Paper short abstract

Digital narratives of climate change denial express a longing for a “natural order,” where humans did not shape the climate yet remained subject to its power. Using Svetlana Boym’s concepts on nostalgia, this paper reflect on how such imaginaries of nature function to structure denialist discourse

Paper long abstract

This paper adress vernacular narratives of climate denial online, focusing on their nostalgic longing for a return to a “natural order.” Within these discourses, climate change is not only rejected through a denounciation of climate research, but reframed as a disruption of a perceived equilibrium in which humans did not shape the climate, and where nature remained an uncontrollable force. To analyze these dynamics, I draw on Svetlana Boym’s concepts of restorative and reflective nostalgia. The narratives mobilize restorative nostalgia to claim the possibility of a return to a time where nature were considered a force distinct from human influence: a solitary power that freed us from any responsibility. Such a position actively nourish the contemporary epistemic crisis, in which expert knowledge is destabilized by appeals to common sense as an everyday rationality. By privileging anecdotal observations and “what everyone knows” over scientific evidence, denialist narratives reinforce an affective economy that delegitimizes scholarship and nurtures broader distrust in democratic institutions. How might we acknowledge the importance of storytelling, and nostalgic longing by offering alternative forms of expressing such sentiments? perhaps relefctive nostalgia might offer a tool in that endeavor.

This paper contributes to environmental humanities and folklore studies by demonstrating how nostalgia for natural changes in nature functions as both an affective resource and a political tool in sustaining denialist discourse in the age of post-truth.