Global Warming as Narrative (and Not)

Levi gets his Apocalypse on here. I'm happy he's taken up my recent post on anthropology and global warming. As usual he carves my crude lump of wood into an attractive bedside table complete with silently sliding drawers and a nice lamp.

The point is, and I think Levi makes this excellently: even if we accept global warming as sheer narrative, the worry that it's a narrative of apocalypse is misplaced. It's not the apocalypticism we should worry about, for another second—unless we want to play that game as well. It's the fact that this is deeply symptomatic of the actual occurrence of a trauma in social, ecological and psychic space caused by a real hyperobject (global warming).