In and Out of the End Times: The Climate Apocalypse, Temporality, and Narrative (Em)placement in Contemporary Scientific Nonfiction

Since climate change was conclusively identified as a global issue in the mid-20th century, its cultural framings have shifted to that of the ‘climate apocalypse,’ a complete ruin of the environment and human civilization as we know it. It is positioned as a discrete, perpetually-future event that, while always on the horizon, is never initiated. This framing, though fear-inducing, fails to consider the continuous onset of harmful climate effects in the present day, creating a temporal distance for the present audience and eliciting feelings of uncertainty, fatalism, and passivity. My research investigates twenty-first century popular science texts and studies the manner by which authors expand beyond this monolithic temporal framework, engaging crosstemporal relationships between their audience and the climate crisis. I argue that these texts, through the narrative strategies of the metacognitive audience, emplacement in the future imaginary, and the Indigenous post-apocalypse, transport their audiences across temporal boundaries, illustrating the continuous, long-standing impacts of climate change. In doing so, the texts bridge the gap between vision and action, shifting from an anticipatory framework to one focused on mitigation and recovery. Their crosstemporality encourages audiences to consider their moral responsibility to future generations and their agency in enacting effective change.