Overview
- Offers the first book-length historical and theoretical account of the development of post-apocalyptic environmentalism
- Draws on material gathered in two research projects
- Combines history with critical theory
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Table of contents (5 chapters)
Keywords
About this book
This book analyses how the environmental movement has developed three overarching narratives that co-exist and compete within it. The first is the narrative of green progress, which has been prominent from the start in environmentalist thought and which is today expressed in the idea of sustainable development and in eco-modernism. The second is the apocalyptic narrative, which urges us to act in order to avert a future catastrophe and which rose to prominence with Rachel Carson and other classics of post-war environmentalism and experienced a renaissance with the climate activism of the 2000s. The third is the postapocalyptic narrative according to which catastrophe is already an unavoidable fact. The centrepiece of the book is its discussion of the postapocalyptic narrative, which has become influential in the recent decade, especially in the wake of the disillusionment following the failed climate summit in Copenhagen 2009.
Climate change, resource exhaustion, pollution and species extinction signal that catastrophes have already become realities here and now for an enormous number of people and other lifeforms. The book probes the possibilities and limitations of the environmental movement in grappling with these issues and turning them into relevant action.
Reviews
“In this book Cassegård and Thörn announce the moment of a new form of environmentalism that confronts systems of denial and responds to inescapable ecological destruction. With sociological sophistication and critical insight, the authors break new ground and open up an important research agenda for scholars of environmental activism”. (Eva Lövbrand, Associate Professor, Linköping University, Sweden)
“The book makes an original contribution. There have been books on the history of environmentalism, but none that focuses on the post-apocalyptic elements of it. It will also contribute with conceptual clarification on these narratives within green political theory”. (Frida Buhre, Ph.D, Linköping University, Sweden)Authors and Affiliations
About the authors
Carl Cassegård is Professor of Sociology at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
Håkan Thörn is Professor of Sociology at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Post-Apocalyptic Environmentalism
Book Subtitle: The Green Movement in Times of Catastrophe
Authors: Carl Cassegård, Håkan Thörn
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13203-2
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental Science, Earth and Environmental Science (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-031-13202-5Published: 22 October 2022
eBook ISBN: 978-3-031-13203-2Published: 21 October 2022
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XI, 137
Topics: Environmental Policy, Sociology, general, Social Sciences, general