Cassandra (metaphor) - Usage - Environmental Movement

Environmental Movement

Many environmentalists have predicted looming environmental catastrophes including climate change, rise in sea levels, irreversible pollution, and an impending collapse of ecosystems, including those of rainforests and ocean reefs. Such individuals sometimes acquire the label of 'Cassandras', whose warnings of impending environmental disaster are disbelieved or mocked. Environmentalist Alan Atkisson states that to understand that humanity is on a collision course with the laws of nature is to be stuck in what he calls the 'Cassandra dilemma' in which one can see the most likely outcome of current trends and can warn people about what is happening, but the vast majority can not, or will not respond, and later if catastrophe occurs, they may even blame you, as if your prediction set the disaster in motion. Occasionally there may be a "successful" alert, though the succession of books, campaigns, organizations, and personalities that we think of as the environmental movement has more generally fallen toward the opposite side of this dilemma: a failure to "get through" to the people and avert disaster. In the words of Atkisson: "too often we watch helplessly, as Cassandra did, while the soldiers emerge from the Trojan horse just as foreseen and wreak their predicted havoc. Worse, Cassandra's dilemma has seemed to grow more inescapable even as the chorus of Cassandras has grown larger."