The manner in which we view and interpret climate change, the way we talk about it in our public discourse, affects how we will respond. Dougald Hine spends a good part of this book going over the development of climate awareness and activism, and highlights the various stages and shifts in emphasis. And he asks the pertinent question - have any of these larger scale world wide agreements and initiatives worked in really changing governments and societies approach to it, or preparing us for the full consequences of it? Humanity may be able to survive climate change, but that requires us to establish what could realistically be preserved of our civilisation. To start behaving like we are already working in the ruins of it. What would that actually look and feel like?
A central argument here, is that we've placed far too much emphasis on the science to convince people of the need for change. So we tend to believe that its ultimately a problem that science will solve. Paul Kingsnorth response puts the problem pithily as 'Science is an ideology posing as a method.' Climate change is a threat, but if our only response is to try and tinker with the causal factors, like fine tuning a car engine. then it will fail. There is currently no magic technological bullet available to us now, that will solve climate change. You cannot resolve a problem that is to do with the way we think and approach the world, by using the same faulty methodology. Man made climate change is the result of our actions, our tendency to exploit and control our environment, which our scientific technological solution focus is itself a manifestation of.
As the shit starts to hit the fan, a failing environment will eventually hamper, then collapse the global economic system, our delicately tuned food supply logistics, whole cultures and ways of living will disappear, huge movements of the dispossessed will put every aspect of our existing way of living under immense strain and cripple our governments ability to instigate anything. This is already beginning to happen. These are human, not scientific problems, that will not be resolved by minor adjustments in emphasis within our economy, but a complete re-think of our whole approach. Anything else will be dealing with symptoms not causes, and at best we'll achieve only greenwashing.
In trying to establish how we currently respond to emergencies, Hine examines the vexed nature of our response to Covid, and the divisions that opened up as a result. Western society is 'deathphobic' it tends to hive death and disease off, and confine responsibility for it into hospitals. So as Covid struck, governments tried to deal with the increased infections by 'following the science' and dramatically ramping up limited hospital capabilities. Because it mainly killed the elderly, who always require more intensive care, hospitals proved unable to cope. This limited scope in tackling it made lock downs almost inevitable. To some extent what we were living through was a worldwide over reaction. But it does shine a light on the failings of singularly scientific based responses to emergencies, and indicate what may happen once the unpredictable future of our environment begins to really reek havoc. Tightly drawn working parameters and the 'kettling' of any dissent. What Hine dubs 'the fish tank method', with its self- evident authoritarian leanings.
Hine believes Western society is more vulnerable to complete collapse as a result of climate change than less highly developed countries. Largely because everything is so finely tuned. Dealing with discomfort, the ability to adapt and cope with hardship, has been somewhat cultivated out of us. If pasta permanently vanished off the supermarket shelves, there would be a riot. Successive governments have failed in being fully frank with its citizens about what we are truly facing. A culture of self deception, delusion and denial has been cultivated everywhere, about what science is able to do, about climate change itself, but more importantly about how we need to respond as a result of it.
' In the political imagination of high modernity. There's too much loss already written into the story, too much hardship around and ahead of us, whichever path we take. I think people can smell that, whether or not they want to face it yet. The sense that the future is broken isn't a mistake or a lack of vision, it's an accurate, gut-level read on where we are. What's called for is not to reboot the project of modernity but to see what can be salvaged from it, and what deserves to be left behind.'*
He makes one comment that I found quite telling. That when we hear extinction we assume its the extinction of all human life. But what is actually meant is the extinction of a particular way of living human life - the one expounded to us through western modernity. However, Hine now believes fundamental system change in how we day to day run Western civilisation is highly unlikely. He has 'given up' on responding to climate change in this manner.
' I want to say that giving up can be a necessary step, a precondition for becoming able to see the world otherwise and find the moves that are called for now, the moves that will be called for as the project of the big path fails. To give up is always to give up on 'something', though at the time it may well feel like everything. The question is what are we giving up on and how we come to see the world as a consequence,'*
We have to recognise when our situation has changed, the point when new strategies and approaches become necessary. He uses a Brazilian saying to exemplify how the particular dynamic and imperative of the moment almost tells you when and how to act:-
'When there is a flood coming and the waters are up to your ankles, you don't start swimming, when the water reaches your knees, its still not time to swim, when the water gets up to your ass, that's when its time to start swimming. When things get bad enough, types of action that were previously impossible become possible.'*
So what do you now do if you given up on large scale responsibility for dealing with climate change. Well, you go local, to smaller initiatives, responding to tangible issues and needs in your immediate area.
At Work In The Ruins, takes its time in laying out the history of climate change as an outcome of the economic system, the changes in the way awareness is raised and protest campaigns are run. Our expectations as a society when we respond to science and emergencies. This all lays the ground for Hines own shift from the big planet wide initiatives to more localised ones, from trying to put climate change into reverse to salvaging the best of what we'll be left with. Its certainly adjusted my viewpoint on where we are and what needs to happen next. And I get the sense that further reflection and pondering will undoubtedly continue in its wake. Its a very prescient book.
CARROT REVIEW - 7/8
*Extracts taken from At Work In The Ruins
by Dougald Hine Published by Chelsea Green 2023
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