Green Letters
Studies in Ecocriticism
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On the Limits of Empirical Ecocriticism: Empathy
on Non-Human Species and the Slow Violence of
Climate Crisis
Toni Lahtinen & Olli Löytty
To cite this article: Toni Lahtinen & Olli Löytty (20 Sep 2024): On the Limits of Empirical
Ecocriticism: Empathy on Non-Human Species and the Slow Violence of Climate Crisis, Green
Letters, DOI: 10.1080/14688417.2024.2403416
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On the Limits of Empirical Ecocriticism: Empathy on 
Non-Human Species and the Slow Violence of Climate Crisis
Toni Lahtinena and Olli Löyttyb
aFinnish Literature and Comparative Literature, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland; bLiterature and 
Creative Writing, University of Turku, Turku, Finland
ABSTRACT
The impact literature has on its readers has recently become a topic 
of interest to an increasing number of literary scholars who con-
template the relationships between environment and fiction. 
Empirical ecocriticism is a relatively young sub-area of ecocriticism 
where the empirical methods of social sciences are applied. This 
article discusses two major areas in empirical ecocriticism: the 
emotions evoked by both the representations of non-human spe-
cies and climate literature. The focus is not solely on the premises of 
empirical ecocriticism but also on the often-conflicting results it has 
produced. By presenting critical observations on its limits so far, the 
article proposes outlines for further development of empirical 
research on environmental fiction.
ARTICLE HISTORY 
Received 29 May 2023  
Accepted 21 August 2024 
KEYWORDS 
Empirical ecocriticism; 
climate fiction; animal 
studies; empathy; slow 
violence; reading
How could literature help slow down environmental degeneration? Indian author Ghosh 
(2016) has reminded us that the climate crisis is also a crisis of culture and imagination and 
has encouraged writers to envision possible futures. If we cannot even imagine alter-
natives to a world based largely on fossil energy, we will continue until our own destruc-
tion. Recently, global environmental issues have in fact been a prominent topic in 
contemporary Western literature, while the violent relationship between human and non- 
human has become one of the most important ethical issues in literature.
From a literary criticism perspective, concern over natural disasters is not new. In the 
late 1990s, early ecocritics started to make demands that fiction should participate in 
solving global environmental issues (see Buell 1995; Love 2003). These suggestions are 
based on the notion that as part of a wider environmental imagination, literature can 
stimulate readers to recognise approaching crises or evoke compassion towards other 
species. The most radical comments expressed the wish that literary scholars should 
participate in solving the climate crisis by studying descriptions of nature (e.g. Kerridge  
1998), whereas more conservative voices warned against returning to a perception of 
literature that is dominated by simplified assumptions about the relationship between the 
real and the imaginary (e.g. Phillips 1999).
CONTACT Toni Lahtinen toni.j.lahtinen@helsinki.fi Finnish Literature and Comparative Literature, University of 
Helsinki, Yliopistonkatu 4, Helsinki 00100, Finland
GREEN LETTERS: STUDIES IN ECOCRITICISM        
https://doi.org/10.1080/14688417.2024.2403416
© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.  
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/ 
licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly 
cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or 
with their consent.
Since the early stages of ecocriticism, its focus has been on the environmental and 
societal relevance of representations. In The Value of Ecocriticism (Clark 2019), Timothy 
Clark sees the strength of ecocriticism in the very fact that it emphasises the roles of 
culture and imagination in the environmental crisis and reflects on the significance of 
cultural representations in discussions about the environment. On the other hand, Clark 
states that this might be an academic weakness: ecocriticism may even have utopian 
starting points, since it may give representations more value than they ultimately have in 
terms of decision-making. Although fiction can help us understand large-scale change, its 
impact in changing values on a broader scale may be less significant than expected or 
hoped (159).
The challenge presented by Clark, among other scholars raising similar issues, has not 
gone unnoticed by ecocritics. Lately, there has been a tenacious pursuit by ecocritics to 
utilise the empirical methods of social sciences and explore the environmental impact of 
literature. This fresh field of environmental humanities has become known as empirical 
ecocriticism. It stems from traditional ecocriticism, but its goal is to use empirical methods 
to test claims (that are often based on close reading) about the benefits of stories. Mainly 
it is interested in how stories dealing with the environment and its state influence readers’ 
consciousness, attitudes, and possibly also behaviour in an epoch that is characterised by 
quick environmental change. The first comprehensive, eponymously named anthology 
was published in 2023, introducing the interdisciplinary form of empirical ecocriticism and 
focusing on the manifold and complex reception, as opposed to the often-abstract ideal 
reader constructed in literary criticism (Schneider-Mayerson, Gustafson, et al. 2023, 179).
The basic question is simple in formulation but complex in its contents: how does 
literature affect the way readers live and act in the world? In this article, we discuss the 
value of empirical ecocriticism in evaluating the effects of literature dealing with climate 
change. We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of empirical approaches to readers’ 
affects and focus on the often sporadic and conflicting interpretations obtained by 
ecocritics. Finally, we present critical observations on the limits of empirical ecocriticism 
so far and propose outlines for further development of empirical research on the climate 
literature.
The rise of empirical ecocriticism
As climate change has progressed, the impact of literature has been discussed in different 
areas of literary studies. The debate around the benefits of reading has mostly been 
dominated by binary thinking. Highlighting the positive effects has been related to the 
increasing need of humanist researchers to defend the significance of their own field of 
research as literacy levels are deteriorating and reading as a hobby is diminishing in 
Western societies. Some researchers have claimed that literature improves readers’ capa-
city for self-reflection and empathy, based on research results in cognitive science (see 
Nussbaum 2010), whereas others have cited the aesthetic autonomy of art and also 
warned against the unwanted effects of stories (see Bloom 2016). Similarly, an interest 
in testing the assumptions of literary scholars about the impact and political effects have 
increased among ecocritics (see, e.g. Heise 2023, 311; Schneider-Mayerson, Weik von 
Mossner, et al. 2023).
2 T. LAHTINEN AND O. LÖYTTY
From the very start, ecocriticism has been based on an instrumental concept of 
literature as having a major impact on readers and the world. This has served as the 
basis for ecocritical close reading, where the meanings given to the environment and 
nature in different texts are considered. It is used in an attempt to enrich understandings 
of humans’ ecological ties, and to investigate the limits of human understanding. Since 
the 1990s, the field of ecocriticism has investigated how descriptions of nature and 
metaphors related to it might affect humans’ relationship with the environment or their 
anthropocentric values, but regardless of the conclusions being optimistic or sceptical, 
they were based mostly on intuition, speculation, or fragmented data (see Schneider- 
Mayerson, Weik von Mossner, and Małecki 2020, 327–328; Schneider-Mayerson, Weik von 
Mossner, et al. 2023, 7). This unverified power of literary representations, questioned by 
Clark (2019), also exposes other fields of literary and cultural studies to fundamental 
criticism.
However, the effects and cognitive benefits of reading is not a novel topic in literary 
studies. Reception of literature has previously been studied in so-called reader-response 
research whose liveliest period was from the 1970s until the 1990s. As Matthew 
Schneider-Mayerson introduces the premises of empirical ecocriticism in his pioneering 
article on the influence of climate fiction, he connects new ways of phrasing questions to 
the very tradition of reception research and its antiformalistic approaches which empha-
sise the significance of reading in the meaning-making process (2018, 475–476). Although 
the major reader-response theorists did not necessarily exercise empirical research them-
selves, their interest in readership has preceded contemporary research frames that 
describe reading experiences and whose objects of interest are often cognitions, affects, 
and empathy (Małecki et al. 2019; see also Sopcak and Nicolette 2023).
Empirical ecocriticism is connected to the so-called affective turn, which made 
researchers focus on the experiential nature of reading and the emotional effects of 
fiction (e.g. Bladlow and Ladino 2018; Clough 2007). In the field of ecopsychology, the 
emotions caused by global problems, such as the fear of nuclear holocaust, have been 
under scrutiny for decades, but the interest in environmental feelings within literary 
research did not spark off until the turn of the century, along with increasing ecoanxiety. 
Earlier, the research on affective impact was primarily based on observations made in 
neuro and cognitive studies or assumptions based on researchers’ own experiences. 
A major initiative within ecocriticism was Alexa Weik von Mossner’s Affective Ecologies, 
Empathy, Emotion, and Environmental Narrative (Weik von Mossner 2017) that creatively 
combines cognitive science and narratology. Although Weik von Mossner’s study is not 
based on empiric data, its thesis can be regarded as significant for empiric ecocriticism. 
While addressing the readers about the disasters and suffering caused by the environ-
mental crisis, the environmental narratives appeal to their sensory perceptions, embodied 
cognition, and emotions.
In the introduction of Empirical Ecocriticism, the editors of the anthology portray this as 
a multidisciplinary area of research, which draws from both ecocritical literary studies and 
environmental communication. Whereas communication studies primarily focus on jour-
nalistic texts, the main subject of empirical ecocriticism is fiction, films, theatre, video 
games etc. Indeed, empirical ecocriticism differs from communication research in that it 
investigates the formal and aesthetic means and features of literary expression, such as 
genre, narration, fictionality, or the construction of the protagonist. In addition, empirical 
GREEN LETTERS 3
ecocriticism combines textual analysis with sociological and empirical methodologies. 
Empirical ecocriticism not only enriches environmental communication with a more 
versatile corpus but also with ecocritical theory that has been developed over the past 
three decades by literary scholars and environmental humanists (Schneider- 
Meyerson, Weik von Mossner, et al. 2023, 13–15; Schneider-Mayerson, Weik von 
Mossner, and Małecki 2020, 328–329).
The formulation of research questions about empirical ecocriticism and its connections 
to environmental communication leads us to reflect on literature on a conceptual level: 
what is the societal significance of literature and how does it address its readers? There is 
a valid reason to criticise ecocriticism for an instrumental (and therefore narrow) under-
standing of literature, but as the editors of Empirical Ecocriticism propose, during the 
existential crises of today, maybe instrumentalism should not be regarded as a pejorative 
term. Perhaps, indeed, the instrumental value of literature should not be understood as 
reducing its value as art. Previously, researchers of environmental humanism have roughly 
been divided into two groups, of which one focusing on the narratives that are considered 
to save the world, so to speak, and the other group on the anthropocentrism and human 
limitations of narrating in general. In practice, the line between these two objects of 
interest is blurred. Nevertheless, empirical ecocriticism is not so much interested in how 
certain texts should be understood but how they are actually read and interpreted 
(Schneider-Mayerson, Weik von Mossner, et al. 2023, 11).
Next, we will move on to discuss two major areas in empirical ecocriticism: firstly, the 
emotions evoked by the representations of non-human species in readers, and secondly, 
climate literature’s effects on its readers. This division is not mutually exclusive since, for 
instance, climate literature often deals with descriptions of the sixth mass extinction. The 
objective of the following is to map, review, and discuss the results of empirical ecocriti-
cism thus far.
Non-human species, empathy, and identification
While digital pastime has eaten into literature’s popularity, there has been an attempt to 
prove the significance of recreational reading with its benefits of enriching civilisation and 
emotional life (e.g. Meretoja 2018; Nussbaum 2010). The optimistic view that fiction 
enhances readers’ understanding of other people’s beliefs and desires was popularised, 
albeit controversially, by Kidd and Castano’s (2013) study. Although it has been criticised 
for providing little evidence, there has been wide-spread news based on it stating that 
literature enhances readers’ emotional intelligence (see Currie 2016, 56–57; also; Mar and 
Oatley 2008). From the ecocritical perspective, the most interesting aspect of this discus-
sion deals with empathy towards other species and victims of environmental injustice: 
can literature reduce animal and human suffering or prevent climate change and biodi-
versity loss?
Ecocritical discussions on empathy towards other species lead back to claims that 
reading could develop one’s ability to see the world also through the perspective of 
marginalised and oppressed people (e.g. Goodbody and Adeline 2019, 7–8; Nussbaum  
2010; Małecki et al. 2019; Meretoja 2018). Like Małecki et al. remind us, the link between 
human rights and animal rights is tight: the animal rights movement of the 1970s was 
based on the comparison between animals and oppressed groups of people. The concept 
4 T. LAHTINEN AND O. LÖYTTY
was popularised by Peter Singer’s classic Animal Liberation (Singer 1975), where the 
oppression practiced towards animals (‘speciesism’) was presented as a phenomenon 
comparable to sexism and racism. Singer’s aim was to demonstrate that justifying animal 
suffering with the fact that they belong to another species is comparable to situations 
where human suffering would be justified by racial, ethnic, or gender differences (see 
Małecki, Weik von Mossner, and Dobrowolska 2020, 366–368).
In the often-cited Empathy and the Novel (Keen 2007), literary scholar Suzanne Keen 
states that empathy is experiencing some other person’s feelings – or to be precise, 
feeling what we believe to be the emotions of others. Generally, when we speak about 
empathy it is mostly related to negative feelings, but it is equally possible to feel empathy 
over positive feelings, such as happiness, joy, contentment, or sexual arousal. When 
writing about reactions evoked by stories, Keen refers to ‘emotional contagion’, or 
communication between feelings, as some sort of in-built human characteristic but states 
that experiencing these shared feelings always depends on one’s personal history and 
cultural context. Instead of human, Keen reminds us, the target of empathy may equally 
be non-human, such as an animal, since the readers’ empathy requires only minimal 
elements of identity, situation, and feeling (5–6, 68–69).
In empirical ecocriticism, as often in literary studies in general, the persuasive power of 
narrative is located in the process of identification; readers’ emotional connection to 
characters in the narrative requires a certain amount of similarity between the two (see 
Schneider-Mayerson 2020, 348–349; Schneider-Mayerson, Gustafson, et al. 2023, 
123–124). However, in an empirical research study in which Finnish upper secondary 
school students read Emmi Itäranta’s internationally acclaimed novel Memory of Water 
(Itäranta 2014; published as Teemestarin kirja in 2012), a dystopian story that takes place in 
dry and barren northern Europe, one of the most fascinating findings was the reluctance 
of the students to identify with the protagonist or feel empathy for them.1 In other words, 
emotional contagion did not occur. The research showed that the identification does not 
necessarily occur with characters, but instead, many of the students seemed to identify 
with the story-world that was suffering from severe drought (Helle et al. 2024; see also 
Schneider-Mayerson 2018, 478; Keen 2007, 93).
The main focus in empiric studies so far has been on anthropomorphic depictions of 
animals, and some studies on narrative impact indicate that fiction dealing with animal 
suffering can indeed affect readers’ attitudes towards other species. According to 
Małecki’s research group (Małecki et al. 2019), the most effective descriptions of animals, 
similarly to descriptions of oppressed groups of people, are stories of suffering individuals 
which draw readers’ attention to wider problems. The most well-known example is Anna 
Sewell’s novel Black Beauty (Sewell 1877), which was also read as an allegory of slavery in 
the United States. The book had a historical impact on animal welfare – for example in 
Great Britain, bridles that caused pain to horses were abandoned (see Guest 2011). 
A similar case can be found in Finnish literature: Yrjö Kokko’s novel Whooper Swan – the 
Bird of Ultima Thule (published as Laulujoutsen – Ultima Thulen lintu in Kokko 1950) has 
often been credited for saving the whole species from extinction (e.g. Aholainen 2020; see 
also Małecki et al. 2023). The compassion evoked by Kokko’s novel can be partly explained 
by its cultural and literary context: saving the bird that has served as a popular reference 
both in Finnish folklore and nationalistic poetry symbolised to many readers the nation’s 
painful recovery and reconstruction after the Second World War.
GREEN LETTERS 5
A horse and a swan are apt examples of species that evoke more positive feelings in 
humans than others. Indeed, for environmentally orientated literature, there is typically 
one so-called flagship species representing a whole ecosystem. These are often fluffy, big- 
eyed, or charismatic mammals who appeal to people with their beauty (e.g. Huggan 2016; 
Jepson and Barua 2015; Rahn 1995). According to Małecki’s research group, Black Beauty is 
a well-known example of books that have reinforced empathy only towards certain 
animal species but not necessarily more broadly towards the animal world (Małecki 
et al. 2019, 120). Małecki’s group – with varying compositions – has also observed that 
equating animal and human suffering can have an inconsistent effect on readers’ atti-
tudes. Recent reading surveys on Alice Walker’s ‘Am I Blue’ (Walker 1988) – which 
metaphorically links a fate of a horse and enslaved humans – appear to imply that 
drawing a parallel between animal and human suffering may also weaken some readers’ 
positive attitude for non-human species (Weik von Mossner et al. 2023, 196–200; see also 
Małecki et al. 2018). In addition, strong anthropomorphisation of non-human nature does 
not evoke empathy in all readers – on the contrary, it may also annoy and alienate readers 
from the environmental ethics of the text (Małecki, Weik von Mossner, and Dobrowolska  
2020, also Małecki et al. 2019; Toivonen 2022).
These two aforementioned historical examples, Whooper Swan and Black Beauty, reveal 
some limitations of empirical testing in explaining literature’s influence on reception. The 
empirical study may easily overlook the historical and cultural contexts of the texts. As 
literary critic Currie (2016) notes, no generalising statements based on individual works of 
literature should be made nor should the effects of literature be simplified: the momen-
tary empathy evoked by literature is not necessarily directed in a desirable way, and 
empirical evidence does not yet show that literature could affect conscious regulation of 
empathy, or harness it for the benefit of some moral activity. Literature may equally evoke 
empathy towards imaginary – and most often individual – characters, but it may not have 
any concrete consequences in real life, and therefore it could weaken the link between 
empathy and helping others (58–59; see also Bloom 2016). In this respect, empirical 
ecocriticism should not, in its pursuit for positive impact of literature, ignore the fact 
that literature does not necessarily promote morality.
Considering these occasionally conflicting results of research on the impact of reading, 
it is no surprise that there has been vehement discussion on claims that fiction is more 
effective than non-fiction in making readers imagine someone or something else’s point 
of view. According to Meretoja (2018, 4, 126–132), literature can indeed widen one’s 
perspective-sensitivity, but it does not necessarily lead to ethical action. Readers’ 
responses in empathy tests do not reliably reflect whether reading will really make 
them act more ethically than before. Meretoja’s criticism is partly based on Keen (2007), 
who states that ideas of fiction’s practical effects on increasing empathy and altruism are 
often exaggerated claims, used to justify the benefits of reading. Keen also questions the 
much-debated causality between reading and empathy: do empathetic people become 
good readers or do good readers become empathetic people (xv)?
Climate literature and slow violence
As ecodystopias have gained popularity, ecocritics have reflected on how climate change 
should or could be presented in fiction. For example, do Hollywood’s entertaining disaster 
6 T. LAHTINEN AND O. LÖYTTY
stories, where the world is saved due to a hero’s actions and spiritual growth, feed into 
a false sense of security in their audience? How can classic story templates and genres be 
applied to such a complex and wide-ranging phenomenon as climate change (e.g. 
Kerridge 1998, 4; 2013, 371–373)? Physical violence directed at animals, such as hunting 
or factory farming, is a more easily conceivable phenomenon than climate change and its 
multifaceted consequences that challenge the limits of human understanding.
Lately, the wide-ranging environmental destruction as the result of so-called ‘slow 
violence’ has been a keen interest of many ecocritics. According to Nixon (2011, 2–3), slow 
violence is gradual and therefore its effects are almost imperceptible in terms of time and 
place. Whereas violence is typically conceived as immediate – quick and exploding 
action – environmental issues must be understood as gradual and cumulative violence, 
whose catastrophic consequences come up only later. This shapelessness and invisibility 
are, according to Nixon, a challenge to different ways of representation and narration. 
How can one narrate the melting of ice sheets, desertification, ocean acidification, or the 
impacts of radioactive waste, in an understandable and effective way to influence political 
decision-making (2–3; see also Skiveren 2023)?
A slowly growing threat such as climate change is, according to risk psychologists, 
a challenge that can also explain why preventing it has proven so slow. Ecopsychologist 
Dodds (2021), among others, has described how it is characteristic for humans to react 
optimally only to quick and visible threats with obvious risks and personal impact, or 
which are represented by some threat or group of people conceived as an enemy. As 
a result, climate change in all its shapelessness and slowness has not historically caused 
enough pressure that would require immediate action. According to Dodds, the answer to 
this problem would be to promote the kind of anxiety that motivates to change one’s own 
behaviour (223). This awakening is what nature writing and environmental literature aims 
at, for it often has an explicit tendency to have – by means of frightening readers – 
practical effects on their everyday choices.
The rise of empirical ecocriticism has followed the emergence of ‘climate fiction’ (or ‘cli- 
fi’) that imagines and narrativizes the dystopian consequences of slow violence. 
According to Goodbody and Johns-Butra (2019), climate fiction refers to a quickly grow-
ing subgenre of literature whose subject is the political, social, psychological, and ethical 
repercussions of human-induced climate change. Climate fiction can frame new phenom-
ena, simulate different points of view, and therefore widen the readers’ circle of concern. 
That is, ethical understanding and action require empathy, which in turn is based on an 
estimate of another’s suffering, its justification, and how the other is related to one’s own 
future expectations and goals (Goodbody and Johns-Butra 2019, 1–13; Schneider- 
Mayerson, Gustafson, et al. 2023, 122–123; see also Keen 2007, 18, 20–21; Meretoja  
2018, 126–127). Although cli-fi has been approached as an instrument to protest climate 
change, empirical ecocritics have pointed out that climate fiction’s real impact on audi-
ences remains an understudied field of research (Schneider-Mayerson, Gustafson, et al.  
2020, 37–38; Schneider-Mayerson, Gustafson, et al. 2023, 125–126).
Schneider-Mayerson’s (2018) initial reader survey on North American readers shows 
that climate literature – nineteen novels from Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behaviour 
(Kingsolver 2012) to Ian McEwan’s Solar (McEwan 2010) – can indeed help people 
conceptualise the consequences of slow violence. Cli-fi concretises an abstract and 
ambiguous phenomenon and brings it closer to the reader. By framing familiar emotions 
GREEN LETTERS 7
of sorrow, anxiety, and loss as related to climate change, it offers a more realistic under-
standing of the devastating effects of climate change to everyday life. Schneider- 
Mayerson notes that cli-fi also promotes a sense of environmental justice: it enhances 
consciousness of how unevenly the risks of climate change are spread and how race, class, 
gender, nationality, and the like interact in the process. By evoking empathy and under-
standing towards those who suffer, fiction can also shorten the social distance between 
privileged and disadvantaged groups of people. He also emphasises other emotions 
besides empathy, and categorises the negative feelings evoked by climate fiction, such 
as fear or anxiety, as positive reactions exactly because they can potentially lead to 
changes in behaviour. Concurrently, he acknowledges the fact that fear and anxiety, 
caused by reading, may also prove counterproductive to efforts at environmental engage-
ment or persuasion (Schneider-Mayerson 2018, 477–479; Schneider-Mayerson 2020, 344, 
357; see; O’Neill and Nicholson-Cole 2009).
The results of the research about the reception of cli-fi by the Finnish upper high school 
students support some of Schneider-Mayerson’s findings. The dystopian novel Memory of 
Water helped the students to imagine climate change as a societal instead of natural 
phenomenon in which context it is mostly processed in Finnish schools. In other words, 
the depiction of society that is based on the control of the vanishing natural resource 
aided the students to envision how climate change might affect Nordic societies. 
Although the novel deliberately addresses the Finnish readers by turning the roles of 
privileged Nordic people and climate refugees upside down, it paradoxically paved the 
way for a thematic failure: many students considered both the cautionary representations 
of natural disasters and dictatorship in Scandinavia as implausible. The interpretations of 
the storyworld as highly unrealistic seemed to reduce fear and anxiety among the 
students (Helle et al. 2024). On one hand, this surprising result could be explained by 
the common conception of national exceptionalism: among Nordic welfare states, Finnish 
national identity is still strongly based on purity of Northern nature and stable democracy 
(e.g. Hennig, Jonasson, and Degerman 2018, 3–5). On the other hand, the result may 
challenge cli-fi on a more general level since people tend to have a more universal 
psychological need to envision their future brighter than other people’s future (see 
Windschitl and O’Rourke Stuart 2016).
Furthermore, quite unexpectedly, it turned out that one Finnish class was already 
familiarised with the dystopia and read it in an earlier course but had not considered it 
in the context of the environmental crisis. Instead, they had analysed it simply as a work of 
fiction by discussing the roles of characters and structure of the story (Helle et al. 2024). 
This seems to resonate with (Schneider-Mayerson’s 2020) study, in which some readers 
failed to approach Paolo Bacigalupi’s quasi-apocalyptic Water Knife (Bacigalupi 2015) as 
climate fiction. In addition, despite their increased empathy, the novel actually strength-
ened many readers’ fear of climate refugees (352–357; also Heise 2023, 312.). This is not, 
however, the first time that young adult dystopias have been found to have caused 
undesirable effects on attitudes. For example, political scientists Jones and Paris (2018) 
made an observation that Young Adult dystopias such as Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games 
(Collins 2008) make it easier for some readers to accept violence if it has desirable political 
motives.
The rhetoric power of action-filled dystopias is based largely on violence and on 
arousing fear and excitement, which is not necessarily the most effective way of 
8 T. LAHTINEN AND O. LÖYTTY
promoting environmental consciousness. For example, studies on news coverage 
about climate change have shown that dramatic, frightening, or shocking images 
catch people’s attention and efficiently emphasise the importance of these issues. 
Be that as it may, this imagery can also cause distressing feelings of helplessness 
unless it offers some understanding of an individual’s opportunities to make 
a difference. This kind of anxiety can show symptoms such as denial, apathy, 
blaming others, or fatalism about the impact of one’s own actions eventually 
being only a drop in the ocean (O’Neill and Nicholson-Cole 2009; see also 
Schneider-Mayerson 2018, 489–490). According to Dodds (2021, 224), evoking 
strong fear or guilt may in fact lead to rejection instead of action, which can 
show as denial of not only one’s own responsibility but of climate change alto-
gether. Schneider-Mayerson (2018), while discussing similar effects, points out that 
this psychological tendency to avoid distressing issues may actually result in 
reluctance to read climate literature.
Similar conclusions on the passivating impact of fiction have been reached in 
audience research on Hollywood’s blockbuster film Day after Tomorrow (2004), 
where climate change causes a new ice age. When the trailblazing sci-fi fantasy 
came out, it raised the audience’s awareness of climate change, aroused fear for its 
consequences, and made North American viewers reflect on their voting in the 
upcoming presidential elections in the United States. Although the film increased 
viewers’ motivation to take action, the audience felt that the lack of information 
limited individuals’ possibilities to prevent climate change. The worry over the 
climate crisis soon gave way to everyday concerns, as is often the case when 
reading fiction (Leiserowitz 2004; Lowe et al. 2006; see also Schneider-Mayerson, 
Gustafson, et al. 2020, 37–38; Schneider-Mayerson, Gustafson, et al. 2023). For 
some viewers, the belief in the likelihood of events like the ones described in 
the film were reduced, because they had difficulties in distinguishing between 
science facts and science fiction (Lowe et al. 2006). The short duration of heigh-
tened motivation implies the importance of repetition in achieving the desired 
impact. On the other hand, frequent repetition of same images and stories can 
make risks not only overwhelming but also comical when graphic imagery turns 
into clichés.
As has been shown above, readers’ emotional reactions, such as their prior knowl-
edge on climate change, vary considerably. Accordingly, the impact of climate litera-
ture fluctuates depending on the readers’ worldviews. In the same way that empathic 
people seem to prefer reading in general, those who are worried about climate 
change end up reading about it. Schneider-Mayerson (2018, 477–479; also 2020, 
341–342) reminds us that climate literature appears to preach to those who already 
believe in human-induced climate change, and thus it does not necessarily have the 
power of conversion narratives. In other words, climate literature mostly strengthens 
cautious and concerned readers’ preconceived ideas and does not make any radical 
impact on those who do not believe in humans’ role in causing and controlling climate 
change (e.g. Schneider-Mayerson, Gustafson, et al. 2023, 141). This observation about 
the political potential of fiction, or the lack of it, reflects general consumption habits: 
people mostly read books and watch films whose topics they find interesting in 
advance.
GREEN LETTERS 9
On the value and utility of empirical ecocriticism
What, then, could the value and utility of ecocriticism be now? The methods 
developed during the short history of empirical ecocriticism and the results 
obtained with them are often inconsistent. Regardless, the research field has 
seen experiments that encourage further development, namely on what kind of 
reading experience information could be obtained by using methods from social 
sciences. Even though empirical ecocriticism challenges many groundless claims 
made in literary criticism about reading, it has been obvious from the outset that it 
is a tentative area of research that complements previous ecocritical studies or 
tests their results. So, more relevant than the results obtained so far are the follow- 
up questions they evoke. For example, how do the cultural and national contexts 
affect readers’ reception of representations of non-human species and the con-
sequences of climate change (e.g. Garrard 2023; Helle et al. 2024; Weik von 
Mossner et al. 2023, 179)?
The most significant and unambiguous achievement of empirical ecocriticism is that it 
has proven that environmental literature and cinema do not always affect their audience 
according to their authors’ intentions. Furthermore, literary criticism often assumes that 
works of literature have some sort of ideal reader whose interpretation complies with 
a professional reader’s or researcher’s own analysis, but empirical studies show that 
different readers’ experiences of the same work may vary depending on age, gender, or 
education, among other factors (Schneider-Mayerson 2018, 477). As a conclusion, the 
diversity of interpretations is not, of course, exclusive to empirical research.
In addition to personal reading histories, research has found that genres affect readers 
differently: romantic literature may have the strongest influence in sensitising readers’ 
feelings towards other people, whereas science fiction, including climate dystopias, may 
have the weakest effect in this regard (e.g. Fong, Mullin, and Mar 2013; Schneider- 
Mayerson 2018, 481; compare; Kerridge 2013). Characteristically, the benefits sought 
from literature by readers are not always compatible with the didactic tendencies of 
climate literature: for example, instead of social criticism, a dystopia can serve primarily as 
momentary escapism or as a source of aesthetic pleasure (e.g. Felski 2008, 13–15). 
Accordingly, climate literature offers a challenging topic for research, as it makes use of 
several genres (for example, thrillers, crime fiction, or Bildungsroman) that make an 
impact on readers using different literary devices. If empirical ecocriticism seeks increas-
ingly detailed information on the perceptions of literature, analysis should be targeted at 
different readers and these rhetorical devices that vary from one genre to the other.
While the central point of research interest is the perceptions and attitudes that fiction 
has evoked in readers, and potential impulses causing action, it is clear already in the light 
of current research that no unequivocal causality even exists. Tendencies like the attempt 
to raise awareness on climate change only work to an extent in fiction, and its conse-
quences in readers can never be fully anticipated. Because literature in itself carries 
multiple meanings and its interpretation is contextual, analyses of the effectiveness of 
reading are always inevitably incomplete, case-specific, and situational, and their results 
are, at most, approximate.
We must also accept the premise that fiction’s effects are not always measurable with 
existing methods, and each reader or viewer reacts slightly differently to a book they read 
10 T. LAHTINEN AND O. LÖYTTY
or a film they watch. We should emphasise that empirical ecocriticism does not attempt to 
create grand theories but to specifically analyse certain situationally defined cases. 
However, it must be said in defence of empirical studies that although their research 
frames and methods set certain limits on phrasing questions, they can be used to produce 
information on the effects of reading which cannot actually be discovered in other ways 
than asking readers themselves. Similarly, reader surveys are the only tool available in 
finding out who readers identify with in works of literature, which is a rather central 
question regarding the impact of literature.
The question of empirical ecocriticism’s value is obviously dependent on the overall 
significance of literature in people’s everyday life. If the objective is – at least implicitly – to 
have an impact on large masses, is literature an appropriate, functional tool? In most parts 
of the Western world, book sales and reading have decreased dramatically and literacy 
has weakened. Should the interest of empirical ecocriticism lay in films and video games 
instead of novels that many young readers find too demanding to tackle? Can any books 
have a more powerful or large-scale impact than movies such as Day after Tomorrow?
As we consider the value of empirical ecocriticism, we should also ask how we eventually 
mean to use the knowledge we have gained. If the most central epistemological interest in 
research is based on solving global environmental issues, there is a danger that literature’s 
importance could be reduced to an ideological tool for educating readers to defend animal 
rights and to act against climate change. Inevitably, questions then emerge about literature’s 
value and significance. Lately, discussion about literature has often been concerned with 
fiction’s autobiographical approach and equivalence with reality – at the expense of imagina-
tion and, more broadly, language that is characteristic of literature. If research also adapts to 
this concept of literature that has already narrowed in public debate, literature’s methods and 
possibilities to imagine different conditions and futures can easily go unnoticed.
Note
1. In the research project, Literature and Reading in the Era of Climate Crisis, circa 100 Finnish 
upper high school students in four schools wrote an essay, answered a survey, and were 
interviewed about their thoughts and affects after reading a novel depicting a dystopian 
future (Helle et al. 2024).
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Funding
This work was supported by the Koneen Säätiö [202006285].
Notes on contributors
Toni Lahtinen (university lecturer, University of Helsinki) leads the project “Literature and reading in 
the era of climate crises” (Kone Foundation 2021–2025). He has edited the first eco-critical antholo-
gies in Finnish and is currently working on a monograph on literature during the Anthropocene. 
GREEN LETTERS 11
Lahtinen is also the coordinator and a founding member of the ENSCAN (The Ecocritical Network for 
Scandinavian Studies) research network.
Olli Löytty (associate professor, University of Turku) has focused on postcolonialism, nationalism, 
multilingualism, and representations of cultural encounters in literature. He is a member in the 
project “Literature and reading in the era of climate crises” (Kone Foundation 2021–2025).
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