By John Wiseman
The questions and ideas explored in this book have been informed by many hundreds of conversations with family, friends, and colleagues about hope and courage, meaning and purpose, wisdom and action in an increasingly harsh and threatening climate. Some of my earliest conversations back in 2005 were with climate scientists. Here, they said, have a close look at these graphs. Look at how fast these emissions are rising and how fast the ice is melting. And if you find our data a little dry, we suggest you watch this hurricane forming in the Gulf of Mexico. Katrina, it’s called. Hurricane Katrina.
The images of families stranded on the rooves of their flooded homes as rising water surged through New Orleans were certainly confronting. As were the thousands of deaths from the unprecedented European heatwaves of 2006 and 2007. The 2007 IPCC 4th Assessment report confirms the role of human activity in triggering catastrophic climate tipping points. Cyclone Nargis sweeping through Bangladesh and Myanmar in 2008, killing over 100,000 people. Then in February 2009, far closer to home, the searing, 45-degree heat of Black Saturday with bushfires roaring through the hills and towns just north of Melbourne. OK, I agreed, climate action was clearly an urgent priority and an essential basis for handing on to our grandchildren a world at least as full of opportunities as the planet full of wonders on which I have been fortunate enough to be born. If we did not take decisive action by 2015 – perhaps 2020 at the latest – we would surely be in deep trouble.
My questions at that time were focused most of all on the possibility of swift and decisive action. Did we have the technological and financial capacity to reduce emissions at the scale and speed required to prevent catastrophic climate change? The answer to this question was clearly yes—renewable energy from the sun and wind replacing coal and gas and oil. Energy efficiency and electrification are driving down energy demand and emissions from our cars and industries, and houses. Regenerative farming and low carbon land use. The news all seemed extremely positive, with the cost of all these possibilities falling at remarkable speed. Except, of course, that emissions kept rising, global temperatures kept increasing, and the storms and floods and fires kept getting worse.
The focus of my conversations began to shift from technological and financial to social and political challenges and obstacles. How could we avoid being overwhelmed and paralyzed as we came to fully understand the wealth and power of the mining, media, and finance corporations fueling and driving the politics of climate action denial and delay? And how could we align strategies for overcoming injustice and oppression with the actions and timetables required to achieve emergency speed emission reductions? The responses from climate activists, scientists, and policymakers were again remarkably consistent. Visionary and courageous leadership. Skillful communication of the most rigorous scientific evidence. The election of governments firmly committed to swift and decisive action. Massive, broadly based citizen mobilization and civil disobedience. Disruptive divestment and transformational technological and social innovation.
All of these ideas and strategies will surely continue to make crucial contributions to further accelerating the transition to a just and resilient zero-carbon economy. None of them have, however, yet triggered transformational change at sufficient speed and scale. Global temperature increases of 4 degrees, and more are rapidly coming into view. So now that we have arrived in this age of consequences, we face another daunting question. What sources of wisdom and insight can strengthen our capacity to take courageous and effective action and to live meaningful and creative lives in a world of rapidly accelerating climatic and ecological risks?
There are times, in reflecting on my responses to this question and in visualizing the content of this book, when I imagine all the friends and colleagues; scientists and activists; teachers and writers; poets and artists whose ideas and voices I have drawn on gathered together in respectful and intense debate. All the speakers are passionate and well-informed; the conversations spark and crackle with fierce, urgent energy.
I turn first to my friends and colleagues from Indigenous and First Nation communities. We might usefully begin, they note, by remembering and honouring the histories of the lands on which we gather, the stories of our people and the legacies of colonialism and dispossession which have led us to this place. Climate justice is, therefore, one of the first propositions we should bring to the table. For the principle of climate justice to be more than hollow words, we will need to see substantive actions which fully acknowledge and address the sources and consequences of violence and injustice. Principles and practices of care, compassion, and respect will also be foundational: care and respect for the country, for all the creatures with whom we share this world; and for all the human beings who will follow after us.
While acknowledging the wisdom of this opening contribution my colleagues from the world of science and technology; approach the question from another direction. We would like, they say to foreground the power of scientific evidence analyzed through rigorous research and knowledge crystallized from data in the crucible of critical reason. Speaking truth to power with honesty and skill about the causes and consequences of the threats we face and the actions we need to take to overcome them. All of this sounds eminently reasonable. But how I wonder do they maintain their own emotional resilience in facing tough truths about the future which their evidence tells them is increasingly likely? Here the responses are more complicated and more varied. Remembering and trusting in the disruptive, game-changing power of ingenuity, creativity, and innovation is sometimes enough. And also dancing, meditation, art, and music; working together in the garden; the kindness, warmth, and joy of family and friends; walking the old dog by the ocean, watching the horizon as the waves keep rolling in.
My climate activist friends seem less convinced by the promise and power of reason and innovation. Listen to science and accelerate technological innovation. Of course. There are indeed many impressive examples of the human capacity for creativity and inventiveness to overcome disease and hunger, suffering, and injustice. But how do we deploy data and evidence and reason with the speed and skill required to accelerate just and inclusive emission reduction strategies while avoiding the delusional hubris that there are always technical solutions to every problem? The historical examples that my activist colleagues turn to most of all for encouragement and inspiration are stories of solidarity and fellowship, comradeship and reciprocity where ethically informed collective action has achieved transformational change, which once looked completely impossible: the anti-slavery movement, the Suffragettes, the overthrow of Apartheid, the fall of the Berlin Wall. More recently, School Strike 4 Climate, Pacific Climate Warriors, Extinction Rebellion, The Sunrise Movement, and Black Lives Matter. And also, crucially the struggles of Indigenous peoples in Australia and New Zealand, Canada and the United States, Bolivia and Brazil for land rights, Justice, and self-determination.
I am joined then by teachers and scholars from a wide array of spiritual and faith-based traditions and perspectives. The first foundational steps they suggest in times of suffering and despair are thankfulness and gratitude. Honouring and celebrating the astonishing, complex beauty of life on earth is an abiding source of strength and inspiration. Awareness and understanding of the fragile impermanence of our dewdrop world is also a constant reminder of our shared responsibility to keep paying attention, to keep turning up, to hold the line, and to keep nurturing and sustaining relationships and practices of kindness and compassion; Justice, love, and care.
I turn finally to the critical theorists and writers, artists and designers who can help us imagine and create the ecologically informed paradigms and practices of resilience and regeneration we will need to navigate the wild landscapes of the long emergency. Good companions who can help us to more clearly see the patterns and textures of our interwoven world and to understand and confront the ignorance, violence, and greed threatening to tear this delicate fabric apart. Experienced guides who can assist us make well-informed and well-considered choices about pathways we should choose and places we should land. Thoughtful teachers who can help us learn the art of living well in dangerous, uncertain times, remembering that the world is always full of surprises and the future is never entirely settled.
These then are some of the ideas and insights, strategies, and practices which help me answer the questions I have set myself. What sources of wisdom can strengthen our capacity to take courageous and effective action and to live meaningful lives in a world of rapidly accelerating climatic and ecological risks? Emergency speed, science-based collective action. Justice and care; respect and reciprocity. Reason, ingenuity, and technology.
Attentiveness and thankfulness, kindness, and compassion. Joyfulness and beauty; creativity and imagination. And also these abiding gifts: the laughter of children; the comfort of old friends; sunlight on the water; the wind in the trees; the silence of mountains; the roar of the ocean.
