Green campaigners are not ‘following the science’ – they are promoting a Biblical fantasy.
The End Times are back once more. The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, published this week, prompted a typically apocalyptic response in the media and beyond. ‘It’s our last chance to limit global warming before climate-change damage becomes irreversible’, ran one headline. ‘Act now or it’s too late’, was the Guardian’s measured assessment. It might as well have said, ‘Repent sinners, the end is nigh’.
This swerve into almost religious rhetoric is no one-off. Mainstream climate-change coverage and activism are now dominated by the apocalyptic imagination. Indeed, the belief that humanity is facing possible extinction in the next century or sooner lies at the heart of the propaganda of Extinction Rebellion (XR) and its spin-off, Just Stop Oil. During interviews, and increasingly court appearances, activists present themselves as distressed and angered by the complacency of the public. Time is running out, they say frantically.
The apocalyptic nature of so much of contemporary environmentalism is no mere rhetorical flourish. It seems to structure the thought and outlook of activists. To grasp why apocalyptic thinking seems to resonate so strongly with hardline environmentalists, it is worth looking at the ancient, indeed Biblical, origins of this thinking – in which fantasies of vengeance and the promise of a world redeemed were first forged.