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@@ -6,8 +6,8 @@ catastrophic language encourages a fatalistic outlook and therefore persuades
 audiences that no proposed solution can be credible. Second, catastrophe is
 supposed to promote business as usual and shut down critical discourses,
 preventing rhetors from proposing truly credible solutions. Third, critics argue
-that catastrophic thinking flattens out power relationships and thus contributes
-to the 'death of politics,' driving rhetors to use the universal 'we' instead of
+that catastrophic thinking flattens out power relationships and thus
+de-politicises green issues, driving rhetors to use the universal 'we' instead of
 identifying an appropriate audience. I will examine each of these complaints in
 turn, but first I will explore where catastrophic language comes from and how it
 ends up featuring in contemporary green rhetoric.
@@ -195,8 +195,7 @@ programme.
 
 But perhaps the most vicious criticism of green catastrophism is that since
 green catastrophism reverberates strongly with 'Anthropocene' discourses, such
-rhetoric flattens out power relationships. This, say the critics, is the 'death
-of politics.'
+rhetoric ignores social structure and therefore de-politicises green issues.
 
 Anthropocene discourse is catastrophic. The arrival of the Anthropocene means
 the end of the Holocene, defined as the time when the climate was hospitable to
@@ -211,16 +210,26 @@ universal human subject, implying that social relations within the human species
 are relatively unimportant, and what matters is some universal, natural trait of
 the biological species, such as greed or the ability to make fire. In reality,
 the climate catastrophe is not the result of a biological trait, but an historical
-process, and therefore an economic structure.
-
-Green catastrophism, because of its Anthropocene tendencies, blinds rhetors to
-social differentiation. Rhetors are therefore driven to use the imaginary
-universal human 'we' and ignore social stratifiers such as class, preventing
-them from identifying an appropriate audience, a fundamental of successful
-rhetoric.
+process, and therefore a social structure.
+
+In the views of political philosophers, the present 'post-political' age
+encourages a process they call 'de-politicisation' [see e.g. @taskale-2016]. In
+this analysis, politics inherently involves contest between interest groups. For
+example, when a landlord seeks to increase the rent, they may face contest from
+their tenants, in the form of legal appeals or rent strikes. At present,
+however, political contests are increasingly de-politicised by means of outside
+technocratic experts employed to generate supposedly objectively ideal solutions
+through scientific, economic measurements. Conflict is replaced with consensus.
+
+Green catastrophism, because of its Anthropocene tendencies, contributes to
+de-politicisation. Anthropocene thinking blinds rhetors to the social
+differentiation which grounds political conflict. Rhetors are therefore driven
+to use the imaginary universal human 'we' and ignore how humans are in fact
+divided into groups with contradictory interests, thus preventing them from
+identifying an appropriate audience, a fundamental of successful rhetoric.
 
 In sum, green catastrophism is accused of encouraging a fatalist outlook,
-disarming radical discourses in favour of business as usual, and deepening the
-'death of politics' by obscuring the importance of power relationships.
-In all these ways, catastrophic language in green rhetoric can help explain
-why green rhetors are getting the fundamentals of successful rhetoric wrong.
+disarming radical discourses in favour of business as usual, and de-politicising
+green issues by obscuring the importance of social structure. In all these ways,
+catastrophic language in green rhetoric can help explain why green rhetors are
+getting the fundamentals of successful rhetoric wrong.