Of all the crises that mark our contemporary world, none are as worrying to me as the outpouring of support for white nationalism and white supremacy across Europe and the West. Climate change is a close second. Of course, the former has always been a feature of capitalist modernity. From slavery to colonialism to postcoloniality in the metropole, race and whiteness are constitutive features of the worlds we inhabit, not just the unfortunate by-products of those worlds. What is different today, however, is just how freely white supremacy is articulated and felt in the public domain in the West. What I find most worrying about this development is the way in which white supremacy's governing affects of injury, resentment, betrayal and nostalgia all seem to be underpinned by a populism that repudiates fact, reason and argumentation in favour of fealty and immediate experience. What seems to matter most to those in thrall to this populism is the retention of white power at all costs, regardless of the way populism cynically undermines contemporary institutions, such as science and law. I have never before in my life believed in false consciousness to the extent I do now. It worries me no end that those in power in Britain and America shamelessly exploit the legitimate grievances brought about by four decades of neo-liberal globalisation to service their own will to power.

But I also worry about climate change. I worry about the worlds it stands to unleash. I worry for those who stand to experience its effects most sharply. And I worry for my kids. But mostly I worry about what will happen when the violence of climate change meets with the populist violence of white supremacy. Climate denialism has long been a hallmark of right-wing populism. There is nevertheless a long tradition of rightwing environmentalism, one of the features of which is anti-immigration. Garett Hardin stands as an emblematic figure in this respect. Not only was Hardin one of the twentieth century's most influential environmentalists, he was also virulently anti-immigrant. He stands as a powerful reminder that ‘saving the environment’ is never innocent and that always beneath the veneer of environmental discourses are powerful political projects that rest on appeals to ‘nature’. I worry that someday this ugly antiimmigrant environmentalism will enter the climate change mainstream. Maybe it already has.