TY - CHAP

T1 - Seeing violence in the weather

T2 - the apocalyptic rhetoric of climate-driven conflict

AU - Jackson, Stephen

PY - 2015

Y1 - 2015

N2 - The deeply worrying prospect of a global catastrophe frequently operates as theconceptual backdrop of rhetoric meant to convey the dangers of climate change. In recent years, however, concerns about climate change have given rise to postapocalyptic forecasts of a future where the crisis overwhelmingly shapes andpropels social conflict. Such forecasts impart tremendous causal power to climatechange, while simultaneously foreclosing human agency and responsibility.Although such warnings are often made by campaigners trying to raise awarenessabout climate change, their Hobbesian character has also found a receptiveaudience among defence professionals who perceive climate change as anemerging national security threat. Military think tanks, for instance, have beendeveloping scenarios in which climate change generates terrorism, politicalradicalisation, and internationally-destabilizing levels of human migration. Thischapter argues that this climatic turn in defence policy discourse has emerged not only out of the need to (re)legitimate hegemonic power, but also becausemainstream apocalyptic rhetoric about climate change constructs the unmitigatedfuture as a state of global emergency. To explore these concerns, I consider theinterplay between popular apocalyptic rhetoric and the emerging field of climatesecurity.

AB - The deeply worrying prospect of a global catastrophe frequently operates as theconceptual backdrop of rhetoric meant to convey the dangers of climate change. In recent years, however, concerns about climate change have given rise to postapocalyptic forecasts of a future where the crisis overwhelmingly shapes andpropels social conflict. Such forecasts impart tremendous causal power to climatechange, while simultaneously foreclosing human agency and responsibility.Although such warnings are often made by campaigners trying to raise awarenessabout climate change, their Hobbesian character has also found a receptiveaudience among defence professionals who perceive climate change as anemerging national security threat. Military think tanks, for instance, have beendeveloping scenarios in which climate change generates terrorism, politicalradicalisation, and internationally-destabilizing levels of human migration. Thischapter argues that this climatic turn in defence policy discourse has emerged not only out of the need to (re)legitimate hegemonic power, but also becausemainstream apocalyptic rhetoric about climate change constructs the unmitigatedfuture as a state of global emergency. To explore these concerns, I consider theinterplay between popular apocalyptic rhetoric and the emerging field of climatesecurity.

M3 - Chapter

SN - 9781848883529

SP - 101

EP - 126

BT - Imagining the end

A2 - Bishop, Thomas E.

A2 - Strong, Jeremy R.

PB - Inter-disciplinary Press

CY - Oxford

ER -