ABSTRACT
Norway is known for its strong welfare state and green initiatives, yet its oil exports have fueled cultural anxieties over Norway’s role in anthropogenic climate change, resulting in a wave of eco-dystopias focused on environmental apocalypse. This chapter explores how two Norwegian young adult (YA) novels use the eco-dystopian form to transition beyond oil to green energy alternatives, with Elin Viktoria Unstad’s Vega: Kampen for en ny verden (2017) focusing on solar power and Espen Dekko’s Pyrocumulus (2021) focusing on wind turbines. These novels feature “coming of age” narratives that intersect and overlap with broader societal concerns over resource scarcity, authoritarianism, and civil disobedience. While both novels are supportive of ecologically sustainable and socially egalitarian energy transitions, this chapter argues that Pyrocumulus is a more utopian engagement with the end of oil as it pushes the boundaries of civil disobedience in unsettling directions and encourages YA readers to think critically about the energy infrastructure around them.
