Review of Rupert Read's "Why climate breakdown matters"
Review first published in The Paradigm Explorer 140, 2022/3.
This important book invites us to consider our response to possibly catastrophic climate breakdown. Read is an Oxford philosopher who also helped to found Extinction Rebellion. He begins with an outline of our current crisis, namely, the sixth extinction. This situation could very easily lead to “eco-driven social collapse.” (p. 3) Read advocates urgent and significant adaptation to a world that is transforming rapidly around us. He also sees a desperate need for a wholesale transformation in worldviews, in the direction of what he terms “eco-logical thinking.” (p. 7)
In chapter 1 he suggests that climate breakdown represents a fundamental failure on the part of humanity — safeguarding the wellbeing of our children. This is because it will “kill far more in the future than it has done yet.” (p. 26). Our descendants, Read suggests, represent our most “fundamental care.” We should also have known better. In the second chapter, Read characterises climate breakdown as a “white swan,” something that was predictable from our actions. You can’t pour gigatonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere for decades without consequences. The chapter finishes by considering the ubiquity of climate denial. Climate change is still a “spectre” for many, not seeming quite real (p. 41).
Next Read considers the failures of international agreements, including Paris, and the denial of planetary boundaries on the left and right of politics. A big problem is the doctrine of perpetual economic growth, still common across the political spectrum. He also suggests that the doctrine of progress obscures the fact that “life is getting worse on balance” (p. 64). He is significantly critical of the kind of identity politics that he sees as divisive and over-focussed on the self (p. 65), although more supportive of efforts to redress colonial injustices. He is also highly critical of the technology-worship of contemporary culture. Again, an ecological focus is key.
These large-scale failures of philosophy and practical action will likely lead to one of three possible futures (chapter 3). The first possibility is that society will profoundly transform itself in a sustainable direction (Read calls this ‘butterfly’). The second is that our current society will collapse, to be followed by a successor civilisation (dubbed ‘phoenix’). The final possibility is that humans, and possibly the whole biosphere, will become extinct (‘dodo’). Read suggests that far more work needs to be done to ensure that any potential successor civilisation is relatively benign.
These options may seem daunting, even terrifying. He sees individual grief as perhaps essential to grasp the enormity of climate breakdown. Grief signifies a change in the world’s character. Because of the reality of deep interconnectedness, grieving is an appropriate reaction to destruction of the living, more-than-human world. Read suggests that profound grief over our situation could help fuel a constructive, collective response to it. He also sees hope in positive past responses to disasters (chapter 5). I’m less optimistic. Other disaster analysts have suggested that the outcome of crises often depends upon contextual factors such as leadership, preparation, the presence or absence of personal antagonisms and the availability of alcohol. [1] Social collapse is likely to be chaotic, not favouring cogent responses.
Reed wants to reclaim our “profoundly social nature” (p. 99). He argues that the basic unit of human society is not the individual but “embedded communities.” (p. 110, chapter 6) This is meant as a contrast to the atomised individualism of free-market economies. Communities are the basic unit, Read says, because they live on while individuals die.
Choosing either individuals or communities as fundamental seems an unnecessary binary choice. Affirming individual autonomy seems to me an important corrective to the more negative, oppressive aspects of collectivism, including peer coercion, groupthink and various strains of totalitarianism. What is needed is a view that integrates the contingent, paradoxical existence of relatively autonomous individuals and groups. Something like Arthur Koestler’s nested holarchies, with individuals seen as “holons,” both parts and wholes. [2]
One of the most interesting parts of the book is an analysis of cetaceans (chapter 6), with a view to what this can tell us about ourselves. Read is here advocating renewed interest in indigenous societies, extended to non-human beings. He suggests that engaging with “indigenous wisdoms” might be necessary to challenge our deep rooted assumptions.
In chapter 7, “How to Live in Truth Today” (p. 129), Read considers ways that we might respond to climate breakdown. We need to wake up to our predicament, act practically, and publicly discuss our fears. We need to think about “lifeboats,” and ways to avoid these becoming “viciously exclusive” (p. 135). These lifeboats might be analogous to Mediaeval monasteries, preserving knowledge through a dark age.
Essential reading for troubled times.
WHY CLIMATE BREAKDOWN MATTERS by Rupert Read.
Bloomsbury, 2022, 212 pp., £19.99, p/b - ISBN 978-1-350-21201-5
Scientific and Medical Network: https://scientificandmedical.net
References
[1] Learmonth, E. & Tabakoff,J. (2013). No Mercy: True Stories of Disaster, Survival and Brutality. Text Publishing.
[2] Koestler, A. (1967). The Ghost in the Machine. Allen Lane.