Environmental apocalypse and space: The lost dimension of the end of the world

Apocalyptic discourses continue to be central to environmental movements, media representations and even establishment accounts of environmental politics. At the same time, ecological thinkers increasingly argue that the apocalypse is already here: We are already living at the end of the world. My aim is to problematise predominant notions of time and space in these discourses and, in doing so, to begin to chart the contribution of postcolonial theology to environmental political thought. I argue that conceptions of environmental apocalypse remain wedded to a particular modern, Western interpretation of the Christian apocalyptic tradition that privileges a linear notion of time over spatial analysis. Recovering space as the lost dimension of the end of the world contests received notions of environmental apocalypse and it calls for challenging the social, political, and material relations of power that constitute its place, thereby contributing to more equal and just environmental politics.