Catastrophism toward ‘opening up’ or ‘closing down’? Going beyond the apocalyptic future and geoengineering

Abstract

Climate change is socially constructed by the way we imagine the future. Catastrophism and the fear of future climate risk dominate public discourse and constitute how we respond to climate change now. In the debate on climate change, there are two competing catastrophisms: one is emancipatory catastrophism, coined by Ulrich Beck; and the other is what the author of this article calls apocalyptic catastrophism – the dystopian imagination of the future climate and a discourse serving to feed the idea of a ‘techno-fix’, namely geoengineering the Earth’s climate. The two catastrophisms are different in their view on climate change and democracy. This article explores the discursive contours of these two catastrophisms.