The planet is sick. Human beings are guilty of damaging it. We
have to pay. Today, that is the orthodoxy throughout the Western
world. Distrust of progress and science, calls for individual and
collective self-sacrifice to ‘save the planet’ and
cultivation of fear: behind the carbon commissars, a dangerous and
counterproductive ecological catastrophism is gaining ground.
Modern society’s susceptibility to this kind of thinking
derives from what Bruckner calls ‘the seductive attraction of
disaster, ‘ as exemplified by the popular appeal of disaster
movies. But ecological catastrophism is harmful in that it draws
attention away from other, more solvable problems and injustices in
the world in order to focus on something that is portrayed as an
Apocalypse.
Rather than preaching catastrophe and pessimism, we need to develop
a democratic and generous ecology that addresses specific problems
in a practical way.
Tabella dei contenuti
Introduction: The Return of Original Sin 1
Part I The Seductive Attraction of Disaster 5
1 Give Me Back My Enemy 7
2 Have the Courage to be Afraid 24
3 Blackmailing Future Generations 49
Part II Progressives Against Progress 69
4 The Last Avatar of Prometheus? 71
5 Nature, a Cruel Stepmother or a Victim? 91
6 Science in the Age of Suspicion 105
Part III The Great Ascetic Regression 133
7 Humanity on a Strict Diet 135
8 The Poverty of Maceration 149
9 The Noble Savage in the Lucerne 162
Epilogue: The Remedy is Found in the Disease 184
Notes 187
Circa l’autore
A provocative essay on ‘ecological catastrophism’ from
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