End of an Old World?
The politically astute alternative rock band R.E.M. presumably decided that the end of the world (as we know it) didn’t feature much they had not already experienced and so they felt fine about it at the time. But in 1988 it was still possible to replace nostalgia for the lost with anticipation for the new. It’s reasonable to ask if this remains so, and Bill McKibben, literary craftsman for the environmental movement, has taken the question into full analysis in his latest book “Eaarth – Making a Life on a Tough New Planet” (A.A. Knopf, 2010).
No, Eaarth is not a typo, it’s a new name for the planet, recognition that what is going on still has gone so far that Earth will never be what it was. It is a new place now, needing a new name, and for humanity, inevitably a tougher place. The levels of carbon in the atmosphere, the increasing acidity of the oceans, the melting of the Arctic sea ice, ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica, receding glaciers, and the concomitant threats to human social and agricultural systems from these changes prompted McKibben to say “forget the grandkids; it turns out this was a problem for our parents,” and “this is the biggest thing that’s ever happened.” Having alerted us to the issue in 1990 (“The End of Nature”) he once again has done the hard part for us – announced our failure.
It is fair to say this recognition has been lurking in the minds of many, but it’s tough to say, carrying as it does potential intimations of defeat and surrender. But if we are not honest about the problem then we cannot design an appropriate solution. We get scenarios like that where the thirteen largest greenhouse emitters agree on an ‘aspirational’ goal of 50% cuts in carbon emissions by 2050, which according to McKibben “falls pretty close to the category of “don’t bother.” This is no time to waste wealth or intention. We do what is necessary, or why bother?
So having admitted the unthinkable, that the recovery we dream of has eluded us, that we waited too long and have a new and less abundant world to live with, what to do? The worst option would of course be to do nothing, or nothing significant. Then we risk the second worst option, a sudden motivation engendered by panic to cool the Earth, and rush into unproven geo-engineering strategies which could only be justified as a last chance to do what we didn’t do when we knew we should. Or we can face it and get on with it. All these options are represented by thoughtful analysts and books in print. Jeff Goodells’s “How to Cool the Planet” is a must read update on geo-engineering, while John Michael Greer’s “The Long Descent” and “Ecotechnic Future” and the latter half of McKibben’s book describe a world where the privileges of over-consumption are replaced by more coherent and respectful strategies. Each deserves a closer look – stay tuned.
