What can we learn from comparing media coverage of human-made disasters and climate collapse with fictional representations of such apocalypse? In this class, students gain a foundation of the debates and the media messages that spin them. We examine a breadth of media responses across time including contemporary coverage of imperiled landscapes (wildfires, hurricanes, heat domes) to the economic-driven disasters at sites such as the BP oil spill, Chernobyl nuclear melt-down and the Titanic sinking. We evaluate the impact of disaster journalism alongside that of citizen-driven media advocacy around climate change via social media. Both the film and book versions of Cormac McCarthy's The Road are analyzed for their fictional treatment of apocalypse and to compare with nonfiction and entertainment media formats (video games, TV series, artistic projects, podcasts). Assignments invite students to practice interviewing, gathering footage and building a social network advocacy campaign of an environmental issue in their own communities.