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Climate catastrophe : the value of envisioning the worst‐case scenarios of climate change
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Davidson, Joe P. L. and Kemp, Luke (2024) Climate catastrophe : the value of envisioning the worst‐case scenarios of climate change. WIREs Climate Change, 15 (2). doi:10.1002/wcc.871 ISSN 1757-7780.
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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/wcc.871
Abstract
Many now argue that we should think about the previously unthinkable risks of climate change, including societal collapses and human extinction. Calamitous images of the future are not pathological or counterproductive: it is both necessary and valuable to imagine the worst-case scenarios of climate change. Critics of climate catastrophe often group together all visions of disastrous futures under labels like doomism or pessimism. This is unhelpful and greater nuance is required. We need to distinguish between climate doomists (who see catastrophe as imminent and unavoidable) and climate risk realists (who see catastrophe as one potential future that should be avoided). We also need to split apart the different ways of envisioning climate catastrophe to understand their distinct strengths and weaknesses. We outline and compare three alternative modes of viewing the worst-case scenarios of climate change: foresight, agitation, and fiction. The first centers on modeling catastrophic climate scenarios, the second on the use of images of climate catastrophe for political action, and the third on fictional visions of future climate disasters. These different approaches are complementary and should be better integrated to create more comprehensive models of the future. All of them would benefit from viewing the future as uncertain, reflecting on the social position of the author, and guarding against the authoritarian “stomp reflex” that can be induced by discussions of crisis and emergency.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
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| Subjects: | Q Science > QC Physics | ||||||||
| Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Sociology | ||||||||
| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Climatic changes -- Political aspects, Climatic extremes -- Political aspects, Global warming, Global environmental change | ||||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | WIREs Climate Change | ||||||||
| Publisher: | Wiley | ||||||||
| ISSN: | 1757-7780 | ||||||||
| Official Date: | 14 March 2024 | ||||||||
| Dates: |
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| Volume: | 15 | ||||||||
| Number: | 2 | ||||||||
| DOI: | 10.1002/wcc.871 | ||||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons) | ||||||||
| Date of first compliant deposit: | 23 May 2024 | ||||||||
| Date of first compliant Open Access: | 24 May 2024 | ||||||||
| RIOXX Funder/Project Grant: |
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