Post-Apocalyptic Environmentalism: The Green Movement in Times of Catastrophe

This book probes the possibilities and limitations of the environmental movement, and analyses how it has developed three overarching narratives that co-exist and compete within it. These are: the narrative of green progress, which has been prominent from the start in early environmentalist thought and which is today most clearly expressed in the idea of sustainable development and in eco-modernism; 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; and 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 antecedents throughout the history of environmentalism but has only 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. What possibilities might still exist for altering this catastrophic trajectory and how can we face the ongoing or inevitable catastrophes in a way that minimizes suffering? The book approaches these questions by turning to the history of the environmental movement, the most powerful way in which human beings have grappled with them and tried to turn it into relevant action.

• | Author: Carl Cassegård, Håkan Thörn
• | Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• | Publication Date: Oct 22, 2022
• | Number of Pages: 148 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Hardcover/Political Science
• | ISBN-10: 3031132025
• | ISBN-13: 9783031132025