Well, it happened. After sitting mesmerized in the movie theatre this weekend, I caught The Hunger Games bug. (Don’t judge me for not reading the books yet – I will soon, I promise!). I was so hooked that I had to do some additional research about this pop culture phenomenon and, in doing so, have discovered some very interesting connections to climate change, especially the impact that climate change could have on our society.

For those of you who are Hunger Games illiterate, let me fill you in on the basics of the the plot. Protagonist Katniss Everdeen lives in the post-apocalyptic world of Panem, which, incidentally enough, is where the countries of North America once were. Once a year the all-powerful Capital, which holds power over the rest of the nation, randomly selects one boy and one girl from each of the 12 surrounding districts to compete in a televised battle, also called the Hunger Games,  in which only one person survives. Katniss volunteers to compete in place of her younger sister Primrose, and… well, that’s all I’ll give away.

Alright, back to it’s relationship to climate change. Panem is, effectively, America post-climate change. Why? Because the city rose out of disasters, droughts, storms, fires, rising seas and the war over what little resources remains. And because that all happened where North America is today.

What’s also interesting is that The Hunger Games are targeted at young adults. In 2010, Laura Miller, author of the Magician’s Book, stated in The New York Times, “Dystopian fiction may be the only genre written for children that’s routinely less didactic than its adult counterpart. It’s not about persuading the reader to stop something terrible from happening – it’s about what’s happening, right this minute, in the stormy psyche of the adolescent reader.” The Hunger Games, then, is a young adult novel that graphically and fantastically illustrates the world that could arise from the destruction climate change causes. And, it does so in such a way that aligns climate change with the emotional turmoil that are your teenage years.

But is one line really enough for young adults to grasp that the entire fictional world of Panem is based off of climate change? And is this enough to galvanize movie goers to take action against climate change? I’m not sure sure, and neither is Ted Alvarez, GRIST contributer, who asks teenage movie goers what they think about the issue of climate change to The Hunger Games. The answers he documents in his article “Katniss Evergreen: Do ‘Hunger Games’ fans care about climate?” range from kids who are there for the action, the rebellion and forging their own paths. So, yeah, climate change isn’t readily acknowledged by these tweenaged movie goers, but the 99% (the Districts) vs the 1% (the Capital) is.

Whether or not Suzanne Collins used climate change as the driver for the destruction of North America in her books is unclear, but we do know that it effectively links many current social issues to the fantasy world.  Check out Joe Room’s article “The Hunger Games: Post-Apocalypse Now for Young Adults” for more thoughts on this topic.

Have you read or seen The Hunger Games? What do you think about the connection to climate change and social issues?