[D66] The End of the World Has Already Happened

[A.OUT]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000cl66

The End of the World Has Already Happened
1: We're doomed!

Released On: 02 Jan 2020
Available for over a year

Many feel that climate change will destroy the world’s economy, flood 
cities, cause mass migrations and even cause regional wars, but why is 
it so difficult for so many of us to engage with it?

In this three-part series Timothy Morton, dubbed ‘philosopher prophet of 
the Anthropocene’, rethinks our psychological relationship with the 
climate crisis, and our place in the biosphere.

Morton cuts an unusual figure, an English literature scholar teaching in 
a Texas university who spends almost as much time in art galleries and 
performances as he does writing. He draws on Heidegger and pet cats, 
William Blake and garden centres, psychoanalysis and collaborations with 
artists and musicians such as Olafur Eliasson and Bjørk.

Most environmental programmes start with a dramatic landscape or a 
plunge into the depths of the ocean. But we start in Tim’s driveway. If 
this climate crisis is a trauma, is there a way to reframe it? And what 
happens to our feelings when we do? ‘This is foetal-position time,’ he 
says, ‘but it’s on us: dolphins don’t have fingers to turn off the oil 
pipes.’ Feeling guilty and powerless is not the answer: ‘How come we 
conned ourselves into thinking that being ecological means we can’t have 
any fun anymore?’

With contributions from psychotherapist Caroline Hickman, journalist Amy 
Westervelt, and environmentalists George Monbiot and Hilton Kelley.

Produced by Chris Elcombe
A Reduced Listening production for BBC Radio 4.

Featured music:
Anna Peaker - Realm of Perfume and Lights (Longform)
Alexandra Spence - Immaterial (Longform)
Dawn of Midi - Nix (Thirsty Ear)
John Tavener - Funeral Canticle (Harmonia Mundi)
Julia Reidy - Lament (Slip)
Siavash Amini - A Recollection of the Disappeared (Room40)
Tomoko Sauvage - Making of a Rainbow