The fanaticism of the apocalypse: save the Earth, punish human beings

The planet is sick. Human beings are guilty of damaging it. Wehave to pay. Today, that is the orthodoxy throughout the Westernworld. Distrust of progress and science, calls for individual andcollective self–sacrifice to save the planet andcultivation of fear: behind the carbon commissars, a dangerous andcounterproductive ecological catastrophism is gaining ground.

Modern society s susceptibility to this kind of thinkingderives from what Bruckner calls the seductive attraction ofdisaster, as exemplified by the popular appeal of disastermovies. But ecological catastrophism is harmful in that it drawsattention away from other, more solvable problems and injustices inthe world in order to focus on something that is portrayed as anApocalypse.

Rather than preaching catastrophe and pessimism, we need to developa democratic and generous ecology that addresses specific problemsin a practical way.