp problems of such existential magnitude. I tried to find Kathleen's keynote online but haven’t been successful. Interestingly, Kathleen now seems to be focusing on the issue of aging—not on climate change. She still may be a useful contact however...
I also think it would be invaluable to involve Noam Chomsky in this discussion. As one of the great minds of our era, he has written extensively about the limits of humans' ability to "know" the world. While he does NOT come to mind as a particular champion of the story mode of knowing, (I think of him as a believer in criticial thinking/ science and as one who is suspicious of and questions DOMINANT narratives.) Nonetheless, he would certainly be familiar with Bruner’s ideas and his critique of "a new climate change EPIC NARRATIVE" could only be useful for you. I think he would have particualry useful insights into why human behavior has not significantly changed despite the overwhelming data and facts about the impending climate disaster. He frequently cites how humans don't learn from their past experiences for example... like Vietnam, the rise of Nazism in Europe, etc.
Finally have you considered USING Artificial Intelligence to help craft the Epic Narrative?
I ask because I recently used ChatGPT to develop a metaphor to motivate Democrats in NC to donate monthy to the Dem party. Watching the news every day and absoring "facts" wasn’t prompting action.
To make the situation more graspable or processible by the "other part of the brain: , I asked ChatGPT to frame what happening in Washington under Trump II as “baseball game gone rogue”. I provided a few initial examples (e.g., base hits are being called foul balls, umpires aren't following rules, etc.), and in about five seconds, ChatGPT generated a metaphor. (Note: This was done before Elon’s chainsaw massacre of governmental agencies!) Here's what Chat GPT came up with:
What It Wasn’t Was Baseball…(not chat GPT's title, but mine)
Imagine stepping onto a baseball field, ready to play by the rules—only to realize the opposing team has no intention of following them. They move the bases mid-inning, refuse to leave after three outs, and call their own strikes and balls—always in their favor. Even when your team manages a home run, they simply declare it a foul. When you protest, they sneer: “This is how the game works now.”
Worse still, the umpires—meant to be judges who ensure fairness—turn a blind eye, complicit in the chaos. Some fans don’t notice, but others feel the unease. They see the game being twisted into something unrecognizable, manipulated by those who prioritize power over fairness.
But here’s the thing about baseball—and about America: we believe in playing fair. The rules aren’t up for sale or revision at the whims of the corrupt. So what do we do? We stay on the field. We rally. We remind the crowd of the real rules and prepare for our turn at bat, ready to restore the integrity of the game.
This isn’t just about baseball—it’s about our democracy. More and more Democrats are stepping up to the plate, but we need your support. Just $10 a month—the cost of a trip to the concession stand—can help us fight for a level playing field. Will you join us? Donate today and help us reclaim the game.
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I am on the road in Patagonia and Santiago at the moment. But when I get back home we'll see if our "metaphor" approach affected giving !
These are just some thoughts - keep up the great work. I really do think you are on to something with the STORY MODE OF KNOWING approach to teaching about Climate Change.
Just the facts, in my 50 year career as an educator, has its limits as a way of changing human behavior although if one can retain facts they can "pass most tests ! " Aunt Laurie
Love this. I subscribed to your Substack after seeing your LinkedIn post on Pam Swanigan’s Noema piece. That led me down a Joanna Macy rabbit hole and I just completed a spiral. I am very interested in attending a follow up on the idea of an epic narrative. I am currently working on some comms around toxic chemicals and plastics - connected to climate in reality but not so much in our climate narrative. It’s all coming from the same hole in the ground.
I am intrigued by the thought of a climate epic, and I would be intersted in staying in touch with this work and attending the follow-up Zoom. I am unsure what I can do to contribute to the effort but in this scary time, when people advise that we should pick the things closest to our hearts and work on them - climate change is on my short list. I appreciate your work on this issue and subscribe to your newsletter in order to stay in touch with "what's happening." Thank you for what you do in this space. -- Catherine (writing at cmtl.me and l4lp.com - I attended your workshop for Scribente and found it both helpful and thought-provoking)
I think you're onto something really worthwhile. With a background in the fields of social and behavior change communications and entertainment-education, I can attest to the power of narrative and compelling storytelling as a force for change to social attitudes and issues. For the past couple of years, I've been focused on the challenge to transform patriarchal masculinities, and that's what I want to highlight as a key element to include in this epic.
In order to effect change at the very root level of what led to this climate change disaster, we must shine light on (and change) the nature of humanity's relationship with nature and planet. It is domineering; it is extractive; it is oppositional; it is conquering; it is hierarchical; it is violent. It is patriarchal. So an anti-patriarchal and feminist framing must encompass the story of how we right this ship.
In order to motivate widespread action and understanding, we must reveal the connections between climate change and other challenges facing humanity - so that they are seen as interlinked, not distinct and competing causes. This is ecosystem thinking, avoiding the silo of climate as a standalone issue. We must abandon patriarchal attitudes and systems as a global society to heal both the planet and humanity's ills - this means adopting a society that values: cooperation and collaboration over competition, enough over more, stability over growth, equality over hierarchy, balance over stress, and a caring manhood over patriarchal power. These values and this evolution in thinking and behavior should feature in the epic story, and be role modeled in the character arcs for the main people in it.
Hi Stephanie - I agree that the epic may need to embrace these themes. It's one of the things I love about feminist science fiction authors like Ursula LeGuin and Octavia K. Butler, whose works also challenge us to figure out what decent living amidst "the end of the world" is actually like.
100% - we need to lift up these examples of what *could be* that feel possible and reasonably within reach and also keep encouraging new envisioning works to be written. I fear that these amazing authors are not appreciated by the mainstream enough to have a significant impact on thinking today. I agree with this reddit poster https://www.reddit.com/r/scifi/comments/k339me/how_have_so_few_ursula_k_le_guin_stories_been/ Nor have I felt this or heard anything about Butler's work adapted to film/TV https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2021/12/the-second-coming-of-octavia-e-butler It could be worth reviewing those that have been made into visual format to see if there are scenes relevant to climate change action that could be memed or activated for movement-building following this energized Earth Day '25
Thank you for this thorough and insightful roundup! Was a pleasure and honor to partake in the Insight Lab and I would be thrilled to continue the process with all of you.
“We’re sitting on an enormous potential climate movement,” said Prof Anthony Leiserowitz, at Yale University in the US. “It’s latent. It hasn’t been activated or catalysed. But when you break through these perception gaps, you help people understand that they’re not alone and there is in fact a global movement.”
Are either of you familiar with the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication that Tony heads? https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/ I met him 7-8 years ago and he's done some really amazing work with frequent national surveys and defining a resulting 'Six Americas' of attitudes -- I think he should be on morning talk shows telling everyone how much we all actually do care about this issue -- that could help bust the perception myth that most humans don't care. But not that alone, of course!
Anya, Andrew, thank you for this wonderful piece. Sustainability strategies can definitely be empowered by ancient techniques.
For example, in the academic field of religion studies there's this concept called Hierophany which roughly means a 'mundane' object through which something 'sacred' is manifested. In ancient pagan faiths, hierophanies (like stones, pieces of wood, totemic animals, masks, dolls, etc.) were central to everyday life. I think sustainable organisations and brands today have the power to create modern hierophanies that have both a mundane function and a 'sacred' function. For example, in a recent campaign, a jar of Nescafe instant coffee is also a reminder to people that Nescafe "tastes better at 80 degrees", thus giving a people a playful daily ritual that saves so much energy.
One other idea that I’m not quite sure how to place.
My son is obsessed with the Magic School Bus books. His two favorites are the last two Joanna Cole wrote MSB and the Climate Challenge and MSB Explores Human Evolution. I really like these two books because 1) they are gigantic in scale yet still accessible to kids 2) they address “controversial” topics and 3) they both include students from other countries who join the kids.
Anyway, when I was leaving to go do this Lab, I told my son that I was going to go work on the climate challenge. And I thought how much exciting that sounded than “I’m going to talk with some people about climate change.” For him and his generation, it certainly will be a challenge and not some far-off thing.
I am not proposing more wordsmithing on climate change/crisis— I think that topic is overdone. But I wonder if there is some way to tell this story so kids (and all of us) feel like they are part of the story and always have been… that it’s not an activist choice but just a part of being alive. Certainly my son cannot conceive of the idea of a world without Legos or Paw Patrol… for him those aren’t things that happened in history, but a part of his ongoing being.
I think epics are like that too — that’s what I recognize in the Star Wars comments. The scale makes you feel like this story has always been around and will always be around. I think that’s what we have to achieve.
I just wanted to say how happy I am about how *generative* all these comments have been. One thing I felt very aware of as I was writing was that I was not walking on untrodden ground… that people living and dead have also approached the problem of how we address this crisis with story. Now it seems even clearer to me that “epic” is just a way of organizing those ideas.
Those ideas include the works cited by LeGuin and Macy… I wonder what else might belong there. Certainly some works of fiction. It almost feels like the establishment of a new canon, but one that can still be alive in the present moment, the way religious people read their texts.
I like the idea of beginning to weave the epic with some of the stories from the recent past. I think we can use the way Greta’s story unfolded as a case study of that. I kept a picture of Greta on my desk for a long time — she was like my saint. Specifically, I felt like she reminded me to focus on being courageous and not viewing everything I do through the lenses of my career or what people might think. And that made me feel less alone.
I think that’s what we are going for, especially in a time when the narratives we might have felt we were once part of are collapsing. Some new story that can include all of us and our future on this planet.
TL;DR: We need both spears and carrier bags to map futures and navigate from the present.
I love this and as you know Anya, I’m fully on board. As for the “epic” framing, I understand the value, and agree we definitely need preferred and evocative images of the future that are rich, nuanced and afford navigation. I can see why the epic format would be an attractive candidate for that.
I want to offer another framing. I think it is compatible with the epic frame and may expand it further. The high priestess of SF, Ursula k. Le Guin, offered the anthropological framing of narrative structures as spears versus carrier bags. For anyone who hasn’t read this inspiring and funny short essay (in a while), please stop everything you’re doing and go read it (again) now: https://stillmoving.org/resources/the-carrier-bag-theory-of-fiction
Welcome back.
Le Guin offers The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction as a complex system of bits and pieces that are not aligned linearly like a spear directed towards a triumphant catharsis, but as fragments, sitting in the same bag mixing with each other and constantly evolving and changing:
“…full of beginnings without ends, of initiations, of losses, of transformations and translations, and far more tricks than conflicts, far fewer triumphs than snares and delusions; full of space ships that get stuck, missions that fail, and people who don't understand.”
I see Le Guin’s carrier bag as a map of an environment (!) to explore through the imagination, through anticipation. Some journeys through this map may indeed be epic. Others, less so. I focus my own activist work on exercising political imagination that creates images of the future as landmarks in a map, as fragments in a carrier bag.
If we reach our hand into the darkness of the bag, what futures can we sense? Some may feel prickly, others slimy. Yet, others may feel smooth and promising. How do we imagine what would these fragments afford us if we sink our teeth into them? And most importantly, how do we pull them out of the bag and into the present?
Le Guin continues the previous quote:
“I said it was hard to make a gripping tale of how we wrested the wild oats from their husks, I didn't say it was impossible. Who ever said writing a novel was easy?”
Mapping futures isn’t easy, but here is me trying:
https://medium.com/@mushon/future-screenshots-cfcf842ad9cf
Happy to join forces.
This is so wonderful and generative, intimate and grand. Thank you! It reminds me of this book: How A Cotton Sack, Passed Down Over Generations, Tells A Larger Story About Slavery https://www.npr.org/2021/09/07/1034799345/how-a-cotton-sack-passed-down-over-generations-tells-a-larger-story-about-slaver
Just got to read this and what an amazing story — objects that tell stories have such power. Thanks for sharing!
The metaphor of stories as carrier bags is one of the amazing gifts Ursula K Le Guin gave us (I have that essay in its tiny purple print format, with an excellent introduction, that I keep by my side and read often, like a devotional).
I love that you use it as a framework for your political imagination.
I explicitly fold it into my novel-making process, asking myself what the shape of this particular carrier bag is and what can it hold? How can I construct it so that, structurally, it can hold more. In the exercise of imagination, it's a wonderful tool.
I will check out your post!
This is exciting, thanks so much, Anya and Andrew, for these efforts and for reaching out wide.
A few thoughts popping up…
- I’ve been hoping for a long time for mass-engaging, thrilling epic stories about the adventure of our time, that center not an individual or small group of heroes, but widespread, systemic, community-driven, diverse, ecological heroism. In these stories, I imagine the heroes as ANY and ALL the people and other species expressing their care in the thousands of forms of protecting, nurturing, regenerating, preserving, and transforming Life on Earth.
- There’s a big opportunity here to make a choice about whether anyone or anything is vilified - I wonder if certain qualities (are these the gods?) are involved in the concepts of heroes and villains: here in this oil drilling we see Insatiable Hunger showing up; here in these 50 people we see Compassion showing up strong…
- I would love to see humanity portrayed as part of the web of life, not separate at all - so any cruelty by humans to humans is just as destructive as - and even PART of - ecological destruction
- I love the idea of this story spanning generations, or even eons - like the Cosmic Walk in “deep time” exercises in the Work that Reconnects (John Seed has a great example of this).
- I can think of people from a variety of cultural backgrounds who might be open to a conversation about how they see the epic narrative of this moment - this could be really exciting
- I think Joanna Macy’s articulation of the 3 stories of our time, with the question of “what’s the central plot?” applies here. Business as Usual - central plot: getting ahead, progress, growth, etc. Great Unraveling - central plot: everything’s falling apart (doomscroll?). And the Great Turning - the adventure story of our time - where the plot is transformation, and the characters are everywhere, engaged in all kinds of actions to protect and defend; to remember and create new life-sustaining systems of food, energy, etc.; and deeply shifting our perspectives and sense of identity. In this great adventure story, full of beauty, tragedy, and uncertainty - the characters and the heroes can be anyone, and it’s not about heroic individuals, it’s about courageous, cooperative, emergent action.
Ok, I’ll stop there. I’m interested in the Zoom call, keep me posted! Big thanks, Anya and Andrew!
Thanks Leilani! I love hearing about all of this.
Love all these thoughts! And Macy's work is so informative.
I love that you arrived at the need for a change in the way we tell stories about the climate crisis—this has been my full-time occupation for about five years now!
I write solarpunk and hopeful climate fiction and host the Bright Green Futures podcast about lifting up stories like this—in fact, I'm about to release an anthology from guests on the pod that showcases what these stories can do.
While I love the idea of an "epic" narrative structure for climate storytelling (please write one!), I don't agree at all that it's the "only" story that meets the challenge. I think the challenge is actually much deeper and broader.
As Amitav Ghosh identified nearly a decade ago (The Great Derangement), literature has substantively avoided engaging with climate for the same reason that society has: a failure of imagination rooted in how we tell stories (and the kind of stories we don't tell, namely writing community out of the narrative). This constrains how we can even talk about climate in stories (and when we do, it's mostly been doomer narratives). As my friend PJ Manney has been saying for nearly as long, we need a New Mythos — a new body of stories, not a single myth — that changes how we tell stories as well as what those stories are about.
I keep saying I don't tell stories about climate change but about how *we* have to change.
And that, by definition, cannot be a singular story—people are diverse, the planet is huge, the impacts are complex and manifold. We will need thousands of stories to grapple culturally with the climate crisis (and absolutely Indigenous stories and perspectives need to be part of that).
I firmly believe we need to not just have many stories, we need to change storytelling.
The stories we've told in the past got us here. We have to deeply interrogate why (hint: they are hero's journeys that write the collective out of the story; see Gail Carriger's Heroine's Journey for a community-focused alternative; this is just one of many ways storytelling needs to change). Solarpunk and hopeful climate fiction offer alternative ways of storytelling that begin to tackle this.
As part of the launch of the Bright Green Futures anthology, I asked the authors to pick theme words to describe their stories. They fit together almost like a meta-story themselves and the themes and the stories showcase what hopeful climate fiction can look like... and the breadth of what we need to tackle:
1 - CLIMATE ANXIETY
2 - CLIMATE RESTORATION
3 - CLIMATE ROLES
4 - CLIMATE CONNECTIONS
5 - CLIMATE RESILIENCE
6 - CLIMATE HERITAGE
The good news is that people all over are questioning the narratives we've been telling and seeking out different stories. The bad news is that the old stories still hold sway and the forces of both the status quo and the self-interested elites are tearing the world apart. But out of that comes also the possibility of change (which is how cultural change works as well).
It's compelling to me that people keep arriving at the same conclusion: that we need to change the stories we tell. That consistency, that shared wayfinding, tells me New Mythos stories are a robust solution — the concept is something that many people arrive at relatively quickly after grappling with the problem.
The creation of that body of work is just getting started.
I look forward to your further explorations on this! And I would be interested in staying in touch.
Susan Kaye Quinn, Speculative Fiction Author
www.SusanKayeQuinn.com
sue@twistedspacepub.com
Host: Bright Green Futures podcast/newsletter, BrightGreenFutures.wtf
Ted Gioia on cultural change: "The culture always changes first. And then everything else adapts to it." https://www.honest-broker.com/p/the-world-was-flat-now-its-flattened
Heroine's Journey by Gail Carriger: https://gailcarriger.com/books/hj/
My article in DreamForge about the 10 elements of hopepunk storytelling: https://dreamforgemagazine.com/story/rewriting-the-future/
Thank you so much for sharing! This is wonderful work. I also love the Heroine's Journey. I think the more stories, the better.
Hi Susan - there is a lot to think about in what you say, but I wanted to quickly acknowledge and accept correction. You are completely right that the epic is not the ONLY way to approach this problem.
My goal in saying that was to differentiate it from more modern Western forms like the novel, but you are right that the number of potential forms available to us humans is manifold. I like the idea of a more abstract term like "mythos" that suggests that the form we need hasn't even been invented yet. So maybe the right way of putting it is "we need stories that are epic in scale... including, perhaps, an actual epic." :-)
Yes, exactly! I think Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry for the Future was an attempt at "epic scale" with his ~50 POVs and wide-ranging narrative. But even he acknowledged the limitations of that form as it puts distance between the reader and the characters. Which is another reason why we need lots of stories, including ones that have epic scale, but also intimate tales of what it feels like to survive a wildfire or lose a national forest where you camped as a child.
It might not seem obvious the connection between a tale of survival and motivation to engage in the climate crisis, but we're beginning to actually study the connection between fiction (or other story-like narratives) and what moves people to engage in the climate crisis (as opposed to simply looking away or feeling hopeless). And (unsurprisingly), it varies vastly, between countries and even between genders: this is why we need whatever meets people where they are and draws them in.
I talk about that in this episode (and there are links to the research at the end!): https://brightgreenfutures.substack.com/p/episode-24-lets-talk-about-the-doom
One thing is for sure, we all need to bring all our various talents to the fight. It *is* a collective project, almost impossible in scale, and yet I continue to believe we're capable of doing anything we collectively decide to do. Discussions like this are exactly how we find the way.
KSR is always on my mind. I think it was actually reading "Blue Mars" as a kid that woke me up to the real impacts of climate change. And yeah, "Ministry of the Future" is so rewarding but also presses against the limits of the form, almost like James Joyce in a way. It's also a survival story, come to think of it.
I wonder if what we are really talking about is a new genre. Cf. Anya's exchanges about anime/manga elsewhere in the thread. Print ushered in the modern world that gave us our very privileged lives but also all these problems. Maybe in hundreds of years some emerging form will be seen as the equivalent of print... not just a genre, not just a form, but a whole cultural platform.
Here's hoping it's anime ;-) kidding not kidding -- I honestly feel so attached to my old novels and vinyl that it's impossible for me to know. We need a child to lead us.
Well-said! Love hearing about your work and insights.
I've loved reading this post and following the many responses. Thank you Anya and Andrew.
So many folks have already voiced thoughts I've had: Joanna Macy's Great Turning as a powerful narrative form, the need for centering more community-centric forms of narrative, the fact that we simply need as many narratives as possible to magnify the reach: grand, epic ones and deeply intimate ones. And that we might benefit from looking beyond conventionally western forms of narrative and centering Indigenous stories and storytellers in the conversation.
One thing I will echo here is Willow Batista's comment about telling the stories that have already happened. Yes, epics are fundamentally retrospective, but something like Star Wars is actually a great example of an ongoing epic with past actions that set up future victories. (Some of their more recent movies/tv are interesting examples of this: like Rogue One, which retroactively sets up the fourth chapter/first movie.) So much of what we have achieved in the climate movement in the past few decades is the work of a massive and dedicated group of actors. It's not hard to imagine an epic that is as sprawling as some of our modern narratives (for example the massive Marvel Cinematic Universe) but which highlights these stories that the public doesn't know and sees them as essential and interlinked actions, all of which are moving the plot forward in the story of how we face a changing climate. These stories of past victories and the groups and individual actors who worked to make them possible would then set up the next chapters in the narrative--those yet to be lived and written.
I teach and write Creative Nonfiction and I think a lot about which stories get told and why--and how those stories shape the stories we go on to tell next. It's not hard to imagine an ongoing real-world epic about real people told from multiple perspectives and across scales (from small community actions to massive political victories) that lays the groundwork for the heroic work that still needs to be done.
Love this. Here are a couple of thoughts:
1) One potential place to start would be to write the chapters in this epic journey that have already happened. Think about how star wars is made up of a series of chapters, each with a clear shorter term objective, but also clearly linked to a larger imperative. For example, we are no longer on a course for 8* of warming, which was once the most likely outcome of the "BAU" path. I would love to hear the story of this rarely discussed and not-unremarkable success. And then maybe there can be a chapter about the rise of the youth movement and the impact of the Fridays for the Future protests. Greta seems like a clear hero figure, although I'm not sure if she's more of a Han or a Luke. ;)
2) The biggest problem with this idea (I think) is that an epic tends to be retrospective - telling the story of how some great deed was accomplished, and what we urgently need right now to catalyze change is some clear action or actions that people in the movement CAN take. The problem with climate change is that it doesn't seem to matter how many people "wake up" and join the movement because the people in power - who pull the strings of the world - are consistently and repeatedly choosing not to do what needs to be done. So what is the purpose of reframing the movement of we still don't have a clear path to success? Perhaps you will say that the path is to unseat those people in power (again similar to the star wars analogy!) but how are we actually going to do that? Are we taking up arms? (I hope not) if not, than what - the epic needs to inspire people to act and the action needs to feel both realistic and impactful. It has to grant more agency than just "vote" or "call your representatives" or "try to fly less". This epic needs to give people a way to engage in the rewriting of history (aka the future), and if we don't have that action figured out yet, than I'm not sure we are ready to focus on the comms (although I definitely don't mean to suggest that the comms is unimportant, we just need to make sure there is a plan to convey).
Would be thrilled to join a zoom on this.
Thanks for this! Love this. Good point about tracing the retrospective.
Thrilled to be a part of this effort, Anya and InsightLab! Grateful for these insights and would love to continue this epic exploration in more ways than one!
Whoo hoo! Guided visualization journey anyone...
Hi Anya and Andrew: Thanks for the very thought provoking post.Here are my thoughts on the Epic Narrative Approach. It immediately reminded me of the work of educational psychologist Jerome Bruner, who likely came up in your “think tank” or whatever you called the 'brain picking" you both participted in in NYC! Bruner coined the term the “story mode of knowing” and argued that it was greatly underused at all levels of education, which, as you know, prioritizes logic and critical thinking—i.e., the scientific method.
As an educator, Bruner’s focus on the story mode of knowing profoundly influenced my work in teaching the African American historical experience—almost as much as Paulo Freire, the Brazilian pedagogist who also recognized the shortcomings of an over-reliance on empiricism. I think your group would find Bruner’s book, Actual Minds, Possible Worlds (1987), particularly insightful.
As an educator I would frame this issue as teaching/learning problem:
How can we teach about the climate crisis in a way that engenders behavioral change, leading to real-world impact?
Your group has identified a potential solution—an EPIC NARRATIVE. While rarely is any single strategy a silver bullet for behavior change (a multi-pronged approach is usually needed), I absolutely agree that storytelling needs to play a much larger role alongside the dominant facts-and-data approach. In addition to an EPIC NARRATIVE (which sounds like it could be a helluva serives on Netflix!), I suggest the value of incorporating analogies, metaphors, testimonials, short stories, novels, etc. But yes—if you could craft an overarching "Iliad" for climate change, that would be incredibly powerful!
Related Thoughts:
About 15 years ago, I attended a National Humanities Council meeting in DC, where Kathleen Woodward (Director of the Humanities Center at the University of Washington/Seattle) gave the keynote address and her topic was : Climate change is the defining humanities problem of our time.
I thought, "Wait… what? Isn’t this a problem for the sciences? "But she provided many insights, one being that humans struggle to grasp problems of such existential magnitude. I tried to find Kathleen's keynote online but haven’t been successful. Interestingly, Kathleen now seems to be focusing on the issue of aging—not on climate change. She still may be a useful contact however...
I also think it would be invaluable to involve Noam Chomsky in this discussion. As one of the great minds of our era, he has written extensively about the limits of humans' ability to "know" the world. While he does NOT come to mind as a particular champion of the story mode of knowing, (I think of him as a believer in criticial thinking/ science and as one who is suspicious of and questions DOMINANT narratives.) Nonetheless, he would certainly be familiar with Bruner’s ideas and his critique of "a new climate change EPIC NARRATIVE" could only be useful for you. I think he would have particualry useful insights into why human behavior has not significantly changed despite the overwhelming data and facts about the impending climate disaster. He frequently cites how humans don't learn from their past experiences for example... like Vietnam, the rise of Nazism in Europe, etc.
Finally have you considered USING Artificial Intelligence to help craft the Epic Narrative?
I ask because I recently used ChatGPT to develop a metaphor to motivate Democrats in NC to donate monthy to the Dem party. Watching the news every day and absoring "facts" wasn’t prompting action.
To make the situation more graspable or processible by the "other part of the brain: , I asked ChatGPT to frame what happening in Washington under Trump II as “baseball game gone rogue”. I provided a few initial examples (e.g., base hits are being called foul balls, umpires aren't following rules, etc.), and in about five seconds, ChatGPT generated a metaphor. (Note: This was done before Elon’s chainsaw massacre of governmental agencies!) Here's what Chat GPT came up with:
What It Wasn’t Was Baseball…(not chat GPT's title, but mine)
Imagine stepping onto a baseball field, ready to play by the rules—only to realize the opposing team has no intention of following them. They move the bases mid-inning, refuse to leave after three outs, and call their own strikes and balls—always in their favor. Even when your team manages a home run, they simply declare it a foul. When you protest, they sneer: “This is how the game works now.”
Worse still, the umpires—meant to be judges who ensure fairness—turn a blind eye, complicit in the chaos. Some fans don’t notice, but others feel the unease. They see the game being twisted into something unrecognizable, manipulated by those who prioritize power over fairness.
But here’s the thing about baseball—and about America: we believe in playing fair. The rules aren’t up for sale or revision at the whims of the corrupt. So what do we do? We stay on the field. We rally. We remind the crowd of the real rules and prepare for our turn at bat, ready to restore the integrity of the game.
This isn’t just about baseball—it’s about our democracy. More and more Democrats are stepping up to the plate, but we need your support. Just $10 a month—the cost of a trip to the concession stand—can help us fight for a level playing field. Will you join us? Donate today and help us reclaim the game.
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I am on the road in Patagonia and Santiago at the moment. But when I get back home we'll see if our "metaphor" approach affected giving !
These are just some thoughts - keep up the great work. I really do think you are on to something with the STORY MODE OF KNOWING approach to teaching about Climate Change.
Just the facts, in my 50 year career as an educator, has its limits as a way of changing human behavior although if one can retain facts they can "pass most tests ! " Aunt Laurie
This is so wonderful Aunt Laurie! I love the educational psychology perspective. What a rich reflection. Have a wonderful trip!
Love this. I subscribed to your Substack after seeing your LinkedIn post on Pam Swanigan’s Noema piece. That led me down a Joanna Macy rabbit hole and I just completed a spiral. I am very interested in attending a follow up on the idea of an epic narrative. I am currently working on some comms around toxic chemicals and plastics - connected to climate in reality but not so much in our climate narrative. It’s all coming from the same hole in the ground.
I love this so much! So happy to be connecting these dots
I am intrigued by the thought of a climate epic, and I would be intersted in staying in touch with this work and attending the follow-up Zoom. I am unsure what I can do to contribute to the effort but in this scary time, when people advise that we should pick the things closest to our hearts and work on them - climate change is on my short list. I appreciate your work on this issue and subscribe to your newsletter in order to stay in touch with "what's happening." Thank you for what you do in this space. -- Catherine (writing at cmtl.me and l4lp.com - I attended your workshop for Scribente and found it both helpful and thought-provoking)
Thank you Catherine!
Hi Andrew and Anya.
I think you're onto something really worthwhile. With a background in the fields of social and behavior change communications and entertainment-education, I can attest to the power of narrative and compelling storytelling as a force for change to social attitudes and issues. For the past couple of years, I've been focused on the challenge to transform patriarchal masculinities, and that's what I want to highlight as a key element to include in this epic.
In order to effect change at the very root level of what led to this climate change disaster, we must shine light on (and change) the nature of humanity's relationship with nature and planet. It is domineering; it is extractive; it is oppositional; it is conquering; it is hierarchical; it is violent. It is patriarchal. So an anti-patriarchal and feminist framing must encompass the story of how we right this ship.
In order to motivate widespread action and understanding, we must reveal the connections between climate change and other challenges facing humanity - so that they are seen as interlinked, not distinct and competing causes. This is ecosystem thinking, avoiding the silo of climate as a standalone issue. We must abandon patriarchal attitudes and systems as a global society to heal both the planet and humanity's ills - this means adopting a society that values: cooperation and collaboration over competition, enough over more, stability over growth, equality over hierarchy, balance over stress, and a caring manhood over patriarchal power. These values and this evolution in thinking and behavior should feature in the epic story, and be role modeled in the character arcs for the main people in it.
Hi Stephanie - I agree that the epic may need to embrace these themes. It's one of the things I love about feminist science fiction authors like Ursula LeGuin and Octavia K. Butler, whose works also challenge us to figure out what decent living amidst "the end of the world" is actually like.
Also check out https://wearestories.co.in/welab/stories-from-the-future/
100% - we need to lift up these examples of what *could be* that feel possible and reasonably within reach and also keep encouraging new envisioning works to be written. I fear that these amazing authors are not appreciated by the mainstream enough to have a significant impact on thinking today. I agree with this reddit poster https://www.reddit.com/r/scifi/comments/k339me/how_have_so_few_ursula_k_le_guin_stories_been/ Nor have I felt this or heard anything about Butler's work adapted to film/TV https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2021/12/the-second-coming-of-octavia-e-butler It could be worth reviewing those that have been made into visual format to see if there are scenes relevant to climate change action that could be memed or activated for movement-building following this energized Earth Day '25
Thank you for this thorough and insightful roundup! Was a pleasure and honor to partake in the Insight Lab and I would be thrilled to continue the process with all of you.
I would!
Give this article a read https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/22/spiral-of-silence-climate-action-very-popular-why-dont-people-realise. The potential for financial contribution is interesting but I find even more compelling the idea of these perception gaps that could be blown away.
“We’re sitting on an enormous potential climate movement,” said Prof Anthony Leiserowitz, at Yale University in the US. “It’s latent. It hasn’t been activated or catalysed. But when you break through these perception gaps, you help people understand that they’re not alone and there is in fact a global movement.”
Are either of you familiar with the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication that Tony heads? https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/ I met him 7-8 years ago and he's done some really amazing work with frequent national surveys and defining a resulting 'Six Americas' of attitudes -- I think he should be on morning talk shows telling everyone how much we all actually do care about this issue -- that could help bust the perception myth that most humans don't care. But not that alone, of course!
Anya, Andrew, thank you for this wonderful piece. Sustainability strategies can definitely be empowered by ancient techniques.
For example, in the academic field of religion studies there's this concept called Hierophany which roughly means a 'mundane' object through which something 'sacred' is manifested. In ancient pagan faiths, hierophanies (like stones, pieces of wood, totemic animals, masks, dolls, etc.) were central to everyday life. I think sustainable organisations and brands today have the power to create modern hierophanies that have both a mundane function and a 'sacred' function. For example, in a recent campaign, a jar of Nescafe instant coffee is also a reminder to people that Nescafe "tastes better at 80 degrees", thus giving a people a playful daily ritual that saves so much energy.
I'm writing about ancient/modern sustainability parallels in my Substack "Magic in Crisis" (http://magicincrisis.substack.com/)