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How to survive our tragedy Covid has receded — but will pride and hubris doom humanity?

People who have nothing to lose are dangerous (ANGELOS TZORTZINIS/AFP via Getty Images)

People who have nothing to lose are dangerous (ANGELOS TZORTZINIS/AFP via Getty Images)


October 9, 2021   6 mins

Are we living in a tragic age? One of the words most used about climate change — catastrophe — comes to us from the ancient Greek tragedy. It means a sudden crisis or turnabout, which is not a bad way of describing the melting of the polar icecaps. As for the virus, the ancient Greeks knew a thing or two about plague. It was by ridding his city of pestilence that Oedipus was appointed king. Perhaps the Queen should take over from Chris Whitty.

Tragedy recalls us to a sense of our fragility, but also of our value. We wouldn’t mourn for creatures we didn’t regard as precious. Not many of us are devastated by the death of a flea. A cynic is unlikely to lose sleep over Covid deaths in Indonesia.

If we are living through a tragedy, it is a collective one. The Greeks would have understood this too: the point of the Chorus, a bunch of ordinary citizens who sing and dance their way through the tragic drama, is to socialise the disaster, making it more than just the affair of a few patrician figures. Even so, you couldn’t have a cook or a cobbler as the hero, since their lives weren’t considered important enough. Those who fall from the greatest height make the biggest splash.

The death of Achilles or Agamemnon is a momentous event which sends shockwaves through the public realm, whereas the passing of a slave is private. It has no more significance than the killing of a flea. It doesn’t count as a historical event. Back then you couldn’t have a tragedy called Death of a Salesman, even if there had been salesmen in ancient Athens. It would be as bizarre as calling your play The Fall of Troy: A Farce in Three Acts. 

None of this class distinction survived the emergence of mass democracy — a political idea which, ironically, was born in ancient Greece. In the 20th century, by far the bloodiest hundred years on record, tragedy became universal. Once you develop weapons like bombs, you globalise suffering and lamentation. As the tattered old cliché has it, we really are all in this together. You just have to take anyone from the street and push them to their limit. You can even have a tragedy about plumbing, as in Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People. 

One of the ancient Greeks’ deepest fears is of hubris — the pride or presumption which leads you to overreach yourself and bring yourself to nothing. When the citizens of Thebes or Athens observed such arrogance they trembled and looked fearfully to the skies, aware that it would have its comeuppance. A species which dominates and destroys its natural habitat in the name of power and acquisition is now reaping the fruits of its overreaching.

Those like King Lear who would be everything must be taught the lesson that humanity is nothing — frail, sickeningly vulnerable and driven by animal need. Kings must be reduced to vagrants, as Lear wanders the heath with fools and madmen. Once you acknowledge that you’re nothing, you have a chance of becoming something — but only, like Lear or Oedipus, by being hauled through hell. For Lear, this repentance comes too late to prevent his death. Whether this will prove true of humanity as a whole remains to be seen. It isn’t looking good.

The problem is that hubris is built into the human species. Because we live not just in a physical world but a world of meaning, we are able to overreach ourselves all the time. Our bodies can build themselves a prosthesis known as civilisation. Technology is an extension of our bodies, but one that can escape our mastery. Badgers and squirrels by contrast, can’t create weapons of mass destruction, unless they’re being very furtive about it. They can’t extend very far outside themselves. They aren’t universal creatures, unless squirrels in California are somehow in touch with squirrels in the Ukraine.

This inability to overreach themselves means that they can’t blow themselves up, but neither can they read Marcel Proust. This is because they don’t have language; but this lack of language or developed concepts is also what keeps them safe from nuclear warfare. (One might make an exception here for dolphins, who after a few lessons might be able to write as well as Jacob Rees-Mogg).

Being a linguistic animal is both a blessing and a curse. In fact, the ancient term “sacred” means both. Because human beings live in a richly developed conceptual world, they can create things which are in danger of slipping from their control and taking on a tyrannical life of their own. Yet having language also means that they can be closer to each other than mere physical contact. They can share their inner lives with each other. Love relationships consist mainly in talking, unless I’m missing out on something.

Civilisation, so Freud claims, is a product of Eros, meaning the creative drives as a whole. There is, however, a problem. Eros is not the only source of civilisation. In order to build bridges and cathedrals, you also need to harness the power of Eros’s old enemy, Thanatos, or the death drive. The death drive for Freud is turned outwards and used to subjugate Nature. Only in this way can cities and social orders be built. Thanatos, however, is a notoriously unreliable servant. It doesn’t want to subjugate things; it wants to tear them to pieces in an orgy of obscene enjoyment. So the very force which is intended to overcome chaos is secretly in love with it. Anarchy lies at the very heart of authority.

Tragic figures aren’t exactly guilty, but they aren’t exactly innocent either. If they were deep-dyed villains, they would forfeit our sympathy and we would be indifferent to their fate. Napoleon may have been a tragic figure, but Hitler wasn’t. Yet tragic heroes aren’t blameless, because the tragic crisis results from their own actions, however little they may intend it.

Oedipus, who has been described as a “guilty innocent”, doesn’t mean to kill his father and marry his mother, but he contributes without knowing it to a network of cause and effect which causes these things to occur. His own past actions return to plague him in alien form. “We are neither the innocent nor the wicked,” remarks the protagonist of William Golding’s novel Free Fall. “We are the guilty. We fall down. We crawl on hands and knees. We weep and tear each other.”

It is just the same with climate change, which nobody ever intended but which is the consequence of billions of individual acts. Nobody ever turned the ignition key in their car or heaped a shovelful of coal on the fire with the idea of wiping out the human race. As Inspector Clouseau might say, no-one is guilty and everyone is guilty.

It’s the same with the Christian idea of original sin, which means that we are sinful but not responsible for it. In the tangled web of human actions and relationships, you can’t move without hurting someone somewhere. Our actions spin out of control and breed monstrous consequences which can come to dominate our own lives. The ancient Greeks knew all about Marx’s concept of alienation. It’s just that they gave it the name of Fate. We are weaving our own inescapable destiny all the time, and doing so through actions which are genuinely free.

The good news is that free action to avert total collapse is still possible for us, if only just. We can take heart from the fact that not all stage tragedies end badly. The first great piece of tragic art we have, Aeschylus’s Oresteia, ends on a positive note. The blind, beggarly Oedipus is finally gathered to the gods, while Shakespearian tragedy usually ends with the tentative emergence of new life. We come away from many a tragic drama remembering the dignity or defiance of those who go to their deaths, not just their agonies. A tragedy isn’t always a piece of theatre which ends in total ruin. It’s a situation in which you have to be broken and remade if you’re to have any chance of redemption, and even then there are no guarantees. As the poet W.B. Yeats writes, “Nothing can be whole or sole/That has not been rent.”

We shall, for instance, weather Covid, but not reducing the planet to flood and desert is a different matter. To avoid that, we shall need to renounce the urge to power and possession which has driven us so far, and learn instead to live like the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. That means undoing an awfully long history, and history is what we mostly are made of.

It’s true that people will do extraordinary things if the only alternative is to die. Certainly nothing short of such an alternative will cause governments and the transnational corporations to abandon their death-dealing habits. But people will also do extraordinary things if they think they are going to die anyway, such as murder, rape, loot and hunt for vengeance.

We haven’t thought enough about what kind of existence we will have if doom becomes unavoidable. People who have nothing to lose are dangerous. I wouldn’t like to be a racist cop if those I’ve beaten and humiliated know they can hang me from a lamp post without being put away for twenty years because the world won’t last that long. One thing is for sure: being broken and remade rules out mere reformism. Reformism wouldn’t have kept Lear alive, and it won’t keep us alive either.

Terry Eagleton is a visiting professor in English at Lancaster University. 


Terry Eagleton is a critic, literary theorist, and UnHerd columnist.


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Matthew Powell
Matthew Powell
2 years ago

Birds starve in the harsh winters or are cut down by predators. The Lillie is consumed by parasites or rots from fungus. Nature is chaotic, brutal and wasteful. Life survives through death, driving populations to the brink of disappearance to save them from their own rapaciousness. Only a fool would return to this state of their own volition. Nature does not offer use any template as to how we should live. Beyond the fairy tails of nature documentaries are nightmares which make the the Dark Satanic mills look like Paradise.
Are we doomed? The answer to that question is currently beyond the power of human intellect to answer. Those who believe they know, are either projecting their desire for a world they despise to crumble or are in denial that one they cherish will not last forever.
A turn to asceticism will appease the guilty consiousness of the affluent but it will make no difference unless they are willing condemn millions to suffer in pepetual poverty, cut off from the life saving techologies increasingly seen as sinful in the developed world. When confronted with such choices, the inevitable action is to reach for their stones and seek a greater sinner to do the penance.
For ideologues who dream of redeeming the human condition, the truth is likely that surviving climate change will not mean a brave new world, but more of the same. The endless quest for a cession from want has changed the world many times over and will continue to do so in the same manner as before. If this strikes some as depressing, then it should be reminded; that humanity is often at its finest when it overcomes nature, not when it submits to it.

daniel_abineri
daniel_abineri
2 years ago
Reply to  Matthew Powell

Brilliantly put sir…

robert stowells
robert stowells
2 years ago
Reply to  Matthew Powell

I agree except perhaps for the last sentence “humanity is often at its finest when it overcomes nature, not when it submits to it” if it suggests conquering nature as a thing apart.  I believe that humanity will progress by discovering and using (yes harnessing) nature and the laws of existence. If that leads to a belief in, or discovery of, greater oneness then much of what the ideologues believe would come about naturally as a scientific development or evolution of humanity not as an inappropriate imposition on a humanity not yet ready and never by turning the clock back.  I also believe that there will be a greater or deepening amazement at nature and existence as we progress in the discovery of those new laws.
Generally I find the article confusing and lacking in established premise.

Last edited 2 years ago by robert stowells
John Riordan
John Riordan
2 years ago

It is indeed tosh, and that’s putting it politely. To live like the birds of the air and the lilies in the field necessarily involves dying like them. At least the author understands that the escape from that miserable condition was a long history. What is less obvious is why any sane human being would seek to undo it.

Last edited 2 years ago by John Riordan
John Riordan
John Riordan
2 years ago
Reply to  Matthew Powell

“Are we doomed? The answer to that question is currently beyond the power of human intellect to answer.”

Good comment, but it’s not beyond answering: we are not doomed. Doom impies certainty on the point, which does not exist.

Stephanie Surface
Stephanie Surface
2 years ago
Reply to  Matthew Powell

Very good reply to the essay. Although I don’t believe that humanity will overcome nature, but live with nature and use its natural laws to its advantage. In general humanity adjusted and lived better in warmer periods than the Earth’s ice ages.
The author of the essay uses many beautiful metaphors, which could as well be used for the religious fervour of the new big Green Religion, which will end in hubris for the entire humanity. How does he know that it is human activity, which causes Doom? Why was the Earth much warmer at other times in its history without human endeavour, when dinosaurs roamed in Northern Canada and the World existed without ice caps. Those ice caps and glaciers came about during the big Ice Age, wiping out nearly all creatures on Earth.
The author assumes, like most of the new Green religious movement, that humanity will be punished by Gaia, not realising that this new hubristic faith will wipe out most of humanity

Matt M
Matt M
2 years ago

The only tragedy here is this essay!

According to the Met Office (12 July 2021), in the worst case scenario (2C rise over pre-industrial temps) by the end of the century, Britain will see:

– The number of days above 25C rise from 10 to 18 each year
– The number below 0C fall from 50 to 35 per year
– Temperatures hit 40C once every 15 years
– The number of days with enough rainfall to cause flooding go from 7 to 9 annually

So Global Warming – if the doom-mongers are proved right and the worst hits us – a big if – means a bit nicer weather in Britain. Longer growing season, better holidays, fewer accidents on wet, winter roads, lower heating bills.

There will be a fall in the 44000 deaths currently caused by cold weather and a small rise in the 8000 attributed to hot weather which will leave overall weather-related mortality unchanged.

No need to get downcast.

Last edited 2 years ago by Matt M
Matt M
Matt M
2 years ago
Reply to  Matt M

The rational response to this Global Warming “threat” is:

1. Keep on top of our flood defenses. Dredge the rivers, clear the ditches and unblock the drains. Don’t build on flood plains etc.
2. Plan for a slightly warmer climate. What would the impacts be on farming, buildings etc?
3. Problems will arise in other less happy lands who are affected in a more serious way. So we should:
A) Increase our energy security. Invest in nuclear and wind by all means but also get fracking. Better to have our own gas supplies available.
B) Protect our trade routes and trade infrastructure.
C) Work out now how to deal with “climate refugees”. Get on with offshore processing (my suggested location is Weddell Island off the Falklands).
D) Work out how we can help those poorer areas of the world who are badly affected to mitigate the symptoms. The answer to this is always for them to get richer – so trade with them and help them with security issues. And stop stealing their brightest and best to work in our health service.
4. Do what we can to reduce CO2 output but without weakening ourselves. Net Zero is fine as an aspiration but what can we really achieve? Fossil Fuels down to 25% of our energy supply? 45%? Some serious people should work that out without recourse to hypothetical technological advances or behavioural changes that people won’t tolerate

Last edited 2 years ago by Matt M
Cheryl Jones
Cheryl Jones
2 years ago
Reply to  Matt M

And reduce the populations in places where they’re just adding to the numbers of poor people.

JR Stoker
JR Stoker
2 years ago
Reply to  Cheryl Jones

Er…how?

Matt M
Matt M
2 years ago
Reply to  JR Stoker

The richer a country gets, the lower its birth rate falls. How do you get a poor country rich? Peace, trade and not exporting your best and brightest to rich countries.

Last edited 2 years ago by Matt M
James Thomas
James Thomas
2 years ago
Reply to  Matt M

Correct. The UN population metrics and predictions have proved accurate over many decades. The global population is growing BUT the change in rate of the increase is negative. The population will peak towards the end of the century and then decrease. See Gapminder for a realistic view and the UN data.

Niobe Hunter
Niobe Hunter
2 years ago
Reply to  JR Stoker

By persuading or incentivising people not to have nine children when they can only feed two.

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
2 years ago
Reply to  JR Stoker

China and India have both had these programs.

Niobe Hunter
Niobe Hunter
2 years ago
Reply to  Cheryl Jones

This is the real key,,of course

Dan Croitoru
Dan Croitoru
2 years ago
Reply to  Cheryl Jones

Lead by example

Last edited 2 years ago by Dan Croitoru
John Riordan
John Riordan
2 years ago
Reply to  Cheryl Jones

No: get them wealthy as fast as possible, so that they (a) choose on their own to have limited family sizes, and (b) start to care about the environment as much as we do in the rich nations.
The first effect is already well underway in many countries outside the West, and it’s simply down to the growth of wealth.

Iris C
Iris C
2 years ago
Reply to  Matt M

Regarding D above, what about a mass of solar panels in desert areas to generate electricity for the population.
In many African countries before electricity was available, wind-up radios, etc., were invented. What about solar cookers or some such thing to preserve the scarce trees which still exist and are used for fire wood..

Matt M
Matt M
2 years ago
Reply to  Iris C

Great idea! Don’t a load of kids die each year from smoke inhalation for wood fires in homes in Africa? Much better to use solar panels and electric stoves.

Last edited 2 years ago by Matt M
Matt M
Matt M
2 years ago
Reply to  Matt M

They never give up! They just adjust their arguments to fit the latest trend.

Linda Hutchinson
Linda Hutchinson
2 years ago
Reply to  Matt M

What about the rest of the world? It might not hit Britain too hard, although coastal areas are in danger, but some countries will suffer catastrophically which might lead to mass displacement of peoples on a greater scale than we have seen yet.

Matt M
Matt M
2 years ago

Yes it is much harder for some countries than it is for us, though some have it even better than us – can you imagine the difference it will make to Russians to be a bit warmer?

Some places will have it very hard. If you live in a desert, be it Nevada or Dubai then normal life might be impossible. Though the UAE and the USA are both rich enough to cope.

For poor, tropical countries it will be another thing on the list that makes life grim. The answer is for them to be much richer in 80 years time than now. That requires peace and trade and not exporting their best and brightest to us.

There are a thousand mitigation strategies that will have to be thought through for each affected region. And I’m not against CO2 reduction though I am sceptical about how much can be done. Possibly some technology advance might change that.

Last edited 2 years ago by Matt M
hugh bennett
hugh bennett
2 years ago

Personally, I am looking forward to a warmer UK for my osteoarthritis !
Life and the catalysts for evolutionary change on this planet blossomed when temperatures and CO2 were far higher than today. The catastrophe was the massive CO2 grab by species long now extinct.
But you are correct in that we now have 7 billion of one intelligent species enjoying the accolade of Apex species.If there is a real threat it is to humanity, in that mass migrations of people will inevitable occur. History show us that humans do not tolerate that well without resorting to war.
But people, should not expect the planet to be held in some status quo, that is stupid at best,arrogant at worst.
In the very long run, both for our planet and the continued evolution of life things will be OK, but they will not be the same.

Matt B
Matt B
2 years ago

It already has, and climate signatures to conflict are more apparent

hugh bennett
hugh bennett
2 years ago
Reply to  Matt M

and many have such a financial investment as well !

Niobe Hunter
Niobe Hunter
2 years ago
Reply to  hugh bennett

And the author has a very long standing political investment as well.I remember his lectures when I was an undergraduate, a Marxist curiosity ( almost unique then).

Matt B
Matt B
2 years ago
Reply to  Matt M

Not so. Current trends are that limiting temp.rise to 1.5 or even 2 deg in the next two decades may be unachievable without meaningful action pretty soon. These rises are likely locked in. That leaves another 60 years for you to contemplate. Few argue against adaptation anyway – so that is a straw man – nor that there will be upsides and downsides, and feed back loops that are only partially or not understood. But is this your area of expertise? Just out of interest please clarify – as you are pretty harsh on others. Whilst scientific assessments come with caveats, their key predictions since 1990 have been largely exceeded. And yours?
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2943/study-confirms-climate-models-are-getting-future-warming-projections-right/

Last edited 2 years ago by Matt B
Matt M
Matt M
2 years ago
Reply to  Matt B

Not an expert at all – I’m just reporting a very recent Met Office press release that was picked up at the time by most newspapers.

The point I was making was that while there will be winners and losers if the globe warms significantly, Britain’s extremely mild climate puts us in a good position to withstand even greater increases. If we had 30 days above 25C and only 10 below freezing each year, it would be fine.

Of course, as you say, the forecasts could be wrong due to lack of understanding of feedback loops. But in that case they could also be wrong on the upside.

I don’t think I’m being harsh on others. I’m also sorry some countries suffer from earthquakes and volcanos – but I’m glad we don’t. We should do what we can to help but fantasies about us making significant changes to our lifestyles don’t help anyone. We should first prepare thoroughly for what is coming our way and then consider how we can help other countries.

Last edited 2 years ago by Matt M
Matt B
Matt B
2 years ago
Reply to  Matt M

Making adaptations to our lifestyles (read carbon-based consumption and destruction of biodiversity) is still a part of preparing for already ongoing change – visible all around, and in the data, and likely locked in until 2100 at least. Unless of course you reject (???) the idea that human activities play a significant part – in which case present data. Think. Conservation and CC ARE conservative issues by definition, and yet so many are too blinkered by attacking “libs” that the debate is lost to their perceived “enemy” in a zero-sum death tangle. Cutting human production of carbon/methane are cross-party and key issues after just losing another decade, on top of 50 years since the problem was really too apparent. If it is not done, and if people/countries continue to NOT to adjust their “lifestyle'” and wider economies (ie carbon-based consumption) then the prospects of a Bjorn-dawn of ever-lasting development solving all problems will be shortlived. His views (good, and now being hijacked by disproven former oil lobbyists) are valuable but he underplays a human nature to avoid action – as seen to date and no doubt your unerlying preference. There are many ways out of this, but the combination of many approaches will help (yes that means lifestyles too as the term is very broad) – and if some go ascetic, fine. Why criticize that? And why pretend that “Winner” Britain can sit and bank illusory benefits while Losers burn up? Sure some will lose while others shrug (you and most of Unherd?), but the world is so interconnected in every way and it would not work out quite like that – least of all for Global Britain. Food, water, energy, production, transport, migration and wars are all related to ecological integrity and areas being livable. And failures will affect us – they are now. I have worked in this field, in Africa too, while staring for months at real change in Antarctica that extends to the loss of Arctic ice caps – an issue connected to ocean currents that may mean Britain’s balmy future is not as assured as you would imagine. Did the hack on UEA data servers prove points many here might even have found comforting, that it is all overblown? Meanwhie, so many others are already adapting, lifestyles and all.
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2943/study-confirms-climate-models-are-getting-future-warming-projections-right/

Last edited 2 years ago by Matt B
rodney foy
rodney foy
2 years ago
Reply to  Matt B

Exactly right. We’re walking into a disaster, and Britain is not exempt. We need to adopt all solutions, and fast

Matt M
Matt M
2 years ago
Reply to  rodney foy

Not exempt but exceptionally well placed.

Matt M
Matt M
2 years ago
Reply to  Matt B

If the Met Office forecasts are anything like correct, the effect on the British climate will be benign or beneficial.

I made 4 suggestions on how we should approach this:

1. Plan for climate-related change at home (flood defences, which crops to plant etc)
2. Plan for disruptions at home due to problems in other countries (resilience of energy supplies, border security, shipping routes &c.)
3. Help mitigate effects in badly hit foreign countries (technology development, foreign aid)
4. Reduce CO2 output at home (nuclear, wind, hydrogen and so on).

I think, from reading your response, you would agree with the above points (I acknowledge your view that the forecasts could be bad underestimates but as I understand it, this is the current best guess of the climate science community)

I think we disagree on two points.

1. I think we can only decarbonise as fast as technology allows it to be done without governments losing votes. For instance, voters won’t tolerate not having an affordable car so electric or hydrogen cars would need to be competitive in price to current models. Ditto central heating.

2. I don’t think global warming is a catastrophe for the world. I think serious problems will occur but so will solutions. Look at the Covid vaccines being available within a year of the virus emerging to see how well humans can adapt to the worst nature throws at us. Ultimately the world’s poor will grow richer, have fewer kids and the world population will drop. This plus technical advances will lead to significant reductions in greenhouse gases and the end of global warming.

The future is bright! Stop worrying, you are scaring the kids.

Last edited 2 years ago by Matt M
furma371
furma371
2 years ago
Reply to  Matt M

Do not forget the urge of those living at the tropical latitudes to look for a cooler place to live. For instance like… : Britain?

Matt M
Matt M
2 years ago
Reply to  furma371

We need to get to grips with this issue now and set up the right processes. 20k migrants in dinghies is one thing, 2m quite another.

Last edited 2 years ago by Matt M
Niobe Hunter
Niobe Hunter
2 years ago
Reply to  furma371

I don’t think the migrants are fleeing from climate change as such, just from the fact that their populations in their native countries have outstripped the lands ability to support them.

Dan Croitoru
Dan Croitoru
2 years ago
Reply to  Niobe Hunter

Or maybe because the western toddlers need them to clean their rooms

rodney foy
rodney foy
2 years ago
Reply to  Niobe Hunter

It will get much worse

rodney foy
rodney foy
2 years ago
Reply to  furma371

Yes, those who think we have an immigration problem ain’t seen nothing yet

robert stowells
robert stowells
2 years ago
Reply to  Matt M

Agreed.  It does certainly sound very helpful the way you express it.  However, looking at it from the opposite perspective of the green areas of the planet acting as the lungs for the planet, might it not be incumbent on the US to spend a few of those trillion dollars (which it is presently printing out) on the protection of large tracts of the amazon jungle, for instance, rather than spending all the trillions on fat ass Americans. I’m sure it would prove a fantastic investment for bio-diversity research alone if a couple of trillion were put that way.

Matt M
Matt M
2 years ago

We in the rich world should do all we can to help poorer countries and working with the Brazilian government to preserve the Amazon while letting the locals prosper is money well spent.

Andrew Roman
Andrew Roman
2 years ago

It is a common misconception that forests are the lungs of the earth. While trees are growing they absorb CO2, but when they die they decompose and release it back into the atmosphere.
It is also a common misconception that rising CO2 levels are only harmful. Satellite photos show and increasing level of forestation or greening of the planet, as CO2 is food for plants.
That said, deforestation of the Amazon or any other large area is bad for a lot of other reasons, including species diversity, increased flooding, etc. but that protection will require more than dollars from America.

Matt B
Matt B
2 years ago
Reply to  Andrew Roman

Another expert? You might want consider the impacts of ocean acidification, and uncertainty over air-ocean interaction let alone deep ocean conveyer circulation affecting the seas’ CO2 buffering ability

Last edited 2 years ago by Matt B
Matt B
Matt B
2 years ago
Reply to  Andrew Roman

You need trees. They need to be there. Not cut, burnt, lost and not replaced. And the older the stands the better due to fungal networks critical in turn to decomposition.
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2943/study-confirms-climate-models-are-getting-future-warming-projections-right/

Last edited 2 years ago by Matt B
AC Harper
AC Harper
2 years ago

Are we living in a tragic age?”
No more than usual. It’s always tempting to wear sackcloth and ashes and declaim how this time the tragedy is real – but we forget WWII and WWI, we forget the various plagues that swept the country (including the lethal Great Pestilence). We forget what life was like before public sanitation or antibiotics. Lots of people died but humanity soldiered on.
There’s a good case to be made about mitigation of anthropic climate change, of vaccinating against COVID, of avoiding the contradictions inherent in virtue signalling. But concentration on the anticipated tragedies is not a good place to start from.

daniel_abineri
daniel_abineri
2 years ago
Reply to  AC Harper

Another excellent reply..

Cheryl Jones
Cheryl Jones
2 years ago
Reply to  AC Harper

Or perhaps WW1 and WW2 were just the first visible signs in the long sweep of history that human beings were destined to go the way of the Dodo. In 1000 years time who knows how historians will look back at us the way we do on the Egyptians or the Romans or the Dark Ages. If there are any left that is. The differences between us and the Romans are globalisation, technology, military capability and sheer numbers. 7 billion and counting.

Matt B
Matt B
2 years ago
Reply to  AC Harper

Agree that tragedy is not a helpful starting point for what are clear risks – facing populations with such high expectations and limited memories to the point of having let problems fester. The tragedy, if any, is that the carbon problem has been know for a century, and as a credible threat since the 50s, when post-war populations were focused on recovery. Were it not for the best efforts of some the issue could have been addressed more gradually, as wealth rose, when the efforts required may have been smaller and stagggered, although the Cold War, US hyper-consumerism and Mao’s China would still have made that hard.
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2943/study-confirms-climate-models-are-getting-future-warming-projections-right/

Last edited 2 years ago by Matt B
Adam Bartlett
Adam Bartlett
2 years ago

Eagleton has done much great work and I agree unchecked environmental degradation will inevitably lead to civilizational collapse. But the writing here is unpolished and the ideas seem half baked. For example:

we shall need to renounce the urge to power and possession which driven us so far, and learn instead to live like the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. 

Much of the earth’s population is dependent on advanced food production. If we renonced the necessary organisational power needed to keep us fed, most would perish. The earth can only sustain a tiny fraction living like birds of the air hunter gatherer style. Even if small scale farms were allowed, billions would starve. (Not to say a partial move back to small holder farms wouldn’t be a good thing.) There probably are forms of social organisation that could combine long term environmental sustainability with a life worth living, and which don’t depend on appalling depopulation. Even the best media don’t seem up for sketching what that might look like. Maybe I’ll blog about it.

Cheryl Jones
Cheryl Jones
2 years ago
Reply to  Adam Bartlett

Just cull the humans. It’s already started. Covid, or something like it, was inevitable. We’ve had it too easy for too long.

Adam Bartlett
Adam Bartlett
2 years ago
Reply to  Cheryl Jones

It’s certainly possible that increasing environmental degradation won’t be reversed until after a great cull. I agree with Mathew Powell that’s it’s beyond human intellect to be sure either way. I hope to see more realistic exploration of the “cull free” possibilities. The ‘Matt M’ plan below seems much better than the article in this regard, yet falls short of what is needed.

Franz Von Peppercorn
Franz Von Peppercorn
2 years ago
Reply to  Cheryl Jones

What a horrible sentiment. But, if serious, You first Cheryl

Matt B
Matt B
2 years ago
Reply to  Cheryl Jones

Cheryl. You are becoming v pessimistic if not dark. Do you advocate “an accelerated programme” – just to help things along? Starting with?

Last edited 2 years ago by Matt B
Dan Croitoru
Dan Croitoru
2 years ago
Reply to  Cheryl Jones

Go for it

Edward De Beukelaer
Edward De Beukelaer
2 years ago
Reply to  Adam Bartlett

Sorry, Adam, the starvation issue is not as black and white as you seem to indicate in relation to farming. Farms have to change and become ‘living entities’ with a mix of crops and farm animals. This will increase the nutritional value of food and help in reducing food consumption, improve the quality of farm land, increase co2 absorption into the ground, we also need to learn to eat less… There is more land that can become available where there are currently wars etc. Then we have to become better at not wasting food, not produce crops to produce fuels, reduce crops to feed animals…etc etc. Such farms will be relatively smaller type of farms compared to the huge industrial, earth killing and poor food producing systems (= not farms) currently in place depending on chemicals and gene changing practices…
In different black and white: a choice between plastic food or real food…..

Adam Bartlett
Adam Bartlett
2 years ago

Agreed – there’s dozens of interesting sustainable / regenerative agricultural practices already in use around the world, several are along the lines you suggest.
 
Climate friendly food production gets even more multi faceted the more one looks into it. Part of the solution probably includes a return to small scale local ‘living’ farms with traditional and circular characteristics. Yet in other ways we’re betting big on tech. Even the plastic or real food choice is a cause for hope in a certain light. (I’m interpretating ‘plastic’ in a different sense to what you mean) I.e. as long as no ones forced to eat synthetic foods if it doesn’t appeal. We’ve had mycoprotein meat (i.e. Quorn ) for decades. Soon we’ll likely be producing protein in even more efficient ways (.e.g. look up “Solar foods”.) And old school meat production can become less damaging (I’m a seed investor in Mootal for example, a feed for Cows that reduces their methane emissions.) I even agree with ‘eat less’ and the wider ‘produce less’ idea. Though it’s a tough sell unless one can show how lives can be enriched in other dimensions if we were to settle for less material output.

Gavin Stewart-Mills
Gavin Stewart-Mills
2 years ago
Reply to  Adam Bartlett

Of all the various strains of luxury urban piffle, this ‘human beings are the virus’ really is the king. And that’s a crown not easily won. An alphabet soup of save the alpaca, rewilding, and faux misery.

Alan Thorpe
Alan Thorpe
2 years ago

There is no climate crisis. The crisis is human stupidity.

Gordon Welford
Gordon Welford
2 years ago

I hate to diffuse an interesting dialogue but I fail to comprehend how a gas which represents 0.04% of the atmosphere can have such a decisive role in the climate which has fluctuated hugely over time without human intervention.Our scientists have made a mess of Covid modelling.Can we trust them on the climate ?

Adam Bartlett
Adam Bartlett
2 years ago
Reply to  Gordon Welford

It might help to consider that the atmosphere extends upwards for thousands of miles. So even at very low relative concentrations, greenhouse gasses have plenty of chances to capture and re-transmit escaping thermal radiation back down to earth. On your second point, it has to be admitted that the way scientists responded to Covid has indeed reduced their credibility on climate, at least round here. But hopefully not enough to break the trend for more determined mitigation.

Matt B
Matt B
2 years ago
Reply to  Adam Bartlett

It really does not extend 1000s of miles up, or hundreds, which amplifies your point.
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2943/study-confirms-climate-models-are-getting-future-warming-projections-right/

Last edited 2 years ago by Matt B
rodney foy
rodney foy
2 years ago
Reply to  Gordon Welford

Here’s how, from “W.J.Witteman, The absorption of thermal emitted infrared radiation by CO2” covered in Principia Scientific International “The Much Misunderstood Climate Issue Of CO2 Infrared Absorption” https://principia-scientific.com/the-much-misunderstood-climate-issue-of-co2-infrared-absorption/

The executive summary is “some gases are potentially more effective than others at changing climate, and their relative effectiveness can be estimated Carbon dioxide has been responsible for over half the enhanced greenhouse effect in the past, and is likely to remain so in the future”.

The comments section is interesting, with arguments for and against. However, I strongly think manmade global heating is happening because we are seeing the effects as predicted

Matt B
Matt B
2 years ago
Reply to  rodney foy

We are. Even if man is ONLY adding to natural C02 rise, or other drivers of temp rise, as oil lobbyists long insisted, that too can tip us over a threshold to run-away impacts. And just because the world always carries on, and nature has seen ice-free periods before – but before man’s proliferation and current needs and preferences – it does not mean it would such a great idea to dive back into it. CO2 has never risen so fast. People should look much more at biodiversity loss, shifts and risks as proxies for the climate arguments they reject. These trends happen in tandem with other human stressors and the breaking of social-ecological resilience is already further reducing our adaptation options. The problems are here and now, not just ahead.
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2943/study-confirms-climate-models-are-getting-future-warming-projections-right/

Last edited 2 years ago by Matt B
Cheryl Jones
Cheryl Jones
2 years ago

Yeah the whole article reeked of intellectual pomposity.

Russell Hamilton
Russell Hamilton
2 years ago

One thing is for sure: being broken and remade rules out mere reformism. Reformism wouldn’t have kept Lear alive, and it won’t keep us alive either.”
What’s the record here? Do Pol Pot or Mao provide promising alternatives? I suspect that reformism is exactly what would see us through. The question is whether our political structures are no longer capable of effective, timely reform.
It’s kind of disappointing that someone who has been an academic for half a century apparently thinks that we humans can’t learn from the experiences of others. Do we all have to be tragic heroes, or can most of us, vicariously, through art, benefit from knowledge – without the personal annihilation of tragedy.

Adam Bartlett
Adam Bartlett
2 years ago

Excellent comment. Talking about art, the increase in disaster & post-apocalyptic type fiction this past 3 decades is likely part of why so many now see societal collapse as a real threat. Any just maybe can help provide the spur for the needed deep reforms that can get us through while retaining some of the benefits of technology, capitalism, and even liberal values.

Matt B
Matt B
2 years ago

Tbe lesson.of history is that we have not learnt ENOUGH from past events and people, and some of the people most remembering the lessons are often marginalised, and de jure or de facto destroyed.
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2943/study-confirms-climate-models-are-getting-future-warming-projections-right/

Last edited 2 years ago by Matt B
Hugh Eveleigh
Hugh Eveleigh
2 years ago

Good Lord – were this nonsense in any way verifiable it would be time to jump off the world. There is no climate crisis to the extent that the author considers there is. CO2 is not out of control. It is acceptable as it allows the world to grow more and thus feed everyone. Calm down. All the computer-modelled predictions coupled with MSM push have not happened. Climate is always changing and has done forever. World leaders who push for Zero – that is about what will be left of society as we understand it were it ever achieved. The UK government is unprepared to cope with winter energy demands as it has too little nuclear, no shale gas, is not willing to continue any North Sea gas exploring but delighted to push unreliable renewables. Today there is no wind and no sun – we cannot renew anything in such circumstances. Insulate homes by all means, reduce reliance on coal as well but have sufficient other resources to allow us to cook, keep warm and keep the economy going.

Matt B
Matt B
2 years ago
Reply to  Hugh Eveleigh

The world is round. It is quite hard to jump off. Even to satisfy anti-climate data arguments. The data in fact have undershot reality on many key metrics.
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2943/study-confirms-climate-models-are-getting-future-warming-projections-right/

Last edited 2 years ago by Matt B
Michael Coleman
Michael Coleman
2 years ago
Reply to  Matt B

Matt – thanks for the link. I had a good chuckle. The models (as shown in graph) predict between 0.0 C and 1.5C warming from 2000 to 2020 and they got it right!
And to top it off the graph in your link compares models to the GISTEMP temperature record, which is the most manipulated and inaccurate record, and is typically 50% higher trend than satellite and weather balloons

Cheryl Jones
Cheryl Jones
2 years ago

I think the human race has been TOO successful and now we need a cull because the number of useless people just making up the numbers has become unsustainable. The 4 Horsemen are hovering because nature always finds a way to bring over-rapacious species back into balance. Usually through extinction.

Matt B
Matt B
2 years ago
Reply to  Cheryl Jones

Which was the last species made extinct by ‘rapaciousness’? Please clarify the “useless” people – do you have any in mind? Moi?
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2943/study-confirms-climate-models-are-getting-future-warming-projections-right/

Last edited 2 years ago by Matt B
Franz Von Peppercorn
Franz Von Peppercorn
2 years ago
Reply to  Cheryl Jones

How would you define useless Cheryl. And why are you not (I presume) in that category.

Last edited 2 years ago by Franz Von Peppercorn
Martin Smith
Martin Smith
2 years ago

Meanwhile record harvests continue…

Matt B
Matt B
2 years ago
Reply to  Martin Smith
Last edited 2 years ago by Matt B
Zorro Tomorrow
Zorro Tomorrow
2 years ago

What a load of nonsense. Over 90% of the planet is given over to ocean, mountains, desert, ice and uninhabitable swamps. For all our language a van driver in Hull is no more in philosophical or cooperative contact with a tyre fitter in Oklahoma than a squirrel. If you take stock from Greece or Marx take a look at them now. A pleasant if bankrupt holiday area and a long dead witless scrounger who inadvertently killed many millions more than a bit of weather. In historical perspective we are 5 minutes off terraforming and settling Mars; or harnessing the power of the sun where energy shortages are forgotten. Look forward to the solutions rather than backwards at mythical or unhygenic pontificators who could not cope with a month of our times before their psyches exploded in bewilderment and confusion.

Matt B
Matt B
2 years ago
Reply to  Zorro Tomorrow

Wow. You captured the foaming spirit of many Unherd readers on climate issues, it seems. But is he so wrong on ALL points? Have you no imagination, or tolerance or wider views? Whilst few would disagree on Marx, your proposal is….O Zorro?
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2943/study-confirms-climate-models-are-getting-future-warming-projections-right/

Last edited 2 years ago by Matt B
Lindsay S
Lindsay S
2 years ago

I think it’s fair to say that the west is reaching a point of societal collapse however, just as with previous collapses, the end of the world is not nigh. Nature will re-establish itself and humans of the west will have to start again from the very bottom. Probably end up as slaves on eastern markets. Not a particularly rosy future but, as the saying goes, sh!t happens.

Cheryl Jones
Cheryl Jones
2 years ago
Reply to  Lindsay S

Evolution is mostly a numbers game. It is no coincidence that people like Erdogan instructed their people to move abroad, stay Turkish, have lots of babies, infiltrate the institutions, influence elections, gain power. I believe ISIS have a similar, if somewhat less peaceful version. Looking at the world’s populations, Europeans and the wider Anglosphere are not only vastly outnumbered on a global scale but also declining in their own territories. Numbers matter.

Matt B
Matt B
2 years ago
Reply to  Cheryl Jones

Have you even considered the climate signatures and faIled crops among the drivers of Syria’s war – and the consequent migration. Why do some many turn double somersaults to delink related trends that get in the way of a personal obsession?
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2943/study-confirms-climate-models-are-getting-future-warming-projections-right/

Last edited 2 years ago by Matt B
Michael Coleman
Michael Coleman
2 years ago

To avoid that, we shall need to renounce the urge to power and possession which driven us so far, and learn instead to live like the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. That means undoing an awfully long history, and history is what we mostly are made of.”
Fat chance! Each new proposed socialist utopia claims that it will be different than predecessors and avoid devolving into tyranny precisely because the proponents imagine that our species has evolved from our animal urges, biases, and desires, including the desire for power by those least suited to hold it.

George Stone
George Stone
2 years ago

Exactly right Michael, will mankind ever be able to give up our primeval instinct for tribalism and control of others. Who are these people? They hate the rich and powerful but only because they wish to be the same themselves. ‘Meet the new boss, same as the old boss’. All human institutions, political and religious, are worthless, but will never be rejected as far as I can see.

Jonathan Ellman
Jonathan Ellman
2 years ago

Eagleton, outsmarted by the ruling classes again; unaware that environmentalism, regardless of the reality of climate change, is primarily a means by which they intend to maintain control.

Matt B
Matt B
2 years ago
Last edited 2 years ago by Matt B
LCarey Rowland
LCarey Rowland
2 years ago

The one who counseled us to thrive as birds and lilies do–he presented to the world the most profound tragedy of all; but that dramatic Act demanded the dearest price of all. . . and thereby, this single human death rocked human history to its core, more than any other single human act; even so, in that hyper-tragic sacrifice, the advocate for birds and lilies brought forth our most precious triumph of all . . . the ultimate, Act V conquest of death itself, if you can believe it.

Alan Hawkes
Alan Hawkes
2 years ago

It is just the same with climate change, which nobody ever intended but which is the consequence of billions of individual acts.”
But not all acts of individuals are equal. We do not all live in democracies, in which, theoretically, the government is answerable to the voters.
If President Xi decides to let rip with producing energy from coal it’s not the actions of individual Chinese.
Most times, in our modern society, we are powerless, but may rage against our impotence by turning off a light, even if that act avails humanity nothing.

Richard Spira
Richard Spira
2 years ago

Surely there were salesmen in ancient Athens. The demagogue Cleon was memorably slapped by a sausage seller in Aristophanes’s The Knights.

Niobe Hunter
Niobe Hunter
2 years ago
Reply to  Richard Spira

Ssh,….you are showing him up

Franz Von Peppercorn
Franz Von Peppercorn
2 years ago

“ In order to build bridges and cathedrals, you also need to harness the power of Eros’s old enemy, Thanatos, or the death drive. The death drive for Freud is turned outwards and used to subjugate Nature.”

According to me Freud was talking nonsense. Why would any animal have a death wish, except when in extreme pain.

Dan Croitoru
Dan Croitoru
2 years ago

“According to me” you don’t exist

Franz Von Peppercorn
Franz Von Peppercorn
2 years ago
Reply to  Dan Croitoru

That’s nice Dan. Great work.

John Hicks
John Hicks
2 years ago

Similar to recent conclusion of the IPCC Special Report of extreme events being influenced by climate change, I too would also have “low confidence” in the accuracy and relevance of these associations being drawn by the visiting professor in this essay.

John Hicks
John Hicks
2 years ago
Reply to  Matt B

IPCC Special report 2021 noting observations of exposure, vulnerability, climate extremes, impacts and disaster losses, in assigning “low confidence” in many observed changes since 1950 data collection states: “Extreme events are rare…there are few data available . The more rare the event, the more difficult to identify changes…..There is low confidence in increases of cyclone activity, tornadoes and hail.” Etc.
The author takes “catastrophy” to lead us into “our tragic age”. “It is just the same with climate change,” he writes, “which nobody ever intended but is the consequence of billions of individual acts.” Really? Humans influencing magnetic fields and solar activity? Ah! must be that .04% gas in the atmosphere we fiddle with. Few data available. Low confidence.

Gavin Stewart-Mills
Gavin Stewart-Mills
2 years ago

It’s nice to see Terry Eagleton doesn’t make any more sense than he did 40 years ago.

robert stowells
robert stowells
2 years ago

“The good news is that free action to avert total collapse is still possible for us, if only just.”

Agree! We got Brexit done so there is still hope!

Last edited 2 years ago by robert stowells
Andrew Wise
Andrew Wise
2 years ago

Problem is the price of getting Brexit done is we now have a bunny hugging net zero enthusiast at the helm!
You can’t win them all

Martin Johnson
Martin Johnson
2 years ago

Mr Eagleton seems a very intelligent man, and he would do well to look in the mirror when he accuses others–many, many others–of hubris. He seems to think himself fully knowledgeable and expert in climate science, including the ability to make long-term predictions that nobody has been able to make with even a remote semblance of accuracy, and have a perfect knowledge of all the scientific and technological questions about not only what will happen, but why and what should be done about it, including tings that won’t happen for many decades. Plus the ability to understand deeply the needs and aspirations of 8 billion individuals now living, plus those yet to be born, again over many decades, so he knows the optimal solution to the problem that only he truly understands.
Hubris, indeed.
Climate is a matter that requires the most careful and unbiased analysis possible, and to the extent that analysis indicates problems, careful, incremental steps to address them, all done honestly and transparently and with broad participation. None of which has happened or seems about to happen. People like Mr Eagleton would be helpful in calling for that rather than letting themselves be manipulated into advancing the created hysteria and panic.
I try not to impute motives to people I do not know, especially base motives, but I really cannot help but wonder about someone who decries hubris while exhibiting it so starkly. The accusation is sometimes really projection.

Matt B
Matt B
2 years ago
Reply to  Martin Johnson

Whether Eagleton is expert or not in climate science is irrelevant to those who combine being un-expert, set against climate science, with being self-appointed professors in the art of telling anyone who IS even slightly knowledgeable that they understand nothing
.
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2943/study-confirms-climate-models-are-getting-future-warming-projections-right/

Last edited 2 years ago by Matt B
Brendan O'Leary
Brendan O'Leary
2 years ago

Greater wealth and prosperity has proved to be the only set of conditions that result in reduced birth rates – and also concern for the environment.
Turning our back on prosperity would be disastrous.

Matt B
Matt B
2 years ago

It’s true. But it comes late in the game, post-facto. The problem is there already. Had it been a clean trajectory all would be well. But it’s not. There’s track sweeping to be done as well as taking the cleaner development path forward. Not China’s. Both require action. Sorry.

Last edited 2 years ago by Matt B
rodney foy
rodney foy
2 years ago
Reply to  Matt B

Well put. The world population is likely to peak well after 2050, and probably not until 2100 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projections_of_population_growth

Matt B
Matt B
2 years ago

Nice article. The destruction of biodiversity and critical linkages within the tree of life that go beyond species Red Lists is tragic – and we are all Napoleons in that vain campaign I guess. The windows of opportunity described in social-ecological systems complex science need to be explored to promote a rapid evolution of adaptive planetary responses to climate and envt change. This is hard. Beyond data gaps are the challenges of cross-time/scale decion-making – and issues of distribution and sacrifice between adversaries. Watch COP. The answer will have to be partly attitudinal and personal. We can’t all be abstemious monks without a new sustainable economic model to preserve our gains while better respecting planetary boundaries; and tech won’t answer all our prayers alone either. Somewhere between these ‘religions’ lie answers. There are real risks of quack science and quack messiahs along the way. But to say there is no moral/spiritual or some such aspect to meaningful global change is likely wishful thinking. Inspirations have to be found – from many sources. The better ones will help catalyse a wider enduring solution.

Last edited 2 years ago by Matt B
Bruce Metzger
Bruce Metzger
2 years ago

A thoughtful wide-angle view of that which is, despite one comment by Cheryl claiming the article is pomposity. I take the article for its all encompassing view of reality to understand ourselves better and where we are going.

Matt B
Matt B
2 years ago
Reply to  Bruce Metzger

Yes it has its place too!

Niobe Hunter
Niobe Hunter
2 years ago

Judging from the state of my garden, a squirrel doesn’t need a weapon of mass destruction to create havoc and devastation, he can do very nicely all on his own.

Matt B
Matt B
2 years ago
Reply to  Niobe Hunter

But he hasn’t, beyond the garden. My lawn too suffers. But I created that “desert”.

Last edited 2 years ago by Matt B
Carmel Shortall
Carmel Shortall
2 years ago

Oh God! Not THE GREEKS again…!

Matt B
Matt B
2 years ago

Who then?

Dan Croitoru
Dan Croitoru
2 years ago

Who do you recommend? The “Toddlers” ?

John Riordan
John Riordan
2 years ago

“One of the ancient Greeks’ deepest fears is of hubris — the pride or presumption which leads you to overreach yourself and bring yourself to nothing. When the citizens of Thebes or Athens observed such arrogance they trembled and looked fearfully to the skies, aware that it would have its comeuppance. A species which dominates and destroys its natural habitat in the name of power and acquisition is now reaping the fruits of its overreaching.”

I got this far and stopped. We are not in fact destroying our natural habitat, we are improving it. And it is worth reminding the author that the “natural” habitat in which our ancestors lived was brutally indifferent to their prospects of survival, to the point of appearing so hostile at times that the mythology of angry supernatural beings was routinely invented independently multiple times as a means of making sense of that brutality.

Modern life is a triumph: man’s story of escape from subsistence is the greatest story of them all. One day, when we have colonised more planets and life on earth is no longer beholden to the accidental temporary absence of comet strikes, solar flares and stellar-mass collapses near enough to irradiate the whole solar system, I hope our descendants will one day read depressing stuff like this article and laugh at us.

Last edited 2 years ago by John Riordan
Dave Corby
Dave Corby
2 years ago

“It’s the same with the Christian idea of original sin, which means that we are sinful but not responsible for it.”
Ummm – no. Adam brought sin into the world – however when we sin we do it deliberately, by our own choice, and it is completely our own responsibility.
If it was not our responsibility then we would not be building a personal debt that we personally need to ask Jesus to take to the cross. Only then can we be seen as righteous and live at peace here and later with our Father in heaven.

Alka Hughes-Hallett
Alka Hughes-Hallett
2 years ago

Fantastic article. Much of it I have been thinking about too recently.

The Sapiens have destroyed our other Human species ( perhaps like Neanderthal or Australopithecus etc) and as such we have created a myriad of biological and psychological problems for ourselves. Our sole existence has led to heightened self importance. We see our consciousness as superior in-fact supreme & the act of destruction & therefore supremacy over other species both on physical and psychological level has given us a god complex. Hence most religions regard human life as sacred. It’s about self preservation.

This then leads to hubris and a false sense of resilience. We probably have only been around for maybe less than 100000 yrs mostly with other homo species till around 30-40000 yrs till we wiped them out. It’s not that long at all.

Now , bound by our nature and our biological calling, some of us are warring with each other, but as a humanity we are certainly at war with the earth itself and its ability to sustain us. Hence the call to seek and colonise other worlds . Perhaps our desire to survive and spread is so strong and unshakable that all means are being exploited to achieve that. Even if it means re-engineering ourselves.

We cannot help ourselves. It’s no ones fault. Like the author says. It’s no one’s fault yet it is everyone’s. It’s our fate.

Last edited 2 years ago by Alka Hughes-Hallett
Matt B
Matt B
2 years ago

A lot of truth too. We almost can’t help it – and yet we could. They are points for consideration even if not acceptance. So when comments like yours get down-ticked just for acknowledging the gloomy side to this – which can be a spur to action – it’s time to head out of Unherd. The sub-text of so much comment posted on climate subjects boils down to anti-all-science, miserable views of others and a blind faith in one’s own opinion (the very traits attributed by such people to the experts, scientists, migrants or whatever they dislike). It should be a more neutral issue but for some it can ONLY be political and damn the data. It’s so odd that apparent Conservatives seem not to want to conserve, but preserve themselves in aspic instead.

Last edited 2 years ago by Matt B
Matt B
Matt B
2 years ago
Reply to  Matt B

It would be a shame, but on some topics there is some oddly zany and worrying comment. I am always struck by how far left and far right opinion meets with no gap at 12 o’clock. Hate experts (re-educate), hate people (cull). Yawn. Why conservatives not seized envt and conservation issues beats me, but perhaps some of the red wall is stepping up! Houchen?

Last edited 2 years ago by Matt B
rodney foy
rodney foy
2 years ago
Reply to  Matt B

I can understand conservatives not wanting to accept global heating and covid health measures, because that ideology is against the behavioural changes that both require. Conserving the environment and health is only possible if freedoms can also be conserved. We end up with magic thinking that technology and the markets will get us out of trouble.

If you are saying that the far left is also against the environment and conservation (maybe you didn’t mean that), then I need to do some further thinking

Last edited 2 years ago by rodney foy
RALPH TIFFIN
RALPH TIFFIN
2 years ago

Unherd is indeed doomed unless it finds a purpose other than as an outlet for commentating bores.

Matt B
Matt B
2 years ago
Reply to  RALPH TIFFIN

He’s proving the point.