chp4: in defence of green catastrophe

2 files changed, 39 insertions, 5 deletions

diff --git a/bibliography.bib b/bibliography.bib
index 28f54a1..b8bab18 100644
--- a/bibliography.bib
+++ b/bibliography.bib
@@ -1,3 +1,11 @@
+@book{beuret-2025,
+    title={Or Something Worse},
+    subtitle={Why We Need to Disrupt the Climate Transition},
+    author={Beuret, Nicholas},
+    publisher={Verso},
+    address={New York},
+}
+
 @report{ngfs-dec-2023,
     title={Scaling Up Blended Finance for Climate Mitigation and Adaptation in Emerging Market and Developing Economies (EMDEs)},
     author={{Network for Greening the Financial System}},
diff --git a/chapter4.md b/chapter4.md
index 434344d..5ae3f14 100644
--- a/chapter4.md
+++ b/chapter4.md
@@ -37,11 +37,37 @@ This is, in John Collin's terms, an 'ethic for martyrdom.' So, could John's
 apocalyptic rhetorical strategies be of use in motivating UK citizens to take
 political actions to advance the causes of the green movement?
 
-First, I'll consider minority cognition. This was the first aspect of John's
-strategy which I considered in the previous chapter. While the particular kind
-of minority cognition favoured by John -- that is, direct testimony imparted by
-a divine authority -- may be unpersuasive to many UK citizens, minority
-cognition is still necessary.
+First of all, catastrophism ought to be deployed in a way which exposes the
+evil of present systems and leaves open the possibility of resistance. Nicholas
+Beuret uses catastrophic language to expose the falsity, as he sees it, of
+'climate transition' rhetoric, and motivate his audience to 'disrupt' that green
+transition:
+
+> The impacts \[of climate change\] will be terrible. Already at somewhere
+> around 1.5°C the world is suffering an adaptability crisis, with some areas
+> becoming barely habitable. At 3°C, deserts and arid zones will spread,
+> rainfall will become unreliable and scarce in many places (or torrential in
+> others); heat will make whole regions brutally hostile to life during the day.
+> All of this will put massive strains on existing infrastructure and services.
+> Breakdown will become an everyday experience, rendering more places barely
+> livable.
+>
+> \[…\]
+>
+> While we know that government isn't coming to save us, we also need to
+> understand that no disaster will come to save us. There is no hope to be found
+> in fantasies of collapse. There are no easy victories to be claimed. Instead
+> we must focus on the hard work of organising, and take courage from each
+> other. We must grasp hold of the transition, to reshape it to our ends. We
+> must become the climate disruption: the disaster to their plans.
+> [@beuret-2025, pp. 201-202]
+
+Beuret's catastrophism functions to expose the evil of the existing system,
+show the gravity of the situation, and motivate his audience to resistance.
+However, we showed in the previous chapter that John's apocalypticism goes far
+beyond catastrophe. While the particular kind of minority cognition favoured by
+John -- that is, direct testimony imparted by a divine authority -- may be
+unpersuasive to many UK citizens, minority cognition is still necessary.
 
 Recall that, as Thompson [@thompson-revelation] argued, John needed to use
 minority cognition in order to resist the overwhelming weight of the majority