My official policy on book recommendations is, briefly: you will find it worthwhile or I’ll refund your money. [stderr] I note that nobody has ever taken me up on that offer in many years (I had a similar offer on my personal website before I started stderr here) so either my recommendations are awesome, or nobody cares. And, my official recommended books list, with this new entry, is [stderr]
This is climate change as beautiful literature. It’s also a very important perspective on the topic, being non-US-centric and therefore non-imperialist. Writing from the perspective of a novelist, Ghosh starts out by asking “why isn’t there more climate change fiction”? It seems to me that the answer is pretty obvious: other than preppers and fascism-leaning American gun nuts and computer programmers who want to imagine the collapse of civilization – it’s just not a very good story.
It’s a lead-in to some very profound thinking about climate change and what it means and will mean. Some of what Ghosh has to say is terrifying in its implications. It’s beautiful and devastating. I can’t think of any other way to describe it. I consumed the audiobook version, and the narrator’s voice is soothing and gentle as he tells you all this really thought-provoking and fear-inducing stuff. Ghosh doesn’t just talk about the simple stuff like how much the water is going to rise; he looks at the problem inherent in any effective response to climate change: it will require a re-factoring of the global distribution of power. Put that way, it’s obviously true, and the implications are a whole lot worse than the implication that Miami will look like Venice, someday soon.
The maintenance of dominance outweighed any other imperative of governance, and it was toward these ends that statecraft was primarily oriented. When seen through this prism it does not seem at all improbable that certain organs of state, particularly the security establishment, would adopt an approach that is quite different from that of the domestic political sphere. Global warming is unique, after all, in that it is simultaneously a domestic and global crisis. A bifurcation of responses is only to be expected. Nor is it conceivable that institutions of governance in any contemporary nation could be indifferent to global warming. For, if it is the case that buyer politics is central to the mission of modern governments, as Michel Foucault argued, then climate change represents a crisis of unprecedented magnitude for their practices of governance. To ignore this challenge would run counter to the evolutionary path of the modern nation-state. Moreover, the climate crisis holds the potential of drastically re-ordering the global distribution of power as well as wealth. This is because the nature of the carbon economy is such that power, no less than wealth, is largely dependent on the consumption of fossil fuels. The world’s most powerful countries are also also oil-states, Timothy Mitchell notes, and without the energy they derive from oil, their current forms of political and economic life would not exist, nor would they continue to occupy their present positions in the global ranking of power.
This being the case, if the emissions of some countries were to be curbed, or the emissions of others were allowed to rise, then this would lead inevitably to a re-distribution of global power. It is certainly no coincidence that the increase in consumption of fossil fuels in China and India has already brought about an enormous change in their international influence. These realities cast a light of their own on the question of climate justice. That justice should be aspired to is widely agreed; it could hardly be otherwise since this ideal lies at the heart of all contemporary claims of political legitimacy. How such an end could be reached is also well-known – an equitable regime of emissions could be created through any one of many strategies such as contraction and convergence, for instance, or a per capita climate accord. Or, a fair apportioning of the world’s remaining climate budget. But, the resulting equity would lead not just to a re-distribution of wealth, but to a re-calibration of global power and from the point of view of a security establishment that is oriented toward the maintenance of global dominance this is precisely the scenario that is most greatly to be feared.
From this perspective, the continuance of the status quo is the most desirable of outcomes. Seen in this light, climate change is not a danger in itself, it is envisaged as a threat-multiplier that will deepen already existing divisions and lead to the intensification of a range of conflicts. How will the security establishments of the west respond to these threat perceptions? In all likelihood they will resort to the strategy that Christian Parenti calls “the politics of the armed lifeboat” – a posture that combines preparations for open-ended counter-insurgency, militarized borders, and aggressive anti-immigrant policing. The tasks of the nation-state under these circumstances will be keeping blood-thinned tides of climate refugees at bay and protecting their own resources. In this world-view, humanity has not only declared a war against itself, but is locked into mortal combat with The Earth.
The outlines of an armed lifeboat scenario can already be discerned in the response of the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia to the Syrian refugee crisis. They have accepted very few migrants even though the problem is partly of their own making. The adoption of this strategy might even represent the logical combination of the bio-political mission of the modern nation-state, since it is a strategy that conceives of the preservation of the body of the nation in the most literal sense, via reinforcement of boundaries that are seen to be under threat from the infiltration of the pathological bare life that is spilling over from other nations. The trouble, however, is that the contagion has already occurred, everywhere. The ongoing changes in the climate and the perturbations that they will cause within nations cannot be held at bay be reinforcing man-made boundaries. We are in an era where the body of the nation can no longer be conceived of as consisting only of a territorialized human population. Its very sinews are now revealed to be intertwined with forces that cannot be confined by boundaries.
I like how he doesn’t explicitly predict that the dominant nations are going to adopt the armed lifeboat strategy; he leaves it as obvious that they are already doing so, and the consequences are going to be what they are going to be.
For the last few years I have been increasingly aware of the fact that the US government’s strategy on climate change has been to keep doing business as usual, but making some effort to hide that fact. Action, I used to think, would come only after it’s thoroughly too late but now I wonder if it will come at all.
This is the first book I’ve read on the topic that wraps imperialism into the picture. Imperialism which must, obviously, be part of the history – but for some reason the US and other countries prefer to talk about this whole thing as if it’s some kind of unfortunate series of decisions someone made (not that someone made, realizing that oil was the easiest and most portable and pumpable form of energy to power a navy) (That was Winston Churchill’s big strategic idea) It’s obvious once you think of it and I’m embarrassed that I did not.
If it is the case that the climate crisis was precipitated by mainland Asia’s embrace of the dominant mechanisms of the world economy, then the critical question in the history of the anthropocene is this: why did the most populous countries of Asia industrialize late in the 20th century and not before? Strangely, this question is almost never explicitly posed in accounts of the history of global warming, yet these histories do often offer an implicit answer to the question of why the non-western world was slow to enter the carbon economy. It is simply that the technologies that created this economy, e.g.: the spinning jenny and the steam engine, were invented in England and were therefore inaccessible to much of the world. In this view, industrialization comes about through a process of technological diffusion that radiates outward from the west. This narrative is, of course, consistent with the history of global warming over the 19th and 20th centuries when the carbon-intensive economies of the west pumped greenhouse gases into the atmosphere at ever-accelerating rates. It is therefore perfectly accurate to say as Anil Agarawal and Sunita Narain did in their seminal 1991 essay on climate justice [oxford] that the accumulation in the atmosphere of greenhouse gases is mainly the result of the gargantuan consumption of developed countries, particularly the US. Yet these truths should not lead us to overlook the fact that this economy had a very complicated prehistory. Before the advent of the carbon intensive economy the populations of the old world were not divided by vast gaps in technology. For millenia, trade connections were close enough to ensure that innovations in thought and technique were transmitted quite rapidly over long distances. Even deep long-term historical processes unfolded at roughly the same time in places far removed from each other. Vernacularization of languages is an example of one such.
[source] 2005 flooding in Mumbai killed over 1,000 people
What we have learned from this experiment is that the patterns of life that modernity engenders can only be practiced by a small minority of the world’s population. Asia’s historical experience demonstrates that our planet will not allow these patterns of living to be adopted by every living human being. Every family in the world can not have 2 cars, a washing machine, and a refrigerator. Not because of technical or economic limitations, but because humanity would asphyxiate in the process. It is Asia, then, that has torn the mask from the phantom that lured it onto the stage of the Great Derangement, but only to recoil in horror at its own handiwork. Its shock is such that it dare not even name what it has beheld, but having entered this stage it is trapped, like everyone else. All it can say to the chorus that is waiting to receive it is, “but you promised, and we believed you.”
Ghosh slides back and forth between literary history, the history of some of the great cities in India, and humanity’s literary response to climate change. If I kept extracting the good bits, this posting would be the whole book. One part, I could not find again, is a brief little vignette in which Ghosh describes the writing of one of the climate accords – dozens of pages of technically correct English comprising only three complete sentences and a whole lot of semi-colons. He also talks about Mumbai and Kolkata, which were (I did not know this!) built on island archipelagos that have since been merged and filled in. They are one direct hit from a cyclone away from unthinkable mass casualty events. Here in the US we are familiar with the tremendous whining that we send to the skies when New York City flooded, but haven’t spared a thought for cities with 11 million inhabitants. At least they have some public transportation, assuming there’s enough time to warn people to evacuate. In 2005 the public transportation flooded out and people died.
One other little moment in the book that stuck with me was a little comment Ghosh threw aside in passing, to the effect that if we were serious about our response to climate change, the US would try to talk the Chinese and Indians into shutting down coal plants but if they did not, the US should shut down a coal plant for every new one the Indians build. It’s an absurd idea, really, but it’s actually not – which, I suppose, is the point.
I read the text version, and absorbed the audiobook through multiple listenings. The audiobook is also excellent; the narration is crisp and comprehensible with a slight Indian British accent.
US politicians’ response to global warming will probably consist mostly of attacking Greta Thunberg.
I never understood why anyone would think for a second that the US would do shit about climate change. Why bother? All that matters is that when the effects bite, whoever (a) has the most guns and (b) literally prints the standard money, wins. Whereas doing something about climate change can only mean reducing the US standard of living. Why would ANY US politician even suggest it?
@#1
Well, there is the fact that climate change will damage the US along with everyone else, regardless of military or economic power. It is true, though, that doing something serious about climate change means reduction in some aspects of standard of living, and talking about that tends to be deadly for politicians. That problem, though, is hardly unique to the US. Serious action on climate change means some reduction in standard of living for people throughout the wealthier parts of the world, and for the less wealthy areas it means that they will probably never be able to have the standard of living that the wealthier regions had at their peak wealth. Those are terribly bitter pills to swallow, and I can understand why many people would rather deny or delay when faced with them.
Note: the earth has experienced one nuclear war so far, and the US won that. As our host is lately frequently pointing out, even a cursory analysis of the current mode of deployment demonstrates handily that now that other people have nuclear weapons, making the previous kind of victory (hitting an already-all-but-defeated opponent in a civilian target, aka obvious war-crime) impossible, the strategy is to commit to first-strike capability, rather than deterrence.
If you have, over the course of decades, only ever had leaders who subscribe to the idea that you can win a nuclear war as long as you start it properly, why would you think any of those leaders would give two shits about pocket change like millions of deaths from heatstroke/starvation/floods/whatever? They’re actively planning on the best way to vapourise at least that number of people and spending unauditable amounts of money making sure the equipment to do so is fully up to date. Thinking they’re going to lay off burning coal is like thinking an alcoholic millionaire who just bought a chain of pubs is just attracted by the investment opportunity.
Nonsense. It’ll damage some of the people of the US – poor ones, mainly. Disproportionately minorities, obvs. Nobody the leadership or most of the electorate gives two shits about, in other words. The people who matter to the government are going to be mostly fine, definitely comparatively and possible overall.
@4
Good example of an evidence-free assertion.
… Seriously, do you really think that being well off (in the US or anywhere else) gives magic immunity to weather and climate disasters? All it does is give you more property and stuff to be damaged.
sonofrojblake@#1:
Whereas doing something about climate change can only mean reducing the US standard of living. Why would ANY US politician even suggest it?
There may come a time when the other countries of the world say loudly, “we wish we had thrown in with the USSR and nuked the US off the map while we had the chance.” But I’m not sure that there was ever a chance. Nuclear weapons are such a destabilizing technology that whoever gets them first gets to run the table on everyone else, unless they are met with a concerted push to contain them. Unfortunately for the world, the US was able to loop the usual left-over empires into forming a world-dominating clique and now it has the ability to successfully win a first strike war against the whole planet. Nobody’s going to tell the US what to do.
@springa73, 5&6:
Not “magic immunity”, no…
Up to a point, yes, sure. But you’re thinking too small – it’s a common fault among the peasants. Being well off enough doesn’t just mean you’ve got “property” and “stuff”, it means you’ve got power – specifically the power, if where you’re currently sitting gets too hot/cold/wet/whatever, but you can see somewhere else to sit that looks more inviting, you can simply go sit there instead and tell whomever might have been sitting there before to fuck off and die. And there’s always going to be somewhere that looks more inviting, and there’s always going to be somebody with enough money and guns to decide that that place is theirs now, and would anyone here bet that that person isn’t talking with an American accent?
I mean, I concede that all of the above is an assertion, but it’s hardly “evidence-free” – the US has created the conditions for this to be their strategy in the coming decades. Military bases all over the planet? Check. Huge flotillas of nuclear powered and armed ships for force projection? Check. Fundamental control of the global economy because the de facto standard currency is the one issued by the US? Check. Would you bet against that stuff being used with extreme prejudice to protect US interests when things start getting ugl
yier?The US is closing down coal plants as fast as we can replace their capacity. Locally we still have three, all of which are scheduled for retirement. We retired a few early too, one due to unexpected exploding bits taking out a whole unit in a test run.
https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/slated-retirements-to-cut-us-coal-fleet-to-less-than-half-2015-capacity-by-2035-65741012
sonofrojblake@#8:
Being well off enough doesn’t just mean you’ve got “property” and “stuff”, it means you’ve got power – specifically the power, if where you’re currently sitting gets too hot/cold/wet/whatever, but you can see somewhere else to sit that looks more inviting, you can simply go sit there instead and tell whomever might have been sitting there before to fuck off and die.
When Trump was talking about buying Greenland from Sweden I couldn’t help but wonder if the great orange orangoutan wasn’t blabbing about very classified stuff from national security council meetings. Like, “what if we make Sweden an offer they can’t refuse?” (I know it’s not theirs but it doesn’t matter if the claim is good it matters if it’s defensible) Meanwhile, the DoD is definitely preparing to square off against Russia for arctic land. If I were the suspicious type I’d think that the US’ consistent pressure on Russia is to keep them occupied so that they can’t make a credible land-grab to the north.
Hmm, I guess we repaired the Sherco #3 unit that experienced catastrophic failure, and retired the Becker unit early. The remaining plant is slated to be retired early in 2030, which should cut our carbon emissions by 60%. Our target is 100% by 2050. Not fast enough IMO.
From the wiki on Sherco:
Tethys@#9:
The US is closing down coal plants as fast as we can replace their capacity.
Yes, and that’s a great thing. It appears the economists were right – scaling up solar and wind lowered the costs past the point where coal is attractive. (since continuing to depend on coal means being subject to the inevitable price surge)
@Marcus: Interesting book, thanks for the write-up.
sonofrojblake @8
In regard to the huge military that the US has, my personal view is that it is less a result of a plan for world domination than the result of a series of specific historical events and trends – the US learning to project power globally during WWII, followed by what I tend to think of as a moral panic during the early Cold War, in which US leaders took a real Soviet threat and exaggerated it further and became convinced that only a huge permanent military could save the country. Once a huge military became part of the US government bureaucracy, economy, and even culture, there were so many parties interested in perpetuating it that it became very difficult to scale it back, and once the Cold War ended, the machine went looking for new enemies to justify itself.
As to whether the US will use its military to directly seize land and resources during a period of conflict caused by climate change, I simply don’t know. Direct conquest and seizure of land and raw materials have become a lot less common than they were up to the mid-20th century, so I tend to think that the US, like other major powers, will continue to rely on twisting the arms of weaker nations’ governments to get favorable deals for US businesses rather than directly conquering them. In the last 20 years, the US sought to impose friendly governments in Afghanistan and Iraq, not to annex them or use them as places for Americans to settle – and of course failed at even that more limited objective. There are lots of limits to the power and ambition of even the US.
spronga73@#14:
In regard to the huge military that the US has, my personal view is that it is less a result of a plan for world domination than the result of a series of specific historical events and trends – the US learning to project power globally during WWII, followed by what I tend to think of as a moral panic during the early Cold War, in which US leaders took a real Soviet threat and exaggerated it further and became convinced that only a huge permanent military could save the country.
I kind of agree but I prefer Noam Chomsky’s spin on it – that in WW2 and with the Manhattan Project and missile/space race, the US developed an approach of “juicing” fundamental research and aligning it with the military by using military spending to shape the economy. There were, indeed, massive spinoffs from the nuclear/space/military aircraft race, etc. so the US developed a socialist command economy to deliver pork to its constituents. At this point, I think Chomsky is right – if the US cut back military spending its economy might implode. Basically, it’s the USSR writ larger because the fundamental economy the military/industrial complex is parasitizing is fundamentally strong and it’ll take a while to kill.
When Trump was talking about buying Greenland from Sweden I couldn’t help but wonder if the great orange orangoutan wasn’t blabbing about very classified stuff from national security council meetings.
Firstly, that is an insult to orangutans everywhere, and secondly, Greenland goes with Lego, not with Ikea.