ABSTRACT
The belief that historical time is a single line leading to an apocalyptic event generates two serious interrelated problems for any environmental eschatology, which, together, constitute what I call a “decolonial critique” of eco-eschatology. First, the linear view of time centred on a present climate crisis or a future ecological catastrophe disregards past “ends of history” experienced by colonised communities. Second, the single timeline, expressed for instance in a narrative about future human extinction common to contemporary eco-apocalyptic discourses, depoliticises the environmental emergency by obscuring the historically and geographically specific effects of climate change. The aim of this chapter is to suggest that eco-eschatology – that is to say, environmentalism attentive to “the ends of the world” – does not necessarily reproduce the Western-centric standpoint which leads to the two above-stated problems. This chapter therefore offers a theoretical corrective to eco-eschatologies constructed on the basis of a singular and linear temporality by proposing an alternative epistemological model of eco-eschatological time capable of addressing both problems.
