Canaries in the climate coal mine: Climate change and COVID-19 as meta-crisis

摘要

For many Brazilians and Americans, the year 2020 was marked by unprecedented environmental catastrophes alongside the COVID-19 pandemic. In Brazil and the United States, the impact of these existential threats was particularly acute in the third quarter of the year with both countries experiencing record-breaking environmental disasters and high mortality rates from the virus. The research examines a media flashpoint on the eve of the 2020 U.S. presidential election: a transnational discussion between Brazilians and Americans hosted by three flagship papers in Brazil and the U.S.: O Estado de S. Paolo, Folha de S. Paulo, and the New York Times. Engaging with one another across the three digital discourse fora, Brazilian and American contributors discussed the double onslaught of the pandemic and climate change. For them, the simultaneous threats of extreme climate events and viral contamination amplified each other, generating a traumatic sense of meta-crisis. This sense of meta-crisis stemmed from a collective acknowledgment of the breakdown of key facets of governance and civil society in both Brazil and the United States. The perception of this multifaceted dysfunction gave rise to deeply seated cultural trauma among Brazilians and Americans. In making these connections, this article puts theories of cultural trauma into dialogue with emergent scholarship on the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change from a cross-national perspective.