The Perils of Climate Catastrophism: A Call to Situate Crisis and Change

ABSTRACT Catastrophic imaginaries are inextricably bound to how we think about climate change and also how we respond—individually and collectively—to the urgent challenges of achieving rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. This advanced review reflects on, and problematises, the power and persistence of ideas about climate catastrophe. It is argued that this politically and culturally dominant framing of imminent planetary devastation impedes and constrains action on climate change. It is a position that underlines, I suggest, a need to rethink and better situate our narratives of, and relations to, climate crisis and emergency. I pursue this argument in four parts. First, I begin by introducing and theoretically contextualizing “environmental catastrophism”. Second, and following on, I address the ways in which the problem of climate change has become synonymous with imaginaries of apocalyptic catastrophism, tracing dominant tropes and discourses. In the third step I raise interconnected perils of the catastrophic gaze for climate action: the impossibility of solving a problem framed as a predominantly totalising whole‐planet challenge; defeatism that displaces action to “total” and/or depoliticising solutions; and public despair around, and alienation from, climate action. Finally, and in response to these challenges, I make the case for a situated view of climate crisis and change—one that offers and embraces imaginaries that are fundamentally partial, located and positioned. This article is categorized under: Climate, History, Society, Culture > Ideas and Knowledge The Carbon Economy and Climate Mitigation > Decarbonizing Energy and/or Reducing Demand The Social Status of Climate Change Knowledge > Knowledge and Practice