Climate Changing Media Prompt 7

The introductory reading ‘A New Critical Climate’ by Adeline Johns-Purta, proved to be interesting when discussing the matters of Climate change in correlation with our understanding of the Anthropocene. As Johns-Purta puts it, climate change is not a tangible source and is something that, while we cannot see, is something that exists all around us like nothing we have ever seen before. (Johns-Purta, 2013). This rings true, as she later remarks, to Timothy Mortan’s definition and descriptions of Hyperobjects and how they affect the planet and its inhabitants. Scholar Mary Wallace similarly remarks on the Anthropocene and in particular the struggle of ecocritics interpreting this hyperobject in a constantly changing environment of ‘social, cultural, economic, and ecological factors’ (Wallace, 2017, 566)

The text raises certain questions to ecocritics that does the reality of this hyperobject require a ‘new critical climate’ (Johns-Purta 2017, pg 8), or will our long used ‘old habits of critique’ still reign supreme in this crisis? She explores these ideas by delving into Morton’s ‘Object-oriented Ontology’ (Johns-Purta 2017, pg 9) in which hyperobjects are evaluated in regards to the environment to ‘address the feedback from Earth’ (Johns-Purta 2017, pg 9). Through this, they call for a form of ‘deconstructive environmental criticism’. (Johns-Purta 2017, pg 9) With climate change as a hugely expansive hyperobject that is ‘massively distributed in time and space’ (Morton 2013, pg 39) the traditional methods of ecocriticism are simply not as effective.

A good example I have seen recently using this deconstruction of these traditional critical climate change methods is the video “Dear Future Generations: Sorry” by Richard Williams or better known with his channel name, Prince Ea. The video details a dark future with Williams himself addressing the viewers as the future generations of the world, apologizing to them for the damage his generations have wrought upon the planet in the name of greed. The video goes to extremes in these depictions, filmed in a desert that he says is what once was known as the Amazon Rainforest and that the trees that populated it helped the planet by taking in carbon, purifying water, helping us with curing diseases. The most noticeable parts with this video, however, is he apologizes for the complacency of his generation in allowing these things to occur before addressing the viewers again that this is not yet their future and that we are already seeing the effects of climate change, that the generations of today have the power to change this.

The video’s addressing that we as people are not only able to make a change, but have a responsibility to is something I think is an important discernment to make at this time. By examining the ‘humanist tendencies’(Johns-Purta 2017, pg 8) of people these days, bringing the matter of ethics into the discussion is yet another deconstructive method of climate change theory. It is another form of making the hyperobject a more personal issue to people and can further encourage others to take action through the idea of taking responsibility to undo the damage of older generations.

(Word Count 502)

References
Johns-Putra, A 2013, ‘A New Critical Climate’, Symploke, vol. 21, no.1-2, p. 7-10.
Morton, T 2013, ‘Poisoned Ground: Art and Philosophy in the Time of Hyperobjects’
’, Sylmpoke, vol. 21, no.1-2, p. 37-50.
Wallace, M 2017, ‘It’s the End of the Field as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)’, American Literary History, vol. 29, no. 2, p. 565-578.
Williams, R., 2015. Dear Future Generations: Sorry. Available at: [Accessed 8 May 2020]

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