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 ## Introduction
 
-My thesis is that green rhetoric would be more successful were it to be more
-apocalyptic, not less.
+My thesis is that green rhetoric must be apocalyptic as modelled by the biblical
+Apocalypse of John.
 
 While the word 'rhetoric' is often used to suggest empty or untrustworthy
 political speech, my sense is much broader than this. By 'rhetoric', I mean an
@@ -10,59 +10,41 @@ are putting forth language with the intention of causing their audience to make
 something happen.
 
 By 'green', I am narrowing down that very broad category to specifically the
-political rhetoric belonging to a particular historical situation: the green
-movement^[We could use a range of epithets in the place of 'green':
-'environmental,' 'conservation,' 'nature,' 'wilding,' 're-wilding,' 'climate,'
-'ecological,' to name but a few. For the purposes of this dissertation, I will
-prefer the name 'green' to refer to this movement and the closely-related
-cluster of issues which these names represent.].
+political rhetoric belonging to a particular historical situation: the 'green,'
+or 'environmental,' movement.
 
 In the 1960s, major environmental institutions rapidly gained mass membership,
-especially among the urban professional middle classes, in many Western nations,
-forming the basis of the modern green movement [@sutton-environment, p. 103].
-Rachel Carson's _Silent Spring_ caused a huge public controversy over the use of
-poison to control alleged environmental threats, and thus helped to kick green
-rhetoric up to the highest level of politics in the US and other countries
-[@silent-spring, pp. 122-124]. In its wake followed wave upon wave of
-legislation. To sample just some of the US federal legislation in the decade
-following _Silent Spring_:
-
-- Clean Air Act 1963
-- Wilderness Act 1964
-- National Environmental Policy Act 1969
-- Occupational Safety and Health Act 1970
-- Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act 1972
+especially among the Western middle classes, forming the basis of the modern
+green movement [@sutton-environment, p. 103]. Rachel Carson's _Silent Spring_
+caused a huge public controversy over the use of poison to control alleged
+environmental threats, and thus helped to kick green rhetoric up to the highest
+level of politics in the US and other countries [@silent-spring, pp. 122-124].
+Waves of legislation followed, protecting clean air, clean water, and wildlife.
 
 From the beginning, one of the central issues of the green movement was nuclear
-power. Throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, nuclear power functioned as the
-dominant 'master frame' of the green movement, so that all other green issues
-tended to be framed in nuclear terms.
+power. Until the 1980s, nuclear power functioned as the 'master frame' of the
+green movement: all other green issues tended to be framed in nuclear terms.
 
-For example, in _Silent Spring_, Carson wrote that 'only within the moment of time
-represented by the present century has one species – man – acquired significant
-power to alter the nature of his world.' This statement echoed widespread
-sentiments about nuclear power. For example, in what became known as the
-'Russell-Einstein Manifesto,' eleven eminent scientists including Bertrand
-Russell and Albert Einstein appealed to the public to put aside national
-security concerns and consider themselves 'only as members of a biological
-species,' and warned that nuclear weapons threatened 'universal death'
-[@russell-einstein]. Carson argued that 'the most alarming of all man’s assaults
-upon the environment' was not nuclear weapons, but chemicals. Nevertheless, in
-order to make her point, she adopted an explicitly nuclear framing:
+For example, in _Silent Spring_, Carson wrote that 'only within the moment of
+time represented by the present century has one species – man – acquired
+significant power to alter the nature of his world.' This statement echoed
+widespread sentiments about nuclear power such as that expressed in the
+'Russell-Einstein Manifesto' [@russell-einstein]. Carson argued that 'the most
+alarming of all man’s assaults upon the environment' was not nuclear weapons,
+but chemicals. Nevertheless, she adopted an explicitly nuclear framing:
 
 > In this now universal contamination of the environment, chemicals are the
 > sinister and little-recognized partners of radiation in changing the very
 > nature of the world – the very nature of its life. [@silent-spring, p. 17]
 
-At times, governments, particularly in nuclear-armed NATO states such as the US
-and the UK, distributed public information campaigns informing citizens on how
-to prepare for a nuclear attack, while secretly preparing in the knowledge that
-tens of millions of civilians would be killed directly, probably resulting in a
-total breakdown of civil society [@american-apocalyptic, pp. 48-53;
-@young-2017; @waller-2026].
+At times, governments informed citizens on how best to prepare for a nuclear
+attack, while secretly preparing for tens of millions of civilians to be killed
+directly, probably resulting in a total breakdown of civil society
+[@american-apocalyptic, pp. 48-53; @young-2017; @waller-2026].
 
-In the views of anti-nuclear campaigners, such rhetoric served to quell
-resistance to pro-nuclear policies. A CND leaflet from the 1980s asserted that:
+In the views of anti-nuclear campaigners, keep-calm-and-carry-on rhetoric served
+to quell resistance to pro-nuclear policies. A CND leaflet from the 1980s
+asserted that:
 
 > The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament does not wish to belittle the efforts of
 > Civil Defence workers who train themselves to help their fellow-citizens in
@@ -70,38 +52,36 @@ resistance to pro-nuclear policies. A CND leaflet from the 1980s asserted that:
 > save millions if a nuclear war breaks out. They use Civil Defence to delude
 > people that Britain could survive an all-out nuclear attack. [@cnd-civil-defence]
 
-To fight back against this rhetoric, rhetors invented terms such as 'nuclear
-winter', 'nuclear holocaust', 'nuclear apocalypse', and 'nuclear Armageddon',
-attempting to persuade their audiences that a nuclear war would bring about the
-end of the world, and must therefore be avoided at all costs [see e.g.
-@nuclear-winters-tale, chp. 6].
+To fight back, rhetors invented terms such as 'nuclear winter', 'nuclear
+holocaust', 'nuclear apocalypse', and 'nuclear Armageddon', arguing a nuclear
+war would bring about the end of the world, and must therefore be avoided at all
+costs [see e.g. @nuclear-winters-tale, chp. 6].
 
 Beginning in the late 1980s, climate change moved in to take over the role of
 the green movement's master frame [@rootes-2012]. However, the movement's
-nuclear heritage left an indelible impression on the way greens talked about
-climate change. Environmental campaigners tended to frame climate change in
-terms of an impending sudden catastrophe which might strike at any time: a model
-far better suited to the prospect of nuclear winter than that of climate change
-unfolding over decades and centuries [@ertelt-2018, pp. 25-38]. In 1990,
-Margaret Thatcher described the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
-as an 'early warning system' [@thatcher-1990-05-15]. The Greenpeace Report on
-global warming of the same year noted that 'even nuclear-weapons laboratories
-host conferences on the greenhouse effect these days' [@greenpeace-report, p. 1]
-and concluded in response to what it called the 'greenhouse threat' that 'the
-prospects of future environmental security being compromised by global warming
-are now so real as to make adoption of a precautionary response imperative – in
-other words, policy should focus on buying insurance' [@greenpeace-report, p.
-460].
+nuclear heritage has left its mark. Environmental campaigners still tend to
+frame climate change in terms of an impending sudden catastrophe which might
+strike at any time: a far better description of nuclear winter than of climate
+change [@ertelt-2018, pp. 25-38].
+
+In 1990, Margaret Thatcher described the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
+Change (IPCC) as an 'early warning system' [@thatcher-1990-05-15]. The
+Greenpeace Report on global warming of the same year noted that 'even
+nuclear-weapons laboratories host conferences on the greenhouse effect these
+days' [@greenpeace-report, p. 1] and concluded in response to what it called the
+'greenhouse threat' that 'the prospects of future environmental security being
+compromised by global warming are now so real as to make adoption of a
+precautionary response imperative – in other words, policy should focus on
+buying insurance' [@greenpeace-report, p. 460].
 
 This is where green rhetoric stands today. In recent decades, many of the most
-important political demands of the green movement have not been realised, and
-many scholars have supposed that green rhetoric is not fulfilling its proper
-function of delivering change. In this rest of this dissertation, I will first
-explore why it might be that green rhetoric is failing to deliver political
-change, before exploring in more detail one particular allegation: green
-rhetoric isn't working because it is too apocalyptic. I will argue that this
-diagnosis is unhelpful and untrue. In contrast, I will argue not only that green
-rhetors must continue to use the motif of catastrophe most strongly associated
-with apocalyptic, but they must draw deeper on other aspects of apocalyptic
-language which have been heretofore neglected by green rhetors, if they are to
-play their proper part in delivering political change.
+important political demands of the green movement have not been realised.
+Green rhetoric is not delivering change.
+
+In the chapters which follow, I will first explore why it might be that green
+rhetoric is failing to deliver political change, before exploring in more detail
+one particular allegation: green rhetoric is too catastrophic, or, in the terms
+of some critics, 'apocalyptic.' In contrast, I will argue not only that green
+rhetors must continue to use catastrophic language, but they must also draw
+deeper on other aspects of apocalyptic language which have been heretofore
+neglected, if green rhetors are to play their part in delivering change.