chp2: catastrophe

2 files changed, 70 insertions, 6 deletions

diff --git a/bibliography.bib b/bibliography.bib
index 5f6f478..ce2a1c5 100644
--- a/bibliography.bib
+++ b/bibliography.bib
@@ -1,3 +1,22 @@
+@inreference{eb-extinctions,
+    title={Major Mass Extinctions},
+    author={Dubey, Anna},
+    booktitle={Encyclopædia Brittanica},
+    publisher={Encyclopædia Brittanica, Inc},
+    date={2025-06-13},
+    url={https://www.britannica.com/list/major-mass-extinctions},
+    urldate={2026-06-10},
+}
+
+@inreference{oed-catastrophe,
+    title={catastrophe (n.)},
+    booktitle={Oxford English Dictionary},
+    doi={10.1093/OED/1027188634},
+    date={2026-06},
+    publisher={Oxford University Press},
+    address={Oxford},
+}
+
 @book{population-bomb,
     author={Erlich, Paul Ralph},
     title={The Population Bomb},
diff --git a/chapter2.md b/chapter2.md
index 0ce5fdf..8177adc 100644
--- a/chapter2.md
+++ b/chapter2.md
@@ -12,12 +12,57 @@ Thesis: anti-apocalyptic criticism of R mis-diagnoses the problem.
 12. (In order to do so in practice, those with power need to attack the
     structures which drive the downward spiral)
 
-Since contemporary green rhetoric doesn't work, the rhetors think they need to
-increase the temperature, and drive towards increasingly dire warnings of
-impending catastrophe, thinking that people just need more of a shove. They call
-on the familiar symbolic language of nuclear winter. The interests of mass media
-also favours this catastrophism. This only leads feelings of powerlessness to
-degenerate into despair.
+Catastrophe is prominent literary feature of contemporary green rhetoric. The
+word 'catastrophe' first entered English through early modern translations of
+Greek plays, meaning the denouement of a plot. Through association with
+tragedies, it came to acquire connotations of disaster, and in the nineteenth
+century, became closely associated with the (now antiquated) 'catastrophic'
+theory of geological time, according to which distinct geological epochs were
+divided by sudden cataclysmic events. [@oed-catastrophe]
+
+Anti-nuclear campaigners used the word 'catastrophe' to describe the effects of
+a nuclear war, echoing this model of geological time, suggesting that a nuclear
+war would have such severe, irreversible consequences that it would represent
+the next great cataclysm in geological time \[EVIDENCE\].
+
+Whether or not green rhetors explicitly use the word 'catastrophe,' they often
+imply a catastrophic model of the problems they present. When Extinction
+Rebellion took to the streets of the UK in 2018, this was their message:
+
+> The science is clear – we are in the sixth mass extinction event and we will
+> face catastrophe if we do not act swiftly and robustly. [@xr-declaration]
+
+The phrase 'sixth mass extinction event' categorises the present green crisis
+alongside the traditional 'big five' mass extinction events of geological
+history [@eb-extinctions], remnants of the catastrophic theory of geological
+time. Their 'Declaration of Rebellion' used the word 'catastrophe' once again,
+alongside words such as 'cataclysmic,' 'destruction,' 'crises,' 'dying planet,'
+and 'uninhabitable' to reinforce the image.
+
+Similarly, Greta Thunberg favours an imminent, catastrophic model of climate
+change:
+
+> \[FIND QUOTE\]
+
+Catastrophic models of ecological futures are so dominant, that it can be hard
+to imagine any other kind of story. This is eloquently demonstrated by the
+novelist, Charles Foster, who set himself the challenge to 'reignite' his
+readers' imaginations:
+
+> I don't believe in climate change. \[…\] 'Yes, it's very bad. Yes, we're all
+> going to die. Pass the salt, please. How's your homework going, Rachel?' \[…\]
+> This exhaustion of our intellect, our compassion and our capacity for alarm
+> is desperately dangerous. Only imagination can reignite them. And only story
+> \[…\] can do the necessary imaginative job. We're dying for want of a story.
+> \[FIND PAGE NUMBERS\]
+
+The result was _Cry of the Wild_, a short story collection. One of those stories
+follows a fictional orca called Eeschin as she lives through the extinction of
+her pod due to marine pollution. The denouement of the story sees Eeschin
+swimming alone, the last of her clan, unable and unwilling to adopt a new clan,
+facing with courage her grief and her own inevitable death. Even a talented
+writer such as Foster, intentionally seeking to break new imaginative ground for
+conceptualising green crises, seems unable to escape the motif of catastrophe.
 
 This has led many people to think that this catastrophism is the root cause of
 the problem. Some have even labelled this trope 'apocalypticism' and thus blamed