Climate Change as Apocalypse

Abstract

The last couple of decades have revealed numerous consequences related to pollution and the impact of climate change. Natural disasters seem to have become part of our daily landscape; less than two years ago the whole continent of Australia was consumed by devastating forest fires, the Western part of the United States also experienced one of its worst wildfires in almost a century, while the ice cap in the North pole is melting and the permafrost of the Canadian and Russian tundra is disappearing. How can we deny the impacts of climate change as all of these catastrophes are unfolding before our very eyes? This conscious awareness of our planet’s rapid deterioration has generated a number of movies and fictional novels about the coming apocalypse, dystopian society and the end of the world. Demonstrating that there is a growing sentiment of worry and anxiety for the future of the planet and of humankind. In this article I propose to examine the anxieties surrounding the impact of climate change and its potential connection the apocalyptic literature.