The pervasive narrative surrounding the ecological transition in advanced liberal democracies, particularly in France, has hit a brutal reckoning with reality. Far from a smooth, technocratically managed glide path towards sustainability, the transition project is increasingly mired in popular discontent, political backlash, and what the authors of the La Fabrique Écologique note aptly diagnose as a burgeoning “ecological refusal.” Typified by the “Yellow Vest” protests that rocked France from 2018 to 2020, ecological refusal is not the same as climate change denialism, but rather rests on the sense that the politically assigned costs of ecological transition are intolerably high and unfairly distributed.
Nils Gilman
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