This is part 11 of a series on world-building Climate Change scenarios for fiction.
When I was a teenager I read the Left Behind Series.
If you know what this series is, and you’re not a fundamentalist Evangelical Christian, you may have just vomited in your mouth slightly. My apologies. I promise you, my favourite character was the Antichrist, even back then. It’s okay. You’re safe.
What has this got to do with climate change?
A lot actually. The dominant narrative about our moment in history is pretty much just another version of the Left Behind Series. The Biblical Apocalypse. We are in the End Times. The prophets have warned us. Repent or face the consequences. The tribulation is here.
Thus Speaketh the LORD of HOSTS:
The Final Decade is Here!
The clock ticks down!
Disaster is coming to kill us all! Repent! Reuse! Recycle!
The Apocalypse has a multi-millennia cross-cultural grip on our imaginations. The Apocalypse is deep. The Apocalypse is powerful. Seen in the context of the past two thousand years of End Times doomerism, the current spasm of apocalyptic thinking is very much part of a tradition.
Whenever anyone tries to think about climate change, there’s a good chance they’ll default to framing it as Divine Judgement Heralded by the Prophets of God. Do the numerology right and the end is coming on Tuesday the 15th of June, 2035, at 3.00 am GMT.
Unfortunately, this Bronze Age religious narrative doesn’t actually fit climate change all that well.
At its heart the apocalypse story is attempt to make sense of suffering by declaring that we live in a just world, that our suffering occurs because we are fundamentally evil, while longing for both retribution on those who hurt us and an escape into utopia. Disaster strikes us down because of our moral shortcomings. The hurricane was caused by homosexual sex. The world must be destroyed because it is a fallen world. Noah’s flood will wipe it clean. The righteous will go to Heaven, the evil to Hell, and everyone gets what they deserve.
In its small scale version the prophet travels to the sinful city and warns the king about what will happen if they do not repent. Either they do repent and they are spared, or they do not, and righteous judgement strikes them down. Applied retroactively divine judgement makes sense of disaster. We are suffering, therefore a sin was committed. We must purify ourselves, burn a few witches, expel the Jews. Ultimately the fault lies with us. Because the world is just, and God is good.
In its grand scale this search for meaning is applied to all existence. The fundamental problem of the human condition is that we are evil. History must be reset and reseeded from an Ark, or the entire historical experiment must brought to a permanent final solution on Judgement Day. The world is escalating towards this final crisis, the suffering grows unstoppably, while the Believers wait in anticipation – reading the signs in the sky. No one knows the day and the hour, but it’s probably soon, Tuesday maybe. When the disaster finally comes it is cause for celebration. Because the world is just, and God is good.
When we frame climate change as The Apocalypse this is the ancient tradition we are dipping into.
The Apocalyptic tradition carries its own inner logic and patterns. We begin to mirror its forms and tendencies. We risk squeezing reality to fit the pattern. We declare human extinction is imminent not because extinction is actually likely, but because the Apocalyptic form requires an extinction or the Apocalyptic frame breaks down.
Perhaps the greatest difference between religious apocalyptism and modern secular apocalyptic fiction, is that having lost our faith in a Saviour we condemn everyone to Hell. We retain only the Judgement without any belief in divine justice, hence the popularity of imagining total human annihilation. No one is saved.
The post-apocalyptic wasteland is eternal damnation without any corresponding eternal salvation, much less any thousand year rule of the Saints. The secular Apocalypse is a belief in Hell without a belief God.
At best rebirth may come from the rugged endurance of the survivors, the foresight of bunker builders and seed collectors – a secular renewal of the world - and yet no one truly cooperates in such post-apocalyptic worlds. At best the strong endure. They are incapable of real goodness or new creation because they are sinners being punished in Hell. The great fantasy is that you can be one of the strong. One of the survivors. The toughest sinner in Hell. If you’re an optimist you can imagine the stronghold of believers awaiting the final return of Christ, or a perhaps see this not as Hell, but as Purgatory – a place to be purified of that original sin, Civilisation.
The Apocalypse narrative has many flavours, but it might go something like this:
- The People commit a Sin against God.
- A Prophet of God warns the People of the Calamity which will befall them if they do not Repent.
- A small number of Good People listen to the Prophet, and Repent therefore returning to God.
- However the Bad People lead the People astray with Temptations.
- More prophetic Warnings are given but ignored, therefore God’s righteous judgement arrives in the form of the Calamity.
- The Calamity destroys the ordinary world, dividing history into before and after.
- A Saviour rescues the Good People from the Calamity. The Bad People suffer under the Trials and Tribulations. Some Repent, joining the Good People, the rest do not.
- At last the People are fully divided between the Bad and the Good, who then live in Hell and Heaven respectively, forever and ever. Amen.
All these terms can be substituted out.
- Civilisation engages in Capitalism, harming Mother Earth.
- Scientists warn Civilisation of Climate Change if they do not Forsake Capitalism.
- A small number of Activists listen to the Scientists, and Forsake Capitalism therefore returning to Mother Earth.
- However the Capitalists & Right Wing Politicians lead the People astray with Consumerism & Fascism.
- More IPCC Reports are given but ignored, therefore Mother Earth’s righteous judgement arrives in the form of the Climate Breakdown.
- The Climate Breakdown destroys the ordinary world, dividing history into before and after.
- Survivalists rescue the Activists from Climate Breakdown. The Right Wingers & Consumers suffer under the Collapse of Civilisation. Some Forsake Capitalism, joining the Activists, the rest do not.
- At last the People are fully divided between the Capitalists and the Activists, who then live in a Collapsing Cyberpunk Dystopia and a Pastoral Utopia respectively, forever and ever. Amen.
I know that’s a little cheeky, but many many many climate narratives do follow one or more elements of this apocalyptic narrative. This narrative matches just well enough to be used without being obviously absurd, but it has some serious issues.
Climate change is not The Apocalypse. Jesus won’t come back when we reach Net Carbon Zero. Here’s a few issues:
- In the Apocalypse God and Humanity are independent variables. God punishes sinners. Mother Earth gets revenge. But Humanity and the Earth are not independent things. We co-arise. Humanity is Earth, and Earth is Humanity. Climate change is our own action returning on us. Humanity itself is an action of Earth, acting upon Earth itself. Mother Earth done us to herself.
- In the Apocalypse time is divided into Before and After. Hence we have Climate Clocks ticking down. What happens when time runs out? Will the Great Dragon arise from the ocean? No. Nothing will happen. Climate change doesn’t work like that. The apocalypse narrative leaves us waiting for the Calamity that never comes, even while transformations take place all around us. Climate change is past, present, and future. Subtle and all encompassing. No day will ever come when you can “Just look up.”
- In the Apocalypse judgement is total. No one is spared the wrath of God. Disaster will drive humanity extinct. No one is spared. Except that’s not true. I promise you, some people will never notice a thing. Blissfully ignorant and unharmed, while others die.
- In the Apocalypse judgement is unstoppable. Disaster is an inevitable feature of the cosmic story, necessary to cleanse the world of evil. The Evil Empire is simply one of the necessary steps towards the end. Humanity is a disease. Mother Earth shall rid herself of us, like a bad case of fleas etc etc. Resistance is futile.
- Total Judgement means total despair. It’s a binary win-fail. No room exists for a partial success, or degrees of failure. We’re doomed. Might as well give up. Burn it all. Why bother anymore? We’re only getting what we deserve.
- The Apocalypse ends history. Hell is place of eternal damnation without hope. The Walking Dead keep on walking forever. The Wasteland never changes. The post-apocalypse is Hell. Nobody adapts much less creates a better world in Hell. But we might, because climate change is not Hell.
- The Apocalypse creates a Just World. God is good. He punishes evil, rewards the righteous. If people suffer then it’s their own damn fault. India’s screwed because of overpopulation, and the Chinese got greedy. Fair’s fair? But climate change has no justice. The innocent will suffer worst, and guilty will shield themselves with their wealth and power.
- In the Apocalypse repentance is possible and unambiguously good. A single sin has a single solution. Tear down the idols and return to the LORD. Bad luck for the priests of Baal, but salvation is an easy fix. Just switch to solar power and get an electric car. Except climate change isn’t that simple. That’s why we never did enough. Now we can no longer be forgiven because the calamity has already arrived. It turned up before we were born.
- The Apocalypse longs for scapegoats and saviours. How do you forgive an unforgivable sin? How do you escape total eternal damnation? You lay your sins on another, then get Raptured into Heaven. That is the traditional answer to this traditional apocalyptic narrative. So don’t worry. Elon will take us to Mars.
- The Apocalypse is a fight of Good versus Evil. The Antichrist leads the world astray. He must be defeated in the Final Battle by our Saviour. Martyrdom is God’s will. Those who bear the Mark of the Beast are fair game to be shot. Let’s go to war kids. Climate change requires a war footing, just like WW2. Right? Let’s go fight climate change. Except how do we fight a planet and ourselves? Who do we bomb? The Chinese? Wall Street?
- In the Apocalypse repentance is a return to the past. We turned away from God to idols. Now we must return to the way things were. We must live in yurts, and grow carrots, reconnecting to blood and soil - back to the way things used to be. Except the world is being transformed, and we can never go back to a world that never was.
- The Apocalypse privileges Prophets and Kings. This is the apocalyptic model of change: the Prophet shouts. The Good King listens. The Bad King puts the Prophet to death. God punishes everyone for the sins of the King. So, maybe at COP-32 the Elite will finally listen? If people just understood the science, then we’d have it licked. Yes? Never mind the power of the common folk, revolutions, or invisible transformations.
- The Apocalypse gives the individual an experience akin to that of joining a cult. As a teenager, being exposed to Pentecostal Christianity, the experience was uncannily similar to being told that Lord of Rings is real, and you must now join Frodo to defeat Sauron. Truly it depends on you. Magic is real kids.
Life takes on a mythic dimension, a grand scale, and you can feel an imagined unity with total strangers simply because they are “on your side” in the great struggle. The Apocalyptic framing of climate change produces similar effects, similar false identification and toxic heroism. We are the Good People, in an Epic Fight for the Fate of Humanity. But such visions prove to be illusory when probed, and every cult has its dark side. Your real friends are people you’ve actually met.
- The Apocalypse is easy to shoot down. The entire story can be undermined by showing that climate change is not literally the end of the world. Therefore no judgement is coming, therefore no sin occurred, therefore everything is fine. Why worry? Invest in Exxon today! The world needs fossil fuels! Some of what I’ve written against ultra-doom scenarios might come across this way – so I want to make it clear: climate change is bad, very bad. The Black Death was also not the Apocalypse, but I wouldn’t fancy a rerun.
- The purpose of Apocalypse and Divine Judgement narratives are to reinforce the original value system of a society, and push a denied longing for justice out into a promised future were everything will be okay... one day. Modern apocalypse stories add on to this the belief that without the strong hand of the State our inner evil will explode into cannibalistic violence. We are at the peak. This is as good as it gets. Be thankful for your chicken McNuggets. The entire thrust of apocalypticism just happens to be the complete opposite of what our present moment actually requires – the abandonment of a deeply rooted dysfunctional value system, often embodied in the State, in favour of creating something new to match our new unprecedented circumstances. A turn towards the apocalyptic in response to climate change can in fact be a doubling down on the root causes of climate change and a retreat from reality.
I could go on, but I think you get the picture. The Apocalyptic narrative has problems. And yet, this narrative is the climate change default. One of the greatest literary challenges of our age may well be this: how do we come up with a narrative framing that actually does fit our present moment, this world of climate change, global systemic risks, this Anthropocene?
I don’t know what the answer to that question is. Chances are it doesn’t have a single answer.
In the next few articles we’ll look at some more “End of the World” issues.
Return to menu.
Another wonderful piece, Jack! To be honest, I've never been able to get into zombie apocalypse fiction because something about its fundamental sensibility just didn't work for me—and now you've really teased it all apart into why that is! It's fascinating also to see how dearly it maps onto the worldviews of Christian mythology.
Much of this also resonates quite strongly with some of the themes I've been exploring in my own series of essays on our situation of ecocide and its relationship to storytelling (in a more generic sense: not only intentional fiction but also cultural paradigms).