559849

research-article2014

CSI0010.1177/0011392114559849Current SociologyAsayama

CS

Article

Catastrophism toward
opening up or closing down?
Going beyond the apocalyptic
future and geoengineering

Current Sociology
2015, Vol. 63(1) 8993
The Author(s) 2014
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DOI: 10.1177/0011392114559849
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Shinichiro Asayama

National Institute for Environmental Studies, Japan

Abstract
Climate change is socially constructed by the way we imagine the future. Catastrophism
and the fear of future climate risk dominate public discourse and constitute how
we respond to climate change now. In the debate on climate change, there are two
competing catastrophisms: one is emancipatory catastrophism, coined by Ulrich Beck;
and the other is what the author of this article calls apocalyptic catastrophism the
dystopian imagination of the future climate and a discourse serving to feed the idea
of a techno-fix, namely geoengineering the Earths climate. The two catastrophisms
are different in their view on climate change and democracy. This article explores the
discursive contours of these two catastrophisms.
Keywords
Catastrophism, climate change, cosmopolitanism, democracy, geoengineering

Climate change is conquered or drowned by a discourse of fear, the fear about the
future climate (Hulme, 2008). Apocalyptic imagining of the catastrophic impacts of climate change such as rising sea levels and deadly hurricanes is the typical language to talk
about what the future will look like at risk of global climate change. Discourses of fear
and catastrophe have been prevalent in the public debate since climate change became a
salient political issue in the late 1980s (Weingart et al., 2000). A discourse of fear
Corresponding author:
Shinichiro Asayama, Center for Social and Environmental Systems Research, National Institute for
Environmental Studies, 16-2 Onogawa Tsukuba Ibaraki 305-8506, Japan.
Email: asayama.shinichiro@nies.go.jp

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Current Sociology 63(1)

mobilizes human society into taking action against climate change, resulting in political
and ethical imperatives of limiting greenhouse gas emissions. However, a fear discourse
can also create the conditions for a technocratic turn to govern climate change, which
arises from the anxiety about the collapse of a global deal on GHG emissions reduction,
as seen in Copenhagen 2009. Such anxiety over the failure of mitigation can guide us
toward the lure of a techno-fix, geoengineering the Earths climate.
Here, I argue there is a power (or catastrophism) to change our world, guided by dystopian imagination of the future and humans hubris to control the climate, which I call
apocalyptic catastrophism in opposition to what Ulrich Beck (2014) called emancipatory catastrophism, introduced in his public lecture at the conference Climate Change
and Risk Society: New Trends of Megacity Transformation in Seoul, Korea, July 2014
(see also Beck, 2015, this volume). In this short essay, I discuss the underlying discourse
that leads us to techno-fixing climate change, and contrast it with the concept of emancipatory catastrophism. To do so, first I look into what geoengineering artificially setting the global thermostat to cool the planets temperature is.
Geoengineering or climate engineering is defined as the deliberate, large-scale
manipulation of the planetary environment in order to counteract anthropogenic climate change (Royal Society, 2009), either by solar radiation management (SRM) to
reduce incoming sunlight, or carbon dioxide removal (CDR) to remove carbon dioxide
from the atmosphere. The interest in geoengineering has grown rapidly over the last
decade, despite the fact that geoengineering is highly controversial in political, ethical
and social dimensions (Corner and Pidgeon, 2010). Geoengineering is advocated based
on two rationales: one is the plan B argument, the other is climate emergency
(Nerlich and Jaspal, 2012). The plan B argument claims that geoengineering can be an
insurance in case mitigation policy fails, and therefore (at least) research into geoengineering should be pursued.1 In conjunction with the plan B argument, geoengineering is also justified as a necessary option in order to avoid climate emergency, that
is, abrupt, nonlinear and irreversible climate change namely climate tipping points
such as the Greenland and west Antarctica ice sheets melting (Markusson et al., 2014).
The climate emergency argument has an emotive power that is hard to resist since it is
the normative call for taking action against potential catastrophe of the future climate
and does not propose immediate deployment. However, climate emergency is a slippery concept, and what it really means is not yet scientifically well-defined. In fact, the
rhetoric of climate emergency rests on the logic of preemption: anticipation of potential emergencies in the future but as yet unknown about whether and how they may
occur necessitates action now to prevent such emergencies (Markusson et al., 2014).
The fear of future impacts of a changed climate rather than a changed climate itself
legitimizes the option of geoengineering. As such, what underlies the idea of a technofix through geoengineering is catastrophism that imagines the future climate as the
apocalypse.
I think, in the debate on climate change, there are two competing narratives: one is
apocalyptic catastrophism, that is the imagination of a dire future climate and the discourse to feed the idea of a techno-fix as an alternative to curbing GHG emissions; and
the other is emancipatory catastrophism, that is, as Ulrich Beck argues, about the imagination of a cosmopolitan horizon of global climate risk and oriented to changing the

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Asayama

mode of operation of modern society toward coping with cosmopolitan climate (Beck
et al., 2013). These two catastrophisms are inherently different with regard to the view of
climate change and democracy, though there are similarities between them. Both view
climate change as a serious problem that modern society is faced with and regard as
irrelevant the current politics based on the concept of nation-states. And both are oriented
to imagining the future climate within the context of catastrophism, demanding that
action be taken now.
The notion of emancipatory catastrophism stems from Becks critique of methodological nationalism in sociology, which frames every issue of modern society in the
context of nation-states. Beck argues it is no longer relevant because our experience is
intrinsically inseparable and interconnected in the world risk society. Our world is, like
it or not, cosmopolitanized in the face of global climate risk it is a cultural fact, an
empirical (not normative) phenomenon. Therefore, emancipatory catastrophism calls for
stepping outside of a national perspective, instead taking a cosmopolitan turn to understand global climate risk. Likewise, apocalyptic catastrophism is constructed on the
ground of skepticism toward todays climate politics. On apocalyptic catastrophism, it is
assumed that current climate negotiation among nation-states (e.g. the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change; UNFCCC) is unlikely to succeed in alleviating a catastrophic climate change, and thus the alternative pathway (geoengineering)
should be pursued as a plan B. For both catastrophisms, it is a common claim that we
should go beyond the national horizon of climate change and find new ways of addressing global climate risk.
Emancipatory catastrophism is conceptualized as capturing the unintended positive
side effects of bads [in here, climate change)]. As such, emancipatory catastrophism
embraces a certain kind of optimism, sees global climate risk as an opportunity to change
our mode of being in the world, seeing the world and doing politics, which Beck (2014)
called metamorphosis [verwandlung]. However, emancipatory catastrophism is still
founded on the basis of catastrophism same as apocalyptic catastrophism in that it
sees climate change as a fundamental flaw of modern capitalism; therefore, Beck
acknowledges that the anthropological shock of catastrophe is necessary for a paradigm
shift. Furthermore, both apocalyptic and emancipatory catastrophism share the idea of
demanding action be taken now in response to the future climate risk. Apocalyptic catastrophism necessitates pursuing research into geoengineering now in order to arm ourselves against a future climate emergency, whereas emancipatory catastrophism asks us
to be engaged in meaning-work, connecting the disconnected to confront the present
future of global climate risk. Both catastrophisms are about the reconstruction of the
present by anticipating the future.
What, then, distinguishes emancipatory catastrophism from apocalyptic catastrophism? It is a conception of climate change. As Beck (2014) stated, on emancipatory
catastrophism, climate change is a reformation of modes of thought, of lifestyles and
consumer habits, of law, economy, science and politics. Here, the word emancipatory
has a double meaning: first, it means emancipation from the prison of methodological
nationalism; second, and more importantly, it emancipates climate change from the old,
classic definition of an environmental problem waiting for a solution it reframes climate change as wicked problems (Rayner, 2006), sees it as the condition for new ideas

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and perspectives to be brought forth to reshape our social world itself (Hulme, 2009). As
such, emancipatory catastrophism is oriented to diversifying approaches to address climate change at different scales and places, refocusing the role of adaptation (Rayner,
2010), cities (Bulkeley et al., 2012) and so on. It brings climate change into our everyday
practice to transform the meanings of human life. Climate change becomes a new opportunity for humanity and a rebirth of modernity. On the contrary, apocalyptic catastrophism conceptualizes climate change as an apocalyptic end of modernity. Here again,
the word apocalyptic has a double meaning; one is the apocalypse of a changed climate
and the other is the demise of politics. It suggests fixing climate change by geoengineering because there is no other way but to pursue a techno-fix to escape from climate
catastrophe. Geoengineering embodies humanitys hubris and a promethean dream of
mastery over nature to control the climate (Hamilton, 2014); hence a geoengineered
climate becomes an excess of modernity.
Emancipatory and apocalyptic catastrophisms are also different in the direction of
guiding political debate, whether it is opening up or closing down space for democratic deliberation (Stirling, 2014). Apocalyptic catastrophism is, by invoking climate
emergency, inclined to close down space for deliberation; this is not only about closing
down the choice of policy options, but more importantly, it is about putting democracy
on hold (Szerszynski et al., 2013). As it is claimed as an emergency in which the conventional approach (mitigation) is not enough, a radical approach (geoengineering) is
needed. On the other hand, emancipatory catastrophism is directed toward opening up
space for deliberation. It is the empowerment of democracy to include what is excluded,
to connect what is disconnected in the national prism, and the expansion of democracy
to confront global climate risk as a cosmopolitan reality. Emancipatory catastrophism
envisions the future climate beyond the apocalypse to find new horizons of common
goods produced by the bads it is a discourse against technocratic enterprise to domesticate our climate by geoengineering.
Finally, I pose an open-ended question between apocalyptic catastrophism and
emancipatory catastrophism, which pathway to the future climate will humanity take?
Both catastrophisms have the power to determine how we imagine the future but are in
opposite directions. My argument is that the answer is still uncertain and ambivalent, and
humanity now stands at a critical juncture to take either pathway. However, I want to
stress that we should also consider the asymmetry of power in todays climate and energy
politics. The incumbent interest of modern society, which often prefers a business-asusual strategy, is assumed to be in favor of a technocratic response (Stirling, 2014). In
short, there is a strong temptation (and interest too) within our society to ignore the topos
of climate change renewal of modernity and to seek a techno-fix so as to keep
society unchanged. Emancipatory catastrophism is a political discourse to resist such
temptation. Thus, the task of sociologists and social scientists is to reinforce the discourse of emancipatory catastrophism to take our climate (and democracy) back into our
own hands.
Funding
The author received financial support from the Environment Research and Technology
Development Fund (1-1406) of the Ministry of the Environment, Japan.

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Note
1.

However, even the research into geoengineering is criticized by some ethicists because it may
create a moral hazard, distraction of the incentive for mitigation (Hamilton, 2013).

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Author biography
Shinichiro Asayama is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Center for Social and Environmental
Systems Research, National Institute for Environmental Studies, Japan. His research focuses on
the discourse and framing of the media, politics, science and technology in climate change.

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