"What makes the present political situation so dire and different from past moments of geopolitical tension throughout history is that today the meaning of the prefix “geo-” has changed altogether. Nations are no longer fighting one another on the same geographical stage. Everything unfolds as if there were no common world to fight over, but rather a generalized fight about the very definition of what the world is made of. “Nature” is no longer the background to geopolitical conflict, but rather the very thing that is at stake. It is clear, for instance, that “climate” does not mean or signify the same things for the United States, Europe, Brazil, or China. For some states, the priority when thinking about the climate is the great risk of its catastrophic mutation; for others, any reference to the climate is a mere passing inconvenience. Against all hope, what many eco-critics are calling the “ecological turn” has not resulted in more international unification but, on the contrary, in a new round of conflicts over land, water, air, resources, and oceans."