Terra-&-Terror Ecology: Secrets from the Arrakeen underground

In this article, I use Frank Herbert’s Dune novels to exemplify a rather dark eco-vision of planetary ecology. The chthonic planetary eco-vision is necessarily terrifying, in that humanity is demoted from its role as ‘steward’ of a personified nature (mother nature), i.e., as caring intermediary between nature and culture, to a role in which the human is nothing more than fuel and fodder – bait and lure – for what could be called the ‘Great Ecology’ of planetary regeneration and desertification. Dune shows the dark side of the ‘Green’ will ecologize, which I argue involves the necessary violation of the stated values of eco-conservationist visions and ambitions.