Abstract This article examines the apocalyptic climate imaginary as a biopolitical formation shaping how life is governed under conditions of ecological breakdown. Rather than a singular rupture, climate collapse appears as a chronic, uneven, and increasingly normalized condition that structures how futures are imagined and acted upon in the present. Drawing on Foucault and Lemke, we analyze how this imaginary organizes life through knowledge regimes, hierarchies of worth, and processes of subject formation. We identify three overlapping biopolitical orientations—avoidance, preparation, and endurance—through which climate collapse is lived, governed, and contested. These orientations redistribute responsibility, differentially secure survival, and generate distinct practices of adaptation, care, and resistance. Together, they reveal how the apocalyptic climate imaginary functions not only as a mode of governance but also as a site of political struggle where alternative ways of living with and responding to collapse are negotiated.
Lagerqvist et al. (Wed,) studied this question.