Eco-Apocalypse: It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

One of three images for the Destroying nature is destroying life campaign 

by the environmental group Robin Wood (2016)

I.

Someone writes to tell me that I should spend less time writing about trivial matters such as fashion and focus instead on the unfolding eco-apocalypse - the latter being something caused by human activity and which has, apparently, been confirmed by numerous scientific studies. 

I have to admit, I'm a bit sceptical about this green-tinged end of the world narrative and tend to share the view expressed by Phil Hammond and Hugh Ortega Breton that it's best understood "neither as a near-timeless feature of human culture nor as a reasoned response to objective environmental problems. Rather, it is driven by unconscious fantasy; the symbolic expression of an alienation from political subjectivity, characteristic of a historically specific period in the life of post-Cold War societies."

If it's true that some environmental activists find apocalyptic language not only appropriate but sexy, many regard such alarmist rhetoric as problematic and often counter-productive - not least of all because, actually, the science doesn't support such quasi-religious mania, even whilst confirming there are important issues we need to address as a species.

II.

Having said that, I must confess that there was a period, in the late 1980s, when I wilfully bought into this fantasy of eco-apocalypse: I even joined the Green Party! I was soon expelled, however, for holding extreme views that threatened to bring the party into disrepute.

(This was fair enough: but I smiled when, shortly afterwards, party spokesman David Icke revealed on primetime TV that he was the Son of God and gleefully predicted the world was about to be devestated by a series of natural catastrophes.) 

Thankfully, by the time that James Lovelock was issuing his final warning and Al Gore was telling anyone who would listen his inconvenient truth, I was no longer convinced (nor secretly thrilled) by such climate porn and doom-laden prophecy concerning the collapse of civilisation and extinction of all life on earth.

Indeed, I had spent a good deal of time in the 1990s deconstructing my own eco-romanticism influenced by such figures as D. H. Lawrence, Martin Heidegger, and Jaz Coleman and although my Ph.D was meant to be an examination of Nietzsche's cultural pessimism and political philosophy, it was basically an opportunity for me to confront the elements in my own thought that had led towards the black hole of fascism.      

So, I understand perfectly where my critic is speaking from; for I used to occupy much the same space and share many of his concerns. The difference is, whereas he stood his ground and allowed his views to become fixed beliefs, I kept moving and kept questioning things - particularly those social anxieties that function as truths within contemporary culture.

In a sense, that's what torpedo the ark means: refuse all dogma and interrogate everything; including radical environmentalism which mixes ascetic idealism and crusading mythology into a potent brew designed to intoxicate the young and provide a sense of revolutionary mission - for a little child shall lead them ...             

See: Philip Hammond and Hugh Ortega Breton, 'Eco-Apocalypse: Environmentalism, Political Alienation and Therapeutic Agency', Ch. 8 of The Apocalypse in Film: Dystopias, Disasters, and Other Visions about the End of the World, ed. Karen A. Ritzenhoff and Angela Rewani, (Rowman and Littlefield, 2015). Click here to read online. 

Play: REM: 'It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)', single from the album Document (I.R.S. Records, 1987): click here. Note: the video was directed by James Herbert and features a young skateboarder called Noah Ray.

Two Inconvenient Truths

Poster by Stanislav Petrov 

deviantart.com 

I: Habitat Heterogeneity Leads to Greater Biodiversity 

According to the ecologist and evolutionary biologist Chris D. Thomas, paradise hasn't been lost because we never had it to begin with: "The harmonious coexistence of humans and the rest of nature in the distant past is a romanticized and largely fictional notion" [59].

Thus it is that the relationship between man and nature remains an often violent one, involving environmental destruction and species extinction. Having said that, human beings have also (inadvertently perhaps) created a "world of new opportunities for those animals and plants capable of seizing them" [59].

Already I can hear the obvious objection from the green lobby: There were once huge areas of land covered by dense forest. Animals and plants wouldn't need new opportunities if only we conserved what remained of these primordial environments.

And, yes, it's true, ancient woodland does contain a great number of trees and many rare species.

However, it's only by converting it into a mixed landscape consisting of a patchwork of forest and various human-created habitats, that the number of species significantly increases: "This is because new species move into human-created habitats faster than the previous residents of the region die out." [67]

This, obviously, is an inconvenient truth for those who oppose all deforestation, for example, and dream of protecting pristine nature as they imagine it. But it's a truth, nevertheless, that if you want to maximise the number of animals and plants, then accelerating habitat heterogeneity is the way to go.


II: Life Prefers Warm and Wet

To say that the world's climate is getting hotter is to state a scientific fact. But to claim that global warming will prove catastrophic for life on Earth is a moral and ideological interpretation of that fact - and a misinterpretation too. For most animals and plants like it warm and wet and will exhibit enhanced physiological performance if the global thermostat is nudged up a degree or two.

Of course, there will be climate change casualties; "at least 10 per cent of all species that live on the land are expected to perish, and possibly double this number" [78]. But the rest - being naturally more dynamic and adaptable - are likely to survive and prosper by migrating, if necessary, to where the conditions best suit them.

Conservationists may not like it, but life is chaotic and in a state of constant flux. Nothing has ever stayed the same and as soon as you begin to think on grand timescales you realise that species are essentially nomadic: "Biological communities are transient. ... That is how species survive climate change. They move around. ... Any attempt by humans to keep things just as they are is utterly pointless." [84]

Thanks to human activity, it's going to get warmer. And wetter. Warmer and wetter than it has been for three million years. But, amazingly, around two-thirds of the species that researchers have studied in recent decades have already wised up to the fact and "shifted their distributions in response" [91].

At the present rate of movement, within just a few centuries we will have a "new biological world order" [92] as subtropical species, for example, move into the temperate zones and former inhabitants of the temperate region "try their luck in the polar world" [92-3]. And this will very likely increase biodiversity, even if the total number of species on Earth is likely to be lower.

I'm not trying to pick a fight with Al Gore or cause Vivienne Westwood to get her knickers in a twist by pointing out this inconvenient truth concerning global warming; I'm not even advocating that we should stop thinking seriously about climate change and its likely consequences.

I'm simply saying - in agreement with Chris Thomas - that we need to accept the reality of the world we live in and encourage the movement of so-called invasive species "because botanical and zoological world travellers will form the basis of the world's new ecosystems, just as they have when the climate has changed in the past" [94].

See: Chris D. Thomas, Inheritors of the Earth: How Nature is Thriving in an Age of Extinction (Allen Lane, 2017). All page numbers given in the text refer to this work. 

To read a related post to this one - on biodiversity in the Anthropocene - click here.  

We're All Austrians Now (Reflections Beneath a Black Sun)

No one knows for sure how the current migrant crisis in Europe will unfold or what consequences it might entail; as I have said elsewhere, it's a wicked problem and a real mess. However, it seems to me that one of the things that might result is the recreation of the social and political conditions in Europe as a whole that were last witnessed in Austria in the 19th century and that the potential for a new form of völkisch nationalism (or fascism) is thus a very real possibility. 

Such a desperate and virulent reaction might not be welcome or prove to be very helpful, but it is perhaps understandable when mass immigration from Africa, Asia, and the Arab world results in what Jean Baudrillard once described as the internal exile of the European citizen in their own society. 

This sense of alienation and the perceived threat to the future of Europeans as an ethnically and culturally distinct group with their own history and traditions is almost certain to grow and, far from being a paranoid and pessimistic fantasy on behalf of a small number of individuals, there is clear evidence from the maternity wards that the continent is undergoing a rapid and major demographic change. As one critic notes:

"In 1900 the white European races constituted some thirty-five percent  of world population. Owing to declining birth rates among whites in advanced industrial nations, coupled with the explosion of the Third World population ... the figure is now just under ten percent in global terms." [1]

What is more, these same nations are accommodating ever larger numbers of immigrants, having committed themselves with ideological fervour to their own fantasy of multiculturalism no matter what the cost. For those Europeans concerned about their own identity - whether that's primarily based on racial, national, cultural, or religious grounds (and regardless of the fact that those grounds might be entirely spurious) - this places them in much the same position as the German-speaking Austrians during the final years of the Habsburg Empire; i.e., one of perceived disadvantage and ever-decreasing influence.

This, as Al Gore might say, is an inconvenient truth that is rarely addressed or even acknowledged within the dominant and self-legitimating forms of political discourse. To even raise the issue not only offends the sensibilities of the age, but risks legal action under the highly dubious law of incitement to hatred. As Martin Amis writes, any acknowledgement of white anxiety about becoming a numerical minority within Europe invariably results in accusations of racism. But this isn't simply about race, it's also about political values and ethics:

"If every inhabitant of a liberal democracy believes in liberal democracy, it doesn't matter what creed or colour they are; but if some of them believe in sharia ... then the numbers are clearly crucial." [2]

What has become clear, is that commentators on the far right have a much more radical and astute understanding of what's going on and what's at stake; they might arrive at deeply troubling solutions, but they identify genuine problems and concerns. Baudrillard offers a painfully revisionist explanation of why the left have failed us and why the right today possess the last remnants of political interest:

"The right once embodied moral values and the left, in opposition, embodied a certain historical and political urgency. Today, however, stripped of its political energy, the left has become a pure moral injunction, the embodiment of universal values, the champion of the reign of virtue and the keeper of the antiquated values of the Good and the True ..." [3]

In short, the left has become ... boring! Political correctness, on which the left now prides itself, has reduced politics to a zero-point of moral and intellectual banality. This has resulted not only in the abject surrender of the left, but also in a defeat for critical thinking.

And so, today, in this transpolitcal era, if politics can be said to exist at all, it has slid over to the far right. Rather shamefully, it's Europe's neo-conservatives and neo-fascists who still have something to say worth hearing; all other discourses are moral or pedagogical, says Baudrillard, and made by a mixture of lesson-givers, aid workers, and bleeding heart celebrities who believe in peace and love and a universal humanity.

This doesn't mean you should all rush out and vote for those on the far right, but it does mean that if you really want to hear a wild analysis of the times in which we live, there's little point in listening to those on the left - including its more colourful figures, such as Russell Brand - who always speak with a tremor in their voice either of righteous anger, or full of pity for the suffering of the world. If these idiots fail to see things clearly it's partly due to the permanent presence of tears in their eyes.

Unfortunately, globalization doesn't merely unleash massive flows of capital, information, and skills across borders, but also disease, crime, and barbarism. Nation states are compromised and traditional cultures are confronted with unfamiliar customs and values that many find threatening and unwelcome. Thus defensive and reactionary ideologies begin to emerge based on notions of identity and in violent opposition to pretty much everything that is going on around them.

"We cannot know", writes Goodrick-Clarke, "what the future holds for Western multicultural societies, but the experiment did not fare well in Austria-Hungary ..." [4]


Notes:

[1] Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Black Sun, (New York University Press, 2003), p. 2.
[2] Martin Amis, 'Demographics', in The Second Plane, (Jonathan cape, 2008), p. 157.
[3] Jean Baudrillard, 'A Conjuration of Imbeciles', in The Conspiracy of Art, trans. Ames Hodges, (Semiotext[e], 2005), p. 31. 
[4] Goodrick-Clarke, Black Sun, p. 306. 

This post is a revised version of the opening remarks to an essay I wrote in 2008 entitled 'On the Spirit of Terrorism', in Reflections beneath a Black Sun, Volume IV of The Treadwell's Papers, (Blind Cupid Press, 2010).