The existence of so many dystopian novels for children exploring anxieties about climate change is why I have no patience for arguments that people weren't aware of the science until recently: it was well known enough to be a part of Australian popular culture at least thirty years ago.
Though I didn't know that about Australian culture, it doesn't surprise me because I experienced the same thing growing up in California in the '90s. It was very much a part of our awareness that polar ice melting would flood the coastline, which is where most of the state's population is concentrated. I think this was especially compelling to people because it fit right into preexisting anxieties about The Big One (i.e. massive earthquake) hitting and leaving the coast devastated or underwater. I don't know if you're much of a prog metal fan, but Tool's song Ænema is about this, though they approach it from a pro-apocalypse perspective. :P They're a California band and that song came out in 1996. And Ursula Le Guin was writing about a post-apocalyptic California reshaped by coastal flooding as early as 1985, in Always Coming Home.
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Though I didn't know that about Australian culture, it doesn't surprise me because I experienced the same thing growing up in California in the '90s. It was very much a part of our awareness that polar ice melting would flood the coastline, which is where most of the state's population is concentrated. I think this was especially compelling to people because it fit right into preexisting anxieties about The Big One (i.e. massive earthquake) hitting and leaving the coast devastated or underwater. I don't know if you're much of a prog metal fan, but Tool's song Ænema is about this, though they approach it from a pro-apocalypse perspective. :P They're a California band and that song came out in 1996. And Ursula Le Guin was writing about a post-apocalyptic California reshaped by coastal flooding as early as 1985, in Always Coming Home.