Precarious Planet: Ecological Violence in The Age of Stupid

In an age of global warming anxieties, Franny Armstrong's documentary film The Age of Stupid, makes a compelling case for understanding the global and financial forces that ultimately, may not be sustained by the eco-systems of our planet. By forging a concept I term 'ecological violence', my article analyses the 'feedback loops' (Lovelock) between the forces of human consumption and the acute suffering of both human and nonhuman others. In forming the concept of 'ecological violence', I engage with Walter Benjamin's work on 'mythic' and 'divine' violence, Derrida's critique of both, while bringing into thís critical debate, Giorgio Agamben's concept of 'bare life'.