CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE APOCALYPTIC IMAGINATION: SCIENCE, FAITH, AND ECOLOGICAL RESPONSIBILITY

The use of apocalyptic and post apocalyptic narratives to interpret the risk of environmental degradation and climate change has been criticized for (1) too often making erroneous predictions on the basis of too little evidence, (2) being ineffective to motivate change, (3) leading to a discounting of present needs in the face of an exaggerated threat of impending catastrophe, and (4) relying on a pre-modern, Judeo-Christian mode of constructing reality. Nevertheless, Apocalypse, whether understood in its technical sense as revelation or in its popular sense as end of the world as we know it, remains a powerful way of creatively reimagining the world and of introducing questions of value and significance into discussions of climate change.