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diff --git a/chapter2.md b/chapter2.md index 058a69b..3944150 100644 --- a/chapter2.md +++ b/chapter2.md @@ -245,28 +245,3 @@ disarming radical discourses in favour of business as usual, and deeping harmful In all these ways, catastrophic language in green rhetoric can work to actively de-motivate audiences to play their part in bringing about the green movement's desired outcomes. - -For Frances Flannery, Professor Emerita of Religion at James Madison University, -the upshot of all this is that 'We Must Stop Saying "Climate Apocalypse"' -[@flannery-2024]. - -Flannery emphasises that in popular imagination, 'apocalypse' signifies nothing -more than the end of the world, ignoring the world-creating aspects of biblical -apocalypses [@flannery-2024, p. 209]. This may be a legacy of Cold-War era -nuclear rhetoric and science fiction, which re-purposed the symbol 'apocalypse' -to describe the consequences of a nuclear war, while deliberately stripping the -disaster of any redemptive afterward [@wojcik-end-of-the-world, p. 1]. Thus, she -argues, the result of raising the threat of a 'climate apocalypse' is to 'create -passivity rather than spur on quick and cooperative climate action' and to inspire -mass climate anxiety. Such a fatalist narrative can also imply that human action -is irrelevant, or encourage audiences to put their hope in 'savior figures such -as inventors, scientists, or governments who might rescue humanity in the nick -of time.' [@flannery-2024, p. 210] - -Flannery's critique would imply that green rhetors ought to avoid apocalyptic -language. This conclusion rests on two key premises: one, that apocalyptic -language is catastrophic in the same way which leads to fatalism, conservatism -and post-politics as described above; and two, that catastrophe is the dominant -effective symbol associated with apocalyptic language. In the next chapter, I -will argue against both of these premises, using the Apocalypse of St John as -a model of apocalyptic language. |