Workshop: Apocalypse, Rhetoric and the Climate Crisis

This workshop will engage the tight relationship of apocalypse and climate change. Clearly, the climate crisis has elements aptly called apocalyptic. A damaged climate features prominently in apocalyptic literature and film. Apocalyptic narratives also play a role in the rhetoric of climate activists – we hear of tipping points, catastrophes, mass extinctions and a world destroyed, of a final battle between the good and pure who fight the evil, greedy, or indifferent.

At this workshop, we want to examine this relationship further. On one hand, apocalyptic rhetoric can be a powerful driver of political action – as has been the case with climate activism. But on the other hand, evidence suggests that when political entrepreneurs use apocalyptic rhetoric, its impact tends to be limited. Regardless of the substantive content of apocalyptic claims, many respond with either scorn or indifference. Furthermore, apocalyptic rhetoric empirically seems to work best under certain conditions, i.e., where the promised end is proximate and radical. Given the drawn-out temporality of climate change, and human adaptability to circumstances which worsen gradually, ought we to question the use of apocalyptic talk both as an accurate descriptor and as an effective rhetorical strategy for climate action?

With this frame in mind, the pop-up workshop will engage the relationship between apocalyptic rhetoric and climate change, with participants invited to draw on empirical, ontological, and normative angles. Participants may want to engage one or more of the following questions:

How does apocalyptic framing impact our understanding of climate change and vice versa?

• Why might climate destruction in particular be so omnipresent in apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic art?
• How might this illuminate a folk understanding of climate?

What do we actually mean by ‘apocalypse’ in the climate context?

• Are claims the world is ending literal or metaphorical?
• What exactly is ending and for whom? Here we might be sensitive to the modulations of indigenous perspectives on prior apocalypse, e.g., claims that the arrival of Europeans was the apocalypse.
• Indeed, does it matter, for climate action, if there are or have been multiple apocalypses? Have there?

What role might the element of unveiling or uncovering in the concept of apocalypse play in climate rhetoric and climate-framed apocalyptic art?

What about the moral and strategic dimensions of using apocalyptic rhetoric?

• Does it matter whether this rhetoric works to spark not just climate activism but climate action? That is, is it enough to speak ‘truth’ for its own sake?
• Do the newly documented mental health consequences of this rhetoric matter?
• Might there be other rhetorical frames that work better to bring about substantive and sustained change in popular attitudes?

What other ends might the use of apocalyptic rhetoric serve? For example, some thinkers suggest a focus on The End opens us to alternative ‘ends’: the outcome of a (cosmic) crisis is already anticipated by the certainty of (post-capitalist? Anarchist?) redemption thereafter. Here, ends are also new beginnings. How ought we to understand the wish to hasten the end in light of climate change?

If you're interested in attending, please get in touch with Uta Staiger (u.staiger@ucl.ac.uk).

Workshop 2: Apocalyptic Rhetoric & Russian Propaganda 18 July 14:00-16:00