If we peruse the contents list of the first issue of Futuribles, published in January 1975, most of the article titles would not be out of place in 2025, beginning with those relating to ecological issues. In his article, “La civilisation de l’éphémère [Throwaway Society]”, for example, having opened with an analysis of “the law of accelerated destruction”, Bertrand de Jouvenel concluded with these words: “Isn’t it even more important that the generations to come may enjoy in their daily lives the beauty of the landscapes to which each generation has added? […] Shouldn’t we redistribute our activities geographically and reduce their harmfulness […] Don’t France and Europe need a heritage protection policy? […] Isn’t that a basic mission of the political authorities that has been gravely neglected in recent times? […] A ‘throwaway’ society, a society which built increasingly ephemeral things and woke up one day to find it could no longer physically renew itself, would be a fitting theme for a writer of science fiction.”
Fifty years later, the questions around the preservation of living space and the accelerated destruction of habitable lands remain as urgent as ever. Worse, they have assumed planetary dimensions and, despite the warnings, studies and mobilizations by ecological researchers or activists and the many dramatic climate events that punctuate the seasons at ever decreasing intervals and in every part of the world, there seems to be no way, as Dominique Bourg reminds us here, to halt the damage being inflicted on our environment. Political ecology, which was born in the 1970s and which our journal was among the first to champion, hasn’t managed to cut through. Is there still hope for that to change and for political measures to be implemented that are commensurate with the challenges we face? In this article, Bourg examines the patent failure of the political handling of ecological issues, the widespread denial that surrounds them, and the associated moral bankruptcy. Is there still time to avoid the worst of outcomes?
The article is downloadable only in French. It is not available in English.
