| OUR FRAGILE MOMENT How Lessons from Earth's Past Can Help Us Survive the Climate Crisis Michael E. Mann New York: PublicAffairs, 26 September 2023 |
Rating: 5.0 High |
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| ISBN-13 978-1-5417-0289-9 | ||||
| ISBN-10 1-5417-0289-1 | 306pp. | HC/BWI | $30.00 | |
Clive Hamilton, professor of public ethics at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics based at the Australian National University, wrote the book Requiem for a Species. Published in 2010, it describes the conflict within humanity between complacence and urgency, inertia and action — and issues the gloomy forecast that this fragile human species will not do enough to escape the doom that climate change will bring.
The human species is fragile. There can be no doubt. For all its genius that probes nature and fosters innovation; for all its courage that roars forth to challenge enemies and enforce justice; for all its compassion that heals the sick and comforts the afflicted; there is a darkness in the human soul that spurns innovation, turns aside from challenges, and rejects compassion. We see it in the countless incidents of hostility based on nothing but the way someone else looks. We see it when people vote against their own best interests, or vote for an obvious fraud. Most critically, we see it in the widespread lack of concern that climate change is a problem — and in the concerted efforts to discourage action to mitigate its effects — even as the effects predicted by scientists grow more and more apparent.
I do not share Clive Hamilton's outlook. My view is that there is still time to rally our forces and stave off the worst of the climate-change damage coming down the pike, and that we will in fact make that effort. But time grows very short, and entrenched forces favoring the status quo show no signs of ending their opposition.
There is certainly a worthy conversation to be had about the threat of societal collapse. At a time when we continue to do damage to our global environment in the form of deforestation, air and water pollution, overfishing, and fossil fuel extraction—at a time when we find ourselves on a collision course with basic planetary boundaries of sustainability, with new pandemics arising out of habitat destruction—there is cause to doubt the viability of a continuing policy of extraction and natural resource-driven growth. In an era where misinformation and disinformation run rampant, weaponized by bad actors feeding on native grievance and resentment to advance an agenda of authoritarianism and fascism, there is ample cause for worry. If you're not the least bit worried, you're not paying attention. It is understandable that some climate advocates have grown frustrated by the slow and still insufficient policies that have been adopted thus far. But they shouldn't allow that frustration to be seized upon and co-opted by false prophets who would lead them down a road of disengagement and inaction. Yes, we have a massive challenge on our hands. But breathless claims of imminent climate-driven "human extinction" and "runaway warming" are both scientifically unsupportable and unhelpful. As Susan Joy Hassol and I wrote in Time magazine, "there is no point beyond which we shouldn't keep trying to limit warming. Every fraction of a degree matters to the level of suffering climate disruption will rain down on us."1 – Pages 238-239 |
Read on to find an antidote to feelings of fragility.
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