Book Review: Climate Lyricism

Abstract

Despite their escalatingfrequencyand severity, the signs and effects of climate change’s arrival remain largely obscuredto the public eye.Although visibleand felt, the phenomenon’sconsequential, interlinkingenvironmental catastrophes—destructive tropical storms,relentlessdroughts, deadly heat waves, torrential flooding, uncontrollable wildfires—are routinely dismissed by rhetoric which declarestheir appearanceunusual,unprecedented, or unthinkable. Such mislabels promotethe socio-cultural “fairy tale,” to quote journalist David Wallace-Wells, that imagines climate change as aglacial threat, remoteproblem, or “natural” occurrence (2019, 3).