Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
The geopolitics of climate change, and more specifically, climate security, has become attached to some very destructive modes of thought. Of particular interest are the ways in which the work of Thomas Malthus has become attached to the meaning of climate change.
In short, the climate futures they describe obscure the fact that the impact of climate change will ultimately not be determined by levels of CO2, but by structures of power. In other words, the exact impact of a climate disaster will depend on political decisions, economic wealth and social systems.
One of the things that reliably irritates a certain fraction of this blog’s readers, as I’ve had occasion to comment before, is my habit of using history as a touchstone that can be used to test claims about the future.
Last week’s discussion of failed predictions in the peak oil movement inevitably touched on the latest round of claims that the world as we know it is going to come to a full stop sometime very soon.
The modern world has made us more susceptible to superstition in other ways; when we spend most of our time staring at glowing rectangles rather than living in the real world…
Last week’s post on the need to check our narratives against the evidence of history turned out to be rather more timely than I expected.
