Book review: Apocalyptic Authoritarianism: Climate Crisis, Media and Power

In Apocalyptic Authoritarianism, Hanna Morris brings together a series of narrative strands, ideological standpoints, and character tropes which appear across the political spectrum in US climate journalism to discursively construct and support a new, titular mode of reactionary politics. Tracing narratives and ideological stances is challenging. These positions are ever changing, overlapping wispy things that float and tangle through spheres of discourse and yet exert huge influence on the psychology and culture of individuals and nations alike. When analysing them, it is easy to get trapped in circular discussions that struggle to form a consensus. Thus, it is a remarkable feat of clarity that Morris has achieved in pulling together this many intricate strands and weaving them into such a convincing tapestry. If the patterns she identifies are not already part of your awareness (and, honestly, even if they are) after reading this book you will see them everyday, and not just in the US climate journalism which is the book’s sphere of focus.

The book consists of four parts following a comprehensive, scene setting introduction in which we are well situated within the context of narratives of ‘total crisis’, or the new left movement’s calling for genuine systemic change, and the reactionary posturing this engenders from historically privileged figures. Each of these chapters details, with remarkable granularity given the grand scope of these narratives, a necessary pillar in the construction of apocalyptic authoritarianism. This granularity works to make the argument even more compelling. By focusing on the specific sphere of mainstream US climate journalism, Morris grounds overarching theories of biopolitics, discursive formations and narratives of societal collapse and Manifest Destiny in a robust and clear analysis of images and text from a variety of US media outlets.

The first section charts the desire for a renewal of American exceptionalism and global leadership on climate change, akin to the post-WWII and Cold War eras of US global dominance. This construction requires that America be understood as exceptionally moderate in comparison to the ‘Othered’ climate activists and new ‘New Left’ movements, which call for far-reaching change and threaten the entrenched hierarchies of the already privileged. It also invokes the classic trope of ‘Manifest Destiny’ as a powerful archetype in the American cultural imagination. Morris discusses this social construction this through an historical account as well as drawing upon discursive processes of Othering. Such processes are typically highly racialised and misogynistic, elevating the ‘wise’, older white man over the ‘reckless’ young women of colour who are so often are at the forefront of climate activism.

The second section examines the further leveraging of Manifest Destiny tropes to legitimise neoliberal capitalist and techno-utopian libertarian ideas of climate change ‘planetary solutions.’ The move to a planetary scale view flattens nuance and complexity and obscures the structural causes of climate change, which in turn obscures any solutions to climate change which address those structural causes. In essence, the only acceptable solutions to the apocalyptic ‘total crisis’ we find ourselves in lie with the very factors which have landed us here in the first place. Therefore, we must not seek to change these systems and hierarchies or challenge the powerful and wise American men who will save the world with their technological brilliance. So powerfully constructed are these ideas that they relegate any alternative course of action to being, not only wrong but actively dangerous as obstructions to the true and right path of neoliberal, technocratic innovation.

Section three shifts to further examine the trope of the ‘wise’ older white man further. This chapter paints a detailed and compelling portrait of the ‘Visionary Sage’ figure which features throughout the narratives explored so far. In other words, ‘a main character of climate journalism.’ Built from the pillars of renewed American exceptionalism, a global saviour complex, and Manifest Destiny, and rising from a deep foundation of white patriarchy, the character is framed as a genius and prophet whose proclamations must be adhered to or all is lost. Bringing in the jeremiad form in communication here does excellent work as a lens on the method by which this character is constructed and the link to overtly religious forms of speech and narrative constriction is particularly poignant in the US context. The construction of a ‘hero’ figure however, almost inevitably leads to the construction of ‘villains’ and the opposition to the Visionary Sage is, once again, those Othered young, progressive women of colour fighting against the entrenched power of the historically (and currently) privileged sages. This is another flattened, binary narrative of good and evil, right and wrong, which leaves no quarter for nuance, diverse experiences, on the ground realities or particularities. It leaves only the sage and his genius to save us from the crises, which requires the delegitimisation of any proposals, or people, which threaten his entrenched power.

The final section before the conclusion turns to wider narratives of race in US climate journalism. This section also features an analysis that is very familiar to my work in ecofascism: the population bombs, hordes of migrants, and securitised fearmongering of racialised Others which so often fuels reactionary and authoritarian movements. Feeding into racialized neo-Malthusian arguments about the Global South population levels as a threat and borders, therefore, as life-saving measures in the crisis, we see another binary emerge: between those who are inevitably doomed and those who can be saved. We additionally see images of desperation and destruction in the Global South where people are cast as both victims of environmental destruction and threats when that environmental destruction results in migration. The entirety of the Global South is thus denied agency or voice in the necropolitical construction that sees them as already lost, or in the securitisation spiral which legitimises border militarisation. In either case, the path forward remains US climate leadership and technological salvation from the Visionary Sages, which in turn elevates and legitimises their entrenched power and authority.

Overall, this book is a timely contribution to thinking around climate communication, its interaction with reactionary politics, and how we can more effectively engage in conversations about systemic power and climate justice. Morris manages to walk the line between dealing with a challenging subject in an engaging and accessible manner whilst not losing any of the nuance or complexity of the issues at hand. This is particularly crucial, given the book’s clear analysis of the binaries present in the narratives, tropes and characters of US climate journalism and the terrible impacts of those ‘good and evil’ oversimplifications. In fact, this analysis is one that is significant in multiple contexts and readers will certainly recognise this tendency towards the binary and its function as a maintainer of the status quo in terms of entrenched power. At points, this takes on a certain depressingly inevitable feeling, as, once more, the same people are elevated and the same people are Othered along the same racial, gendered, ageist and colonial lines we see in so many places. Akin to a rock slide gathering stones as each chapter goes by, the ordering of the arguments in this book is key to its convincing nature. By the end, so much momentum is gathered the weight of evidence feels undeniable. Thankfully, rather than being crushed, we land in a conclusion which invites us to reimagine the nature and role of climate journalism.

Resolutely rejecting and dismantling the nationalism and fearmongering she has so well documented, Morris draws on post-colonial and Afrofuturist critiques, as well as concrete examples in the Zapatistas and publications such as Hammer & Hope, to demonstrate another way is possible. Her invitation to consider how we can foster inclusive and pluralist discourse that centres the lived experience and knowledge of a diverse range of voices is energising and (crucially) practical. The stark and clear warnings about apocalyptic authoritarianism are well met in this conclusion and this book is certainly an important contribution to building those robustly democratic futures it calls for.

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Dr. Hanna E. Morris is an Assistant Professor at the School of the Environment at the University of Toronto with expertise in climate change media and critical methods of cultural analysis. Her research concentrates on the climate-media-democracy nexus and explores questions of power, identity-formation, and meaning-making around climate change. She is the Co-chair of the Critical Studies of Climate Media, Discourse, and Power Working Group a part of Brown University’s Climate Social Science Network (CSSN), an Associate Deputy Editor at Climatic Change, and the Co-chair of the Environment, Science, and Risk Communication Section of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR). Her newest book is titled Apocalyptic Authoritarianism: Climate Crisis, Media, and Power (Oxford University Press, 2025). She also recently edited the Special Issue on Backlash, Borders, and Bunkers: Antidemocratic Politics and Climate Change Communication for the journal Environmental Communication (2026) and co-edited the book titled Climate Change and Journalism: Negotiating Rifts of Time (Routledge, 2021).

 Sara Hill is a PhD student at the University of Sheffield with a research focus on narratives of ecofascism and far-right ecologism apparent on social media and the normalisation or mainstreaming of them into public and political discourse. Coming from an activist background, she is keen to ensure her work also examines counterstrategies and provides support to those combating hate speech online.

Hanna and Sara are members of the RPRN.

Thanks to Diana Wallens for her editorial input.

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