Environmental Apocalypse in Science and Art: Designing Nightmares

245 Pages·2012·7.79 MB·English

by  Sergio Fava

Environmental Apocalypse in Science
and Art
At a time when it is clear that climate change adaptation and mitigation are
failing, this book examines how our assumptions about (valid and usable)
knowledge are preventing eff ective climate action. Through a cross-disci-
plinary, empirically-based analysis of climate science and policy, the book
situates the failures of climate policy in the cultural history of prediction
and its interfaces with policy.
Fava calls into question the current interfaces between scientifi c research
and climate policy by tracing multiple connections between modelling,
epistemology, politics, food security, religion, art, and the apocalyptic.
Demonstrating how the current domination of climate policy by models
and scenarios is part of the problem, the book examines how artistic prac-
tices are a critical location to ask questions diff erently, rethink environ-
mental futures, and activate social change. The analysis starts with another
moment of climatic change in recent western history: the overlap of the
Little Ice Age and the “scientifi c revolution,” during which intense climatic,
scientifi c and political change were contemporary with mathematical cal-
culation of the apocalypse.
Dealing with the need for complex answers to complex and urgent ques-
tions, this is essential reading for those interested in climate action, interdis-
ciplinary research and methodological innovation. The empirical analyses
amount to a methodological experiment, across history of science, theology,
art theory and history, architecture, future studies, climatology, computer
modelling, and agricultural policy. This book is a major contribution to
understanding how we are precluding eff ective climate action, and design-
ing futures that resemble our worst nightmares.
Sergio Fava is Lecturer in Photography at the Cambridge School of Art at
Anglia Ruskin University.
Routledge Studies in Social and Political Thought
For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com
43 Social and Political Ideas of 53 Gambling, Freedom and
Mahatma Gandhi Democracy
Bidyut Chakrabarty Peter J. Adams
44 Counter-Enlightenments 54 The Quest for Jewish
From the Eighteenth Century to Assimilation in Modern Social
the Present Science
Graeme Garrard Amos Morris-Reich
45 The Social and Political Thought 55 Frankfurt School Perspectives
of George Orwell on Globalization, Democracy,
A Reassessment and the Law
Stephen Ingle William E. Scheuerman
46 Habermas 56 Hegemony
Rescuing the Public Sphere Studies in Consensus and
Pauline Johnson Coercion
Edited by Richard Howson
47 The Politics and Philosophy of and Kylie Smith
Michael Oakeshott
Stuart Isaacs 57 Governmentality, Biopower, and
Everyday Life
48 Pareto and Political Theory Majia Holmer Nadesan
Joseph Femia
58 Sustainability and Security
49 German Political Philosophy within Liberal Societies
The Metaphysics of Law Learning to Live with the Future
Chris Thornhill Edited by Stephen Gough
and Andrew Stables
50 The Sociology of Elites
Michael Hartmann 59 The Mythological State and its
Empire
51 Deconstructing Habermas David Grant
Lasse Thomassen
60 Globalizing Dissent
52 Young Citizens and New Media Essays on Arundhati Roy
Learning for Democratic Edited by Ranjan Ghosh and
Participation Antonia Navarro-Tejero
Edited by Peter Dahlgren
61 The Political Philosophy of 72 Gender, Emotions and Labour
Michel Foucault Markets—Asian and Western
Mark G.E. Kelly Perspectives
Ann Brooks
62 Democratic Legitimacy and Theresa Devasahayam
Fabienne Peter
73 Alienation and the
63 Edward Said and the Literary, Carnivalization of Society
Social, and Political World Edited by Jerome Braun
Edited by Ranjan Ghosh and Lauren Langman
64 Perspectives on Gramsci 74 The Post-Colonial State in the
Politics, Culture and Social Theory Era of Capitalist Globalization
Edited by Joseph Francese Historical, Political and
Theoretical Approaches to State
65 Enlightenment Political Thought Formation
and Non-Western Societies Tariq Amin-Khan
Sultans and Savages
Frederick G. Whelan 75 The Psychology and Politics of
the Collective
66 Liberalism, Neoliberalism, Groups, Crowds and Mass
Social Democracy Identifi cations
Thin Communitarian Perspectives Edited by Ruth Parkin-Gounelas
on Political Philosophy and
Education 76 Environmental Solidarity
Mark Olssen How Religions Can Sustain
Sustainability
67 Oppositional Discourses and Pablo Martínez de Anguita
Democracies
Edited by Michael Huspek 77 Comedy and the Public Sphere
The Rebirth of Theatre as Comedy
68 The Contemporary Goffman and the Genealogy of the Modern
Edited by Michael Hviid Jacobsen Public Arena
Arpad Szakolczai
69 Hemingway on Politics and
Rebellion 78 Culture, Class, and Critical Theory
Edited by Lauretta Conklin Between Bourdieu and the
Frederking Frankfurt School
David Gartman
70 Social Theory in Contemporary
Asia 79 Environmental Apocalypse in
Ann Brooks Science and Art
Designing Nightmares
71 Governmentality Sergio Fava
Current Issues and Future Challenges
Edited by Ulrich Bröckling, Susanne
Krasmann and Thomas Lemke

Environmental Apocalypse in
Science and Art
Designing Nightmares
Sergio Fava
~l Routledge
i
~
Taylor & Francis Group
NEW YORK LONDON
First published 2013
by Routledge
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Simultaneously published in the UK
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group,
an informa business
© 2013 Taylor & Francis
The right of Sergio Fava to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
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any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
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registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fava, Sergio.
Environmental apocalypse in science and art : designing nightmares / by
Sergio Fava.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Climatic changes—History. 2. Climatic changes—
Forecasting. 3. Environmental disasters—History. 4. Environmental
disasters—Forecasting. 5. Environmental risk assessment. I. Title.
QC903.F38 2013
363.34'92—dc23
2012022721
ISBN13: 978-0-415-63401-4 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-203-09471-6 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by IBT Global.
For Michelle

Contents
List of Figures and Tables xi
List of Boxes xiii
List of Abbreviations xv
Preface xvii
Introduction 1
1 Deadly Weather: Narratives of Nature and Agency During the
Little Ice Age 10
2 Counting the Days: John Napier’s Exegesis and Mathematics 24
3 Drawing the End: Inigo Jones’ Banqueting House 42
4 Assembling the Worldmachine: Mathematical Modelling of
Climate Change 61
5 Imagining Futures: The Special Report on Emission Scenarios 87
6 Creating One Future: The Doomsday Vault 118
7 Reclaiming Futures: Olafur Eliasson’s Weather Project 150
Notes 189
Bibliography 193
Index 223