We live in an age of multiple Earth crises including, but certainly not limited to, loss of abundance and diversity of life, unfathomable scale of pollution, and accelerating climate change. The scientific understanding of these Earth crises is developing very fast, as are parallel cultural reflections and political developments that respond to unfolding events. The world is becoming unpredictable and new ways of thinking are occurring in multiple fields of knowledge. How can one make sense of what is going on, when long-held ways of understanding the world and even the nature of what were in a previous age thought of as known facts are now disputed? This week we will reflect on the changing perception of nature in the modern era, but also on the role of culture and language to capture and express processes that exceed human experience.
In order to understand these processes we need to look into the environmental history of several last centuries, to better understand the forces that shape our world, in terms of ideas, practices, and ideologies.
As a point of departure for our discussion we will read a recent book On Time and Water by Andri Snaer Magnason, who invites us to think about how we experience time, and how we experience forces that are not always tangible to our senses, yet profoundly transform the world in which we live. In his writing he is also addressing the question how we experience and relate to time in the age when ‘the geological time is beginning to move at the speed of human time’. This will enable us to better engage with some of the challenges of being alive in a time of Earth crises.
To complement this perspective we will also read texts by Pierre Charbonnier, who focuses on the modernist ideas of freedom and affluence, and explores how these have shaped modernity and transfigured our relationship to the living world. We will look into how the separation between humans and nature is linked to the ideas of progress, as well as to the process of industrialization, and examine the assumptions behind the ideologies that hold the environmental degradation as an inevitable price of progress, and of human liberation.
readings
Andri Snaer Magnason. On Time and Water
The god in the steam engine (189-206)
Just more words (207-219)
See the blue sea (220-248)
Maybe everything will be all right (249-260)
Pierre Charbonnier. Affluence and Freedom. An Environmental History of Political Ideas.
Introduction (1-6)
Chapter 1 – The Critique of Ecological Reason (1-29)
Chapter 11 – Self-protection of the Earth (237-258)
Conclusion: Reinventing Liberty (259-264)
questions for discussion
How did reading the book On Time and Water make you feel?
In the chapters selected for you, Andri Magnason details in harsh detail the horror of climate change and ocean acidification, all facts that we should all know already – and yet it seems people are doing little to avert disaster. In a radio interview, Magnason talked about the difficulty of writing about climate change. He noted that when he told his friends that he was going to write a book about climate change they all looked bored and switched off, but if he said he was going to write a book about time and water, everybody became really interested. Do you think he has succeeded in writing a gripping book about how best to position yourself in this world of climate disruption and environmental degradation?
How has he tried to do this? In this book – which is about many things – he tries to convey to the reader a sense of time, of personal time, as a tool to help with understanding the profound changes and threats we have to face up to. Has this worked for you personally? Would you able to say how?
Andri Magnason’s skilled use of poetry, mythology, and storytelling breaks down obfuscating terms like ‘climate change’ and ‘ocean acidification’ into ones that we can understand, sit with, and then truly let sink into us. After reading the text, if you were to now try to explain these terms to your young nephew or niece or someone who has never heard of them before, how would you go about it?
How we talk about environmental destruction matters – Andri Magnason has written: “If one characterises our time, it is the struggle over words, the power to define the world and its economy, the power to report and shape the news.” (p. 207). How do you experience that yourself? How would you talk to friends who might want to not engage with the frightening reality of environmental breakdown? What words and phrases might engage people with climate change and overconsumption better? And what words and phrases would turn you – and others – off from thinking about climate change and environmental destruction?
What do you think is the role of social media in how people think about climate change? (e.g the way social media amplify the messages you want to hear – see p. 208). What do you think might be the role of other big actors such as the oil industry in shaping how we think about climate change?
One of the things that Magnason emphasises with his focus on personal time is intergenerational justice: if the current generation doesn’t pay for what we are doing to the environment, then future generations will have to. As he writes “We have made life easy in the present by sacrificing unborn children in the future.” (p. 200) Do you think he is right about that? Why or why not?
Is this a useful way of thinking? How do you feel about the generation of your parents (and perhaps you yourself) taking so much from the world that your children will have to sort out the mess and do without? Do you think Magnason sets a good example? (In the book he seems to be continually flying all over the world!)
“Someone who is twenty today could know and love another human who will still be alive in the year 2160.” (p. 259) The author provides this reason for us to care about our actions today. How is it, though, that many of us still live in nihilistic apathy/resignation towards the Earth’s future? What do you think could be a trigger to switch mindsets?
Andri Magnason looks at the argument that there has always been change, that everything will die, so why fight it? To attempt to preserve anything is futile. Do you agree with such a position? What do you think future generations will think of you doing nothing to avert the environmental breakdown they will have to live with?
In Britain we have ‘Just stop Oil’, a protest group that takes direct action such as blocking motorways as a way of highlighting the need to stop using oil. What do you think of such actions?
What would it take for you to live in such a way that future generations can enjoy a similar quality of life as we currently do, but without the superpower of oil?
Do you have anything you love doing, but it is ‘nature-unfriendly’ and you know it?
Do you have anything in your daily life that’s indispensable for you, but it is ‘unfriendly’ to nature?
Now, is it really indispensable?
Do you have any tips or things you do differently that can help us reduce our daily CO2 footprint, and mitigate the pollution and environmental degradation our lifestyle causes?
Pierre Charbonnier examines the ‘material’ and ‘energy’ aspects of our freedom. What are his thoughts on the link between affluence and liberty?
What is your own understanding of this link, both in historical sense, and in your way of life?
How do you understand the tension between the desire for liberation and material abundance, and the ecological limits of the planet?
We often treat the planet and its ‘resources’ as infinite, and therefore free to be taken and used without constraints. How does the concept of justice in terms of fairness of distribution of resources change when we taken into consideration the ecological limits?
Pierre Charbonnier writes about the two main aspects of modernity, the first a political project of advancing freedom and rights, and the second the technological remaking of the material world, thereby altering the conditions of life. Can you provide examples of the particular constellations of these two aspects, both where there align, and when they come to conflict?
additional resources
Interview with Andri Snaer Magnason. How Time and Water Explain the Climate Crisis. Time Sensitive Podcast (audio/text)
Andri Snaer Magnason‘s lecture on Time and Water (video)
Interview with Andri Snaer Magnason on Time and Water. Emergence Magazine (audio/text)
Pierre Charbonnier. The Three Tribes of Political Ecology (text)
Christophe Bonneuil, Jean-Baptiste Fressoz. The Shock of the Anthropocene. The Earth, History, and Us (book)
John Robert McNeill. Something New Under the Sun. An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World (book)
John Robert McNeill, Peter Engelke. The Great Acceleration. An Environmental History of the Anthropocene since 1945 (book)
Fabian Scheidler. The End of the Megamachine. A Brief History of a Failing Civilization (book)