Polygraph 22 (2010) Ecology & Ideology: An Introduction What is really amazing and frustrating is mankind’s habit of refusing to see the obvious and inevitable, until it is there, and then muttering about unforeseen catastrophes. —Isaac Asimov 1 How small the vastest of human catastrophes may seem, at a distance of a few million miles. —H.G. Wells 2 Ecology as Critique From Hurricane Katrina to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill to the metastasizing specter of climate change, an initial foray into the rhetoric of “natural” disasters over the past decade inds surprise and shock as a primary theme. Whatever hap- pens, “no one could have predicted” the results; ostensibly secular pundits have learned to comfortably and without contradiction invoke “acts of God” as the irst line of defense against anyone ever being held responsible for anything. Ignorance has become the ground for our relationship with Nature, precisely mirroring those oicial descriptions of ter- rorist violence in which “hatred” and “anti-modernity” pro- vide instant and totalizing explanations for the actions of oth- erwise unrelated agents. Once Nature takes over, throwing of the economic function assigned to it, “we”—humanity—are all forced together onto the same side. Who, ater all, could possibly be to blame for hurricanes, loods, volcanoes, and earthquakes? Who could possibly have the power to predict when and where disasters will erupt? Even in the case of BP’s irreparable destruction of the Gulf Coast—where the “cul- prits” seem clear and the potential consequences of deep-sea drilling eminently foreseeable—mainstream commentary inds itself gored on the horns of a false dilemma: because the spill was not purposeful, because no one wanted this to happen, it must therefore be a terrible “accident.” Speaking simultaneously about the Deepwater Horizon spill and the re-