This book analyses how the environmental movement has developed three overarching narratives that co-exist and compete within it. The first is the narrative of green progress, which has been prominent from the start in environmentalist thought and which is today expressed in the idea of sustainable development and in eco-modernism. The second is the apocalyptic narrative, which urges us to act in order to avert a future catastrophe and which rose to prominence with Rachel Carson and other classics of post-war environmentalism and experienced a renaissance with the climate activism of the 2000s. The third is the postapocalyptic narrative according to which catastrophe is already an unavoidable fact. The centrepiece of the book is its discussion of the postapocalyptic narrative, which has become influential in the recent decade, especially in the wake of the disillusionment following the failed climate summit in Copenhagen 2009.
Climate change, resource exhaustion, pollution and species extinction signal that catastrophes have already become realities here and now for an enormous number of people and other lifeforms. The book probes the possibilities and limitations of the environmental movement in grappling with these issues and turning them into relevant action.
Author(s): Carl Cassegård, Håkan Thörn
Publisher: Palgrave Pivot
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 143
City: Cham
Preface
Contents
About the Authors
Chapter 1: Narrative and Nature Interest
The Environmental Movement as a Movement of Movements
Ideology and Utopia in Social Movement Narratives
Second Nature
Second Nature as ‘Environment’, Ecology, and Anthropocene
Nature Interest
Critique of the Instrumental Nature Interest
Varieties of Nature Interest
Structure of the Book
References
Chapter 2: Green Progress
Between Certainty and Hope
Nature Conservation in the Early Twentieth Century: The Birth of the Narrative of Green Progress
The Aesthetic and/or Recreational Values of Nature
Nature as a Resource for Electricity
From Conservation to Nature Engineering
Nature as a Source of Moral Development: The Life Reform Movement
Nature as an Economic System: Sustainable Development and the Global Consolidation of Neoliberalism
Nature and Social Justice: The Green New Deal
Debates and Criticism
References
Chapter 3: Apocalypse
Introduction
From Extinction to Apocalypse
The Apocalypse as a (Post-)war Experience
The Doomsday Debate
‘The Rumblings of an Avalanche’
Closing the Circle
1972: The Birth of an Apocalyptic Global Environmental Movement
Critique of the Apocalyptic Narrative
References
Chapter 4: Postapocalypse
From the Environmentalism of the Poor to Post-Copenhagen Grief
Struggling for Justice
Mourning and Preparing for Collapse
Calling for Emergency
Hope and Morality
The Paradox of Hope
Morality and Dignity
Loyalty to the Dead
Permanent Catastrophe and Utopia
Conclusions and Critique
References
Chapter 5: Towards a Critique of the Environmental Movement
Utopia and Catastrophe
Limitations of the Three Narratives
Beyond Capitalism
References
Index
