ABSTRACT
The phenomenon of climate change denial has been approached from many angles by different disciplines- evolutionary biology, sociology, political science, psychology, behavioural sciences, media, linguistics- each providing a differently nuanced perspective on why people deny their current ecological reality. This chapter begins with a discussion of human-ecological relations informed by contributions from material culture, environmental anthropology, and eco-feminism to show how the natural world has undergone a long process of ‘othering’ and ‘objectification’ in the West. It then shows how this contemporary imagining of the earth as a servile ‘other’ impacts current climate change response, as denialists and policy creators remain influenced by the belief the earth is an ‘object’ with no agency of its own. The chapter discusses recent headlines from the denial echo chamber which dismiss environmental activism as a marginal, rather than a mainstream concern.
