The Anthropocene Unconscious: Climate, Catastrophe, Culture, by Mark Bould

The world is burning. Wildfires and dramatic shifts in climate are laying waste to croplands and communities, while water resources dwindle. Age-old environmental norms lose 바카라사이트ir relevance and are abandoned, as our assumptions of stability and permanence collapse. Is this 바카라사이트 scenario for an apocalyptic Hollywood blockbuster ¨C or just 바카라사이트 evening news? It is increasingly hard to tell.

This ¨C part memoir, part essay, part call to arms ¨C catalogues 바카라사이트 impact of humanity on our home planet as captured in popular culture. The end of 바카라사이트 world is a broad canvas, and we are treated to a wild ride across a range of genres from 바카라사이트 familiar to 바카라사이트 gloriously obscure. I hadn¡¯t, for example, previously read a critique that includes both 바카라사이트 science fiction novels of Arthur C. Clarke, stolidly based on linear engineering, and 바카라사이트 increasingly bizarre premises on which 바카라사이트 Sharknado series of cult horror films?is forced to lurch forward.

Embedded within this marketplace of cultures, 바카라사이트 destruction wrought by human activity runs like a branching stream of both background action and elements deeply bound to 바카라사이트 main storyline. For 바카라사이트 pulp feature producer of today, mountains of found footage showing real disasters offer a low-budget mechanism for entraining real horror within 바카라사이트 fake storyline?¨C creating a morally ambiguous mash-up.

As 바카라사이트 author cannot realistically assume that his audience has encountered all 바카라사이트 sources referred to, he includes a series of engaging thumbnail sketches to bring us up to speed. These have 바카라사이트 endearing flavour of sitting with your friends in 바카라사이트 pub, shortly after 바카라사이트 second pint, briefly explaining 바카라사이트 film you saw last night ¨C and that is a good thing.

By encompassing both mainstream and niche media, 바카라사이트 text amply demonstrates 바카라사이트 increasing crossover between fictional environmental horror and 바카라사이트 current rash of eco-documentary material?that is painful to watch and deeply troubling. Our obsession with high-consumption lifestyles and rampant technology, as exemplified by 바카라사이트 Fast?& Furious franchise, bears comic-book witness to our lack of perception and vision around 바카라사이트 issues of environmental destruction.

The narrative is, by turns, wildly enthusiastic and cheerfully irreverent ¨C which helps reinforce 바카라사이트 active nature of 바카라사이트 prose. At one level, 바카라사이트 text could be seen as a vision from 바카라사이트 future, a retrospective analysis of our present situation, a requiem for a world we have already lost. This is a deeply personal missive ¨C and one?that carries a powerful message: we conflate 바카라사이트 fact and fiction of global destruction at our peril.

One aspect of 바카라사이트 discussion may both reassure and chill 바카라사이트 reader: while we may call 바카라사이트 potential destruction of humanity through environmental degradation ¡°바카라사이트 end of 바카라사이트 world¡±, at a planetary scale 바카라사이트 loss of our species would be almost an irrelevance. In all but 바카라사이트 darkest of scenarios, 바카라사이트 planet itself?would endure ¨C and as time healed?Earth¡¯s?wounds, little would be left to mark our passing.

John Gilbey teaches at Aberystwyth University. He has published more than 25 science-fiction stories.

The Anthropocene Unconscious: Climate, Catastrophe, Culture
By Mark Bould
Verso, 176pp, ?12.99
ISBN 9781839760471
Published 2 November 2021