Terrorism and climate change are frequently perceived as ‘total threats’ articulated and imagined through a wide array of arts and technologies. If the construction of these threats appears similar then so are the pleas for preemptive and precautionary action. In this paper we explore the ways in which terrorism and climate change are imagined, drawing on a conjoined history in which preemption and precaution are not easily separable. We then trace this through the knowledges, models, and ideas of risk that inform contemporary debates on these issues and suggest that these are caught between a desire for rationality and affective governance through catastrophic visions. Furthermore, we argue that these imaginations of an actionable future have political consequences that depoliticize and delegitimate debate and that potentially bring the unimaginable into being. Reconceiving precautionary politics is thus vital if we are to engage ethically with the world.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AdamsJ, 1995Risk (UCL Press, London)
2.
AdamsM D, 2002, “The precautionary principle and the rhetoric behind it”Journal of Risk Research5301–316
3.
AmooreL, 2008, “Consulting, culture, the camp: on the economies of exception”, in Risk and the War on Terror Eds AmooreLde GoedeM (Routledge, London) pp 112–129
4.
AmooreLde GoedeM, 2008, “Transactions after 9/11: the banal face of the preemptive strike”Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers33173–185
5.
AndersonB, 2007, “Hope for nanotechnology: anticipatory knowledge and the governance of affect”Area39156–165
6.
Anon, 2007, “Beams of fright warn of calamity”Metro 7 December
7.
AradauCvan MunsterR, 2007, “Governing terrorism through risk: taking precautions, (un)knowing the future”European Journal of International Relations13(1) 89–115
8.
AradauCvan MunsterR, 2008, “Taming the future: the dispositif of risk in the war on terror”, in Risk and the War on Terror Eds AmooreLde GoedeM (Routledge, London) pp 23–40
9.
BarnettJ, 2003, “Security and climate change”Global Environmental Change13(1) 7–17
10.
BeckS, 2004, “Localizing global change in Germany”, in Earthly Politics: Local and Global in Environmental Governance Eds JasanoffSMartelloM L (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA) pp 173–194
11.
BennettJ, 2001The Enchantment of Modern Life (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ)
12.
Boehmer-ChristiansenS, 1994, “The precautionary principle in Germany: enabling government”, in Interpreting the Precautionary Principle Eds O'RiordanTCameronJ (Cameron May, London) pp 31–60
13.
BoiaL, 2005The Weather in the Imagination (Reaktion Books, London)
14.
BougenP D, 2003, “Catastrophe risk”Economy and Society32253–274
15.
BoykoffMFrameDRandallsS, forthcoming, “Discursive stability meets climate instability: a critical exploration of the concept of ‘climate stabilization’ in contemporary climate policy”Global Environmental Change
16.
BoyleP JHaggertyK, forthcoming, “Spectacular security: mega-events and the security complex”International Political Sociology
CooperM, 2006, “Pre-empting emergence: the biological turn in the war on terror”Theory, Culture and Society23(4) 113–135
27.
CranorC F, 2003, “What could precautionary science be? Research for early warnings and a better future”, in Precaution, Environmental Science, and Preventive Public Policy Ed. TicknerJ A (Island Press, Washington, DC) pp 305–319
28.
de GoedeM, 2008, “Beyond risk: premediation and the post-9/11 security imagination”Security Dialogue39(2/3) 155–176
29.
DemerittD, 2001, “The construction of global warming and the politics of science”Annals of the Association of American Geographers91307–337
30.
DemerittD, 2006, “Science studies, climate change and the prospects for constructivist critique”Economy and Society35453–479
31.
DerridaJ, 1984, “No apocalypse, not now (full speed ahead, seven missiles, seven missives)”Diacritics14(2) 20–31
32.
DershowitzA M, 2006Preemption: A Knife That Cuts Both Ways (W W Norton, New York)
DoyleJ, 2007, “Picturing the clima(c)tic: Greenpeace and the representational politics of climate change communication”Science as Culture16129–150
35.
EdwardsP N, 2001, “Representing the global atmosphere: computer models, data, and knowledge about climate change”, in Changing the Atmosphere: Expert Knowledge and Environmental Governance Eds MillerC AEdwardsP N (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA) pp 31–65
36.
EdwardsP N, 2006, “Meteorology as infrastructural globalism”Osiris21229–250
EnzensbergerH M, 1978, “Two notes on the end of the world”New Left Review11074
39.
EricsonR V, 2007Crime in an Insecure World (Polity Press, Cambridge)
40.
EwaldF, 2002, “‘The return of Descartes’ malicious demon: an outline of a philosophy of precaution”, in Embracing Risk: The Changing Culture of Insurance and Responsibility Eds BakerTSimonJ (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL) pp 273–302
41.
FlemingJ R, 2005, “Telegraphing the weather: military meteorology, strategy, and ‘homeland security’ on the American frontier in the 1870s”, in Instrumental in War: Science, Research, and Instruments. Between Knowledge and the World Ed. WaltonS A (Brill Academic, Leiden) pp 153–178
42.
FlemingJ R, 2007, “The climate engineers: playing God to save the planet”Wilson Quarterly3146–60
43.
ForsythT, 2004, “Social movements and environmental democratization in Thailand”, in Earthly Politics: Local and Global in Environmental Governance Eds JasanoffSMartelloM L (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA) pp 195–215
44.
FuntowiczS ORavetzJ R, 1993, “Science for the post-normal age”Futures25739–755
45.
FurediF, 2007Invitation to Terror: The Expanding Empire of the Unknown (Continuum, London)
46.
GalisonP, 2001, “War against the center”Grey Room47–33
47.
GeeDStirlingA, 2003, “Late lessons from early warnings: improving science and governance under uncertainty and ignorance”, in Precaution, Environmental Science, and Preventive Public Policy Ed. TicknerJ A (Island Press, Washington, DC) pp 195–213
48.
GoreA, 1989, “The global environment: a national security issue”, in Global Change and Our Common Future Eds DeFriesR SMaloneT F (National Academy Press, Washington, DC) pp 177–186
49.
GoreA, 2006An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It (Bloomsbury, London)
50.
GrayJ S, 1990, “Statistics and the precautionary principle”Marine Pollution Bulletin21(4) 174–176
51.
Greenpeace, 1994Climate Time Bomb: Signs of Climate Change from the Greenpeace Database (Greenpeace, Amsterdam)
52.
GrusinR, 2004, “Premediation”Criticism46(1) 17–39
53.
HammittJ K, 2000, “Global climate change: benefit – cost analysis vs the precautionary principle”Human and Ecological Risk Assessment6387–398
54.
HanekampJ CVera-NavasGVerstegenS W, 2005, “The historical roots of precautionary thinking: the cultural ecological critique and ‘the limits to growth’”Journal of Risk Research8295–310
55.
HartmannB, 2006, “Liberal ends, illiberal means: national security, ‘environmental conflict’ and the making of the Cairo consensus”Indian Journal of Gender Studies13195–227
56.
Homer-DixonT, 1999Environment, Scarcity and Violence (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ)
HulmeM, 2009Why We Disagree About Climate Change (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge)
60.
IPCC, 2007Fourth Assessment Report (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge)
61.
IsinE, 2004, “The neurotic citizen”Citizenship Studies8217–235
62.
JankovicV, 2006, “Change in the weather”Book Forum (February/March) 39–40
63.
JohnsonA, 2002, “Defending ways of life”Theory, Culture and Society19(4) 211–231
64.
JordanA, 2001, “The precautionary principle in the European Union”, in Reinterpreting the Precautionary Principle Eds O'RiordanTCameronJJordanA (Cameron May, London) pp 143–161
65.
KahnH, 1962, Thinking the Unthinkable (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London)
66.
KerrR A, 2008, “Climate tipping points come in from the cold”Science319153
67.
KirbyA, 2007, “The London bombers as ‘self-starters’”Studies in Conflict and Terrorism30415–428
MajoneG, 2002, “What price safety? The precautionary principle and its policy implications”Journal of Common Market Studies40(1) 89–109
78.
MascoJ, 2006The Nuclear Borderlands (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ)
79.
MassumiB, 2007, “Potential politics and the primacy of preemption”Theory and Event10(2)
80.
MonbiotG, 2006Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning (Allen Lane, London)
81.
NakićenovićN, 2000Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge)
82.
NobleD F, 1997The Religion of Technology: The Divinity of Man and the Spirit of Invention (Alfred A Knopf, New York)
83.
O'MalleyP, 2003, “Governable catastrophes: a comment on Bougen”Economy and Society32275–279
84.
O'MalleyP, 2004, Risk, Uncertainty and Government (Glasshouse Press, London)
85.
O'RiordanTCameronJJordanA, (Eds), 2001Reinterpreting the Precautionary Principle (Cameron May, London)
86.
PrinsGRaynerS, 2007, “Time to ditch Kyoto”Nature449973–975
87.
RandallsS, 2009, “Managing financial risks in urban environments”, in Managing Financial Risk Eds ClarkG LDixonAMonkA (Oxford University Press, Oxford) forthcoming
88.
RanstorpM, 2007, “The virtual sanctuary of Al-Qaeda and terrorism in the age of globalization”, in International Relations and Security in the Digital Age Eds ErikssonJGiacomelloG (Routledge, London) pp 31–56
89.
RichardsonL, 2000What Terrorists Want (Random House, New York)
SontagS, 1966, “The imagination of disaster”, in Against Interpretation Ed. SontagS (Picador, New York) pp 207–229
100.
SternN, 2007The Economics of Climate Change (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge)
101.
SternJWienerJ, 2006, “Precaution against terrorism”Journal of Risk Research9393–447
102.
SunsteinC R, 2003, “Beyond the precautionary principle”University of Pennsylvania Law Review1511003–1058
103.
SunsteinC R, 2005The Laws of Fear (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge)
104.
SunsteinC R, 2007, “On the divergent American reactions to terrorism and climate change”Columbia Law Review107503–557
105.
SwyngedouwE, 2007, “Impossible ‘sustainability’ and the post-political condition”, in The Sustainable Development Paradox Eds KruegerRGibbsD (Guilford Press, New York) pp 13–40
106.
TicknerJ A, (Ed.), 2003Precaution, Environmental Science, and Preventive Public Policy (Island Press, Washington, DC)
107.
TolR S J, 2007, “Europe's long-term climate target: a critical evaluation”Energy Policy35(1) 424–432
108.
TsingA, 2000, “The global situation”Cultural Anthropology15327–360
109.
TurnerDHartzellL, 2004, “The lack of clarity in the precautionary principle”Environmental Values13449–460
110.
WeingartPEngelsAPansegrauP, 2000, “Risks of communication: discourses on climate change in science, politics, and the mass media”Public Understanding of Science9261–283
111.
WoodwardA, 2003, “Uncertainty and global climate change: the case of mosquitoes and mosquito-borne disease”, in Precaution, Environmental Science, and Preventive Public Policy Ed. TicknerJ A (Island Press, Washington, DC) pp 127–139
112.
WynneB, 1992, “Uncertainty and environmental learning: reconceiving science and policy in the preventive paradigm”Global Environmental Change2111–127
