TY - JOUR
T1 - Amazon vs the Amazon
T2 - Green Capitalist Imaginaries and the Death of Biodiversity
AU - Caple, Zachary
AU - Swanson, Heather Anne
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2025
Y1 - 2025
N2 - Capitalist forces shape public consciousness and, by extension, how everyday people imagine environmental matters of concern. This article investigates the historical cycling of the three most influential green imaginaries of Western neoliberalism: biodiversity, ecosystem services, and climate change. Using the Amazon rainforest and Amazon.com as icons of the clash between capitalism and nature, we investigate how shifting neoliberal fashions create opportunities for capital to evacuate place consciousness from U.S. environmental politics. The destruction of place consciousness enables corporations to damage the biosphere while minimizing political interruption. We show how place-erasure works through historical cases linked to each phase: the sustainable tropical forest sourcing of The Body Shop and Ben & Jerry’s (1990s), compensatory wetland mitigation in the Midwest (2000s), and Amazon.com’s carbon offset program (2010s–present). In our discussion of these imaginaries or “waves,” we contend that the current mainstream neoliberal climate paradigm is the most pernicious as it diverts the public's attention to the sky and away from accelerating ecological violence on the ground.
AB - Capitalist forces shape public consciousness and, by extension, how everyday people imagine environmental matters of concern. This article investigates the historical cycling of the three most influential green imaginaries of Western neoliberalism: biodiversity, ecosystem services, and climate change. Using the Amazon rainforest and Amazon.com as icons of the clash between capitalism and nature, we investigate how shifting neoliberal fashions create opportunities for capital to evacuate place consciousness from U.S. environmental politics. The destruction of place consciousness enables corporations to damage the biosphere while minimizing political interruption. We show how place-erasure works through historical cases linked to each phase: the sustainable tropical forest sourcing of The Body Shop and Ben & Jerry’s (1990s), compensatory wetland mitigation in the Midwest (2000s), and Amazon.com’s carbon offset program (2010s–present). In our discussion of these imaginaries or “waves,” we contend that the current mainstream neoliberal climate paradigm is the most pernicious as it diverts the public's attention to the sky and away from accelerating ecological violence on the ground.
KW - biodiversity
KW - climate change
KW - Neoliberal environmentalism
KW - place consciousness
KW - spectacle
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85206937256&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/10455752.2024.2410755
DO - 10.1080/10455752.2024.2410755
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85206937256
SN - 1045-5752
VL - 36
SP - 42
EP - 63
JO - Capitalism, Nature, Socialism
JF - Capitalism, Nature, Socialism
IS - 1
ER -