S8 Ep159: PREVIEW — Professor Steven Hayward — The Shift from Optimism to Environmental Gloom. John Batchelor and Professor Steven Hayward trace the intellectual origins of "apocalyptic environmentalism" to the comprehensive collapse of liberal optimism during the

PREVIEW — Professor Steven Hayward — The Shift from Optimism to Environmental Gloom. John Batchelor and Professor Steven Hayward trace the intellectual origins of "apocalyptic environmentalism" to the comprehensive collapse of liberal optimism during the turbulent 1960s. Hayward argues that catastrophic policy failures regarding Vietnam War prosecution, escalating urban crime, and intractable poverty discredited liberal governance ideology, displacing the Kennedy-era sunniness and technological optimism with a persistent cultural pessimism that catalyzed the environmental catastrophism of the 1970s. Hayward documents how this ideological shift from confidence to apocalyptic gloom sustained Republican political victories throughout subsequent decades, establishing enduring conservative demographic coalitions opposing progressive environmental regulation predicated on existential doom narratives.