Help the environment by leaving the 'collapse porn' under the bed

Leigh Phillips - concerned about
the environment, leave the
"collapse porn" under the bed.

Collapse porn. Apocalyptica. Eco-rapture.

These are labels UK science journalist Leigh Phillips has given to a growing genre of environmental writing. Prominent among them are Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs The Climate (2014), James Kunstler’s The Long Emergency (2005), Paul Kingsnorth’s Uncivilization (2009), John Zerzan Against Civilization (2005), and Dereck Jensen’s Endgame: The problem of civilization (2006).

In his book Austerity Ecology and the Collapse Porn-addicts: a defence of growth, technology, industry and stuff (2015) published last month, Phillips points to the collapse merchants’ belief in a mythical time when humanity lived in harmony with nature.

Read the piece on The Conversation by the Director, Centre for Environment, University of Tasmania, Ted Lefroy - “Want to save the environment? Let’s leave the collapse porn under the mattress.”

(Guilty as charged – several of the books listed by Ted have been among those I have devoured and while I have read them with enthusiasm, it is a matter that needs to be put in context.

Hungry to know, or at least have some understanding of what was really happening behind the positive and celebratory rhetoric of the world’s corporations and those driving the capitalist economy, I set out on a personal search that took in everything from Rachel Carsen’s “Silent Spring” to Donella Meadows’ “Limits to Growth” and James Hansen’s “Storms of my Grandchildren” and Herman Daly “Steady-State Economics”, just to name a few, and the unequivocal evidence illustrates that humanity has misunderstood its purpose – the economy, which was once of servant, is now in charge and the collapse porn that Ted concerns himself with appears unavoidable unless, and until, we give primacy back to human wellbeing. I have just bought “Austerity Ecology & the Collapse-porn Addicts: A defence of growth, progress, industry and stuff” and will read that with equal enthusiasm - Robert McLean.)