Climate change has started to influence our language. Here's how ''cli-fi'' fits in....

Climate change has started to influence our language. Here's how

There are a lot of words and phrases that are coming into English that are becoming part of the new dialect," Australian crossword creator and self-confessed word nerd David Astle said.
"It's looking at the fact this is a changing world, so what are the words we need?"

The new words

The term cli-fi might not be the most recognizable, but it's something many would be familiar with: climate fiction.

see www.cli-fi.net


Cli-Fi refers to the barrage of books and films in recent years that usually deal with a world-destroying natural event and the desperate race for humans to survive it.

"Obviously it echoes sci-fi and it's a very particular type of sci-fi that is becoming more, scarily, plausible," Mr Astle said.

Notable film examples include Interstellar, 2012 and The Day After Tomorrow — all of which depict catastrophic natural events that threaten to wipe out humans. While Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road explores what happens after an extinction-level event.