2024/11/26 by Gijs Lambrechts · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Climate Change Communication and Perception #Media Studies and Communication #Social Media and Politics
paper · pdf · doi:10.1075/jlp.24210.lam
openalex publication_date 2024/11/26 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2025/11/06
Recent events have demonstrated the growing importance of the intersection of far-right politics and environmental issues, and how the two can interact in diverse and seemingly contradictory ways.We have seen far-right parties attempting to capitalize on farmers' protests (Bosma and Peeren 2021), while obstructing climate action and opposing international environmental agreements (Lockwood 2018).We have also seen some far-right movements demanding affordable energy and advocating for fossil fuels (Malm and Zetkin Collective 2021), while others are claiming to defend animals' rights, natural environments, and rural landscapes (Forchtner and Klvraa 2015).Bernhard Forchtner, a leading scholar in far-right environmental communication with a background in critical discourse studies, addresses this intersection of far-right politics and environmental issues in his edited volume "Visualising Far-Right Environments: Communication and the Politics of Nature." In contrast to existing studies, this book breaks new ground by convincingly arguing both theoretically and empirically that 'the visual' plays a crucial role in far-right environmental communication and that studying the use of imagery (next to written text) in far-right politics should therefore also be central in any analysis.The book consists of 13 chapters divided into four thematic sections: settlercolonial cases, Eurasian land-based examples, local/national environmental issues, and global climate change.While this broad and comprehensive approach makes synthesis challenging, this review will outline four key lessons that can be drawn from reading the book and connect each to specific chapters.The first lesson concerns the historical and ideological roots of the relationship between the far right and the natural environment and challenges assumptions that this intersection is new or mere opportunism.In Chapter 11, "Double vision: local environment and global climate change through the German farright lens, " Forchtner and Olsen provide a historical overview of the German far right's approach to the environment, demonstrating that many themes have remained consistent throughout history.In Chapter 10, Sharma offers an analysis of how environmental narratives "feed into the spread of far-right politics, ideology and practice" (208), demonstrating a convergence between environmental