Trajectories of ecologism
Revue Projet publishes a dossier exploring ecological
thinking — its past mistakes, the complex present, and some possible futures.
Climatologist Hervé Le Treut argues that ecologists need to ‘move on from the
teacher-pupil relationship’ with the public. Ecology’s frequent abstractions
and standard ‘danger narrative’ have led to anxiety and fatalism, something Le
Treut observes even among his own students. Alongside improved public education
messaging, he insists on the importance of consensus-building around key
ethical issues such as personal freedom, rights and values, and looks ahead to
international cooperation over the management of planetary resources.
Collapsology: In a brief summary of the long history of the
end of the world, Pierre-Éric Sutter and Loïc Steffan discuss ‘collapsology’ —
a growing area of ecological debate on catastrophism, widespread despair and
the ‘prepper’ reaction. These compare with various ‘laboratories of civil
society’ in which like-minded individuals, families and groups ‘get to grips
with the earth’, adopting low-tech lifestyles predicated on ‘visions of a
coming collapse of society and of worsening shortages’. Considering these
different responses to ecological crisis, Sutter and Steffan argue for
optimistic activism, outlining why a ‘change of world-view’ or moment of metanoia (reorientation
of one’s way of life; spiritual conversion) may be the best path.
Decolonizing
ecology: The decolonization
agenda also applies to ecologism and environmentalism. In interview, political
scientist Malcom Ferdinand explains the relationships between racism,
colonialism and exploitative capitalism. By remodelling our collective colonial
past, he argues, we can decolonize our misconceived — ‘doubly fractured’ —
notion of what ecologism is, and fundamentally recast the environmentalist
project....
