Book Report: What I've Been Reading
In creating this website and preparing for this hike, I started reading some of the foremost experts on climate change. References in those books have led to others, and overall, my perspective has completely evolved on what climate change is, what not only started it, but perpetuates it, and the deeply systemic and cultural connections between colonialism, fossil fuel use expansion, and capitalism. Most of these books have been written either by researchers themselves, or by journalists who meticulously research the work of peer-reviewed scientists.
Climate Leviathan is different. It is a theoretical treatise on the political landscape that will result as the climate catastrophes described by authors of the other books unfold. Authors Geoff Mann and Joel Wainwright are certainly better equipped than I am to make the arguments they do in the book, but there’s a level of hypocrisy, naïveté, and impracticality that verges on impossibility deserving attention.
The potential political futures they describe are depicted in the image below, that was taken from the book. My understanding of what each of these actually means follows.
1. Climate Leviathan: Essentially an expansion of a capitalist democracy to a global governing body. One that has real power to declare emergencies, regulate weapons, financial markets, etc.
2. Climate Mao: Obvious reference to China here, with the insinuation of communism. I believe this would be an autocratic or totalitarian communist government that has sovereignty over the entire globe. Ironically, the authors discuss at length how China actually exhibits highly capitalist characteristics. So maybe this would be more accurately called Climate Communism.
3. Climate Behemoth: This is the cute Hobbesian application of the option diametrically opposed to Climate Leviathan. From what I can tell, this is kind of a continuation of the status quo. Each country and region struggles for its own interests, nothing meaningful gets done, and the climate and social and political repercussions would be very, very ugly.
4. Climate X is not clearly defined until the end of the book. This outcome entails spontaneous wide-spread cultural and social adoption of the type of sustainability exhibited by indigenous peoples around the world. It involves a complete overhaul of Western understanding of what land is and how we relate to it; how we, as individuals and societies, relate to each other; what sovereignty, governance, monetary and capitalist systems, power, and hierarchy mean.
The authors make it clear that they believe Climate Leviathan (an expansion of a US-style governance to incorporate the entire world) is the most likely outcome. They also make it clear that the “we’re fucked” position that I’ve taken in previous posts is lazy nihilism. Finally, at the end of the book they reveal their opinion that our best hope to adequately cope with climate change in a sustainable manner that respects the sovereignty and dignity of individuals and peoples around the world is Climate X.
Sparing details, there is a lot about the first three political outcomes that is pretty scary, not only for social and political implications, but even for climate considerations, the supposed driving force behind them. For Climate X, let’s again consider what that would mean. No more endless consumption or economic expansion, no more materialism. No more capitalism, widespread division of labor, efficient allocation of resources, regulation, coherent monetary or financial policy. No corporations or industrial activity. No fossil fuels. No large-scale farming, water allocation, transportation of goods (including food). This would involve a type of self-reliance that the vast majority of human kind has not known for millennia. The transformation required to accomplish this could not possibly happen by spontaneous, ubiquitous, individual good-will and concern for the theoretical future. This could only be achieved by the darkest of dystopian futures. In other words, we’re fucked.
So after some very long-winded and philosophically technical argumentation, the book serves mostly as a purely theoretical and ultimately inane opportunity for the authors to show-case their dialectical brilliance, while indirectly conceding that no matter what happens politically, we’re fucked.
Here’s my full reading list so far. Please let me know if there are any books on related subjects you recommend.
Silent Spring (Rachel Carson)
This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs The Climate (Naomi Klein)
Dirt: The Erosion of Civilization (David Montgomery)
The Sixth Extinction (Elizabeth Kolbert)
Leave It As It Is (David Gessner)
The Uninhabitable Earth (David Wallace-Wells)
Dispossessing The Wilderness (Mark David Spence)
Conservation Refugees (Mark Dowie)
Climate Leviathan (Joel Wainwright)
Upcoming reads:
Under A White Sky (Elizabeth Kolbert)
Grand Canyon For Sale (Stephen Nash)
Count Down (Shanna Swan)
Red Skin, White Masks (Glen Sean Coulthard)
Battle Cry of Freedom (James McPherson)
Walking The Big Wild (Karsten Heuer)
As Long As Grass Grows (Dina Gilio-Whitaker)
Man And Nature, or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action
Hiking Canada’s Great Divide Trail (Dustin Lynx)
A Promised Land (Barrack Obama)
Culture Warlords (Talia Lavin)