Apocalypse: Green Utopianism and Climate Catastrophe

The tenor of discourse on the climate crisis has become increasingly pessimistic in recent years.The extreme heat waves, wildfires, droughts, floods, and hurricanes of the last decade-which have produced dramatic images of darkened skies, cracked earth, and inundated cities-offer a foretaste for the remainder of the twenty-first century.Prominent figures within the environmental movement assert that, if current trends continue, catastrophe will be our fate.Greta Thunberg famously declared in 2019 that "our house is on fire," with the slow pro gress on mitigating carbon emissions condemning her generation to a bleak future. 1 Echoing this, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, warns that "we must close the emissions gap before climate catastrophe closes in on us all." 2 Scientists have also begun to adopt an apocalyptic perspective, with forecasters suggesting that the consequences of climate change range from economic depression and increased warfare to societal collapse and even human extinction.3 Even ele ments within the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which has traditionally used more cautious language, state that there is "a rapidly closing win dow of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all." 4 This pessimistic mood is reflected in the broader culture, whether it be through popular nonfiction like David Wallace-Wells's The Uninhabitable Earth