Rating: 5
The Future Earth: A Radical Vision for What’s Possible in the Age of Warming
Eric Holthaus | 2020
This is one of the tougher reviews I’ve had to write simply because my opinion on it alternated almost page to page. I love, for obvious reasons, its main topic: the construction of an inclusive, progressive, and climate-conscious society. Unlike so many books by his contemporaries, Holthaus imbues his writing with a profound sense of optimism, with positivity, and ample encouragement. He references many of the books and people I’ve recently discovered that have influenced me (Octavia Butler, adrienne maree brown) and incorporated topics that I’m exploring in my own work (emergent strategy, liminal spaces). Yet despite all this I also found myself disliking many parts of his message. The theme of the book envisions a future in which essentially everything goes right from here. That is, “by the 2040s, we achieved a carbon-free society in the United States, Europe, and many other places throughout the world,” and where “we come together and build a new version of human society that works for every person and every species.” He speculates on what this ideal world would look like and gives very thin descriptions for how we actually get there. I sincerely hope this vision becomes reality, but I don’t think it’s helpful to simply read about a world in which everything goes right.
Obviously this book is aware of its hypothetical and optimistic nature, and largely serves as the antithesis to the climate apocalyptic narrative. It’s speculative and aims to encourage its readers about the possibilities of what we’re able to achieve by demonstrating what an ideal scenario may look like. At least for me, however, this approach doesn’t work, and I walked away from this reading feeling frustrated. It was disheartening to step into this idyllic society where we solve the climate emergency and almost all of our other systemic problems on schedule, especially because I’m certain the future will unfortunately unfold in a drastically different way than that. But, like all of these reviews, that’s just my reaction, and I’m less motivated by hope and positivity than by fear, at least when it comes to climate change. I’m terrified of the insidious ways in which the climate crisis will annihilate the world and systems we’re dependent on. Since stories that fuel or help alleviate that fear resonate most with me, The Future Earth felt like a band-aid on a third-degree burn or a lullaby spoken in the middle of a wildfire. This book may be helpful for those feeling especially despondent and in need of something able to inspire hope, but I think there are plenty of books to read that would better accomplish this same task.
“An escapist attitude is probably the most dangerous reaction to climate change today. It drives to the heart of how the problem of climate change came into being in the first place: by imagining ourselves as individuals who somehow exist outside the context of an interconnected, living ecosystem on a planet where all of our actions deeply affect one another, we fail to see each other’s humanity and right to simply exist.”