Like melting clay: The climate crisis as History
On August 9, 2021, CBC News posted a news clip with the following title and caption:
“UN sounds alarm over major ‘irreversible’ climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says the world is dangerously close to runaway warming — and that humans are “unequivocally” to blame.”
CBC News was not the only news outlet to cover the publication of the (c.3,500-page long) IPCC report: Media all over the world flooded us with dystopian headlines and images that framed the report’s results and warnings as ‘news’.
But besides the publication of the report per se, what, exactly, is new?
As the tweet above quoting IPCC Working Group I co-chair Valérie Masson-Delmotte indicates, it’s been known for years on end that human activity was the cause of the climate crisis. It’s been known for years on end that we have entered the age of the Anthropocene. Evidence has accumulated for a long while, and so has the will of many not to act. Climate summits took place. Pledges were made, targets were agreed upon. Indigenous peoples all over the world have been speaking out (and mobilizing) for decades and more. Scientists have been speaking out. Activists and artists have been speaking out. And yet, over and over again, governments overwhelmingly dragged on, giving in to fossil fuel lobbies and corporate donors invested in a status quo they benefit from. They — we — knew. But did not care (enough).
So, once again: What’s new?
One novelty is the pace and irreversibility of the Earth’s warming, which came much faster than previously anticipated. As IPCC Vice Chair Ko Barrett said:
“this report tells us that recent changes in the climate are widespread, rapid and intensifying, unprecedented in thousands of years”.
To me, this warming, together with the predictions, the refusal to listen, and the hubris, all amount to deep, old History unfolding.
Being an ancient environmental historian, I am neither surprised by this new twist to the plot nor comforted by any hope for a sudden, Enlightened paradigm shift that will turn this tragedy into a comedic tale.
(R)evolution is a process, not an event. To argue otherwise is to walk in the dark.
There is a direct link between modern European appropriation and whitening of the “Classical” past, White supremacy, (settler) colonialism, capitalism, neoliberalism and the climate crisis. There is also a direct link between historical amnesia and the success with which large-scale polluters, corporate lobbies, and governments continue not to care. And there is a direct link between current efforts to defund the Humanities and to police critical/decolonial work within the academy, and efforts to silence conversations on the climate crisis. These genealogies matter tremendously, and this is why those of us who are teachers have such an important role to play in disseminating, and activating, this knowledge within our classrooms, as well as in the social and political spheres.
At the core of the current climate crisis is the Anthropocentric ontology that fuels the neoliberal economy worldwide. This ontology is fundamentally Eurocentric, and therefore Christian, in that it relies on the a priori whereby human beings are second only to God in the creation’s pyramid and time is a linear, teleogical continuum. Contrary to many ancient-to-present Indigenous Peoples who see Humans as Beings who are both part of and ethically responsible for caring for the Land, Eurocentric-Christian worldviews frame the (White, male, cis, able-bodied, free) man as the master of Creation. Earth, with all its subordinate humans, animal, vegetal and abiotic beings and ‘things’, is there to cater to his needs. Such a worldview is rooted in the fantasy of (Western) civilization, which, as Rebecca Futo Kennedy and myself have shown elsewhere, was developed in the Enlightenment period through a curated use of ancient Greek and Latin literature (see notably this article by Rebecca Futo Kennedy and Clara Bosak Schroeder’s recent book). Seen within this context, the current climate crisis is the expected unfolding of a hubris-driven habitus that is centuries old.
To save themselves, to reckon with the existential crisis they are facing, human beings need to look way, way back, sit with and own up to their past, and reassess the set of ontologies that articulates our lives. Human beings who live in capitalistic comfort also need to question the ethical underpinnings of this comfort, and strive to move from the “I” to the “We” in a way that involves all Beings, be they Human or non-Human. This is hard, uncomfortable, and costly work. But this is work that Antiquity scholars and teachers can commit to in their classroom, praxis, and life beyond academia.
As I am writing these lines, I am reminded of Voltaire’s Candide or the Optimist. Published in 1759, this politically-layered Classic (pun intended) of French Enlightenment literature brings the reader through the journey of Candide, an initially optimist man who undergoes a series of picaresque — and traumatic — experiences that force him to reckon with the deep violence of the world. The conclusion of the book ends with this dialogue:
“Human grandeur, said Pangloss, is extremely precarious, according to the testimony of philosopher…You know what was the fate of Craesus, Astyages, Darius, Dionysius of Syracuse, Pyrrhus, Perses, Hannibal, Jugurtha, Ariovistius, Caesar, Pompey, Nero, Otho, Vitellius, Domitian, Richard II of England, Edward II, Henri VI, Richard III, Mary Queen of Scots, Charles I, the three Henries of France, the emperor Henry IV? You know… I know, said Candide, that we must take care of our garden. You are in the right, said Pangloss; for when our first parent was placed in the garden of Eden, he was put there ut operaretur eum, to cultivate it; which shows that man was not born to be idle. Let us work, said Martin, without disputing, it is the only way to render life tolerable.”
The pandemic has brutally exposed how determined political and corporate élites are to hold on to power and wealth. It has also highlighted governments’ failure (or lack of interest) to care for the most vulnerable of us, both nationally and, as the stark discrepancies in vaccination rates worldwide show, internationally. The same forces were and are still at play when it comes to the climate crisis. Is it to say that we are doomed? To be sure, there are ways forward, chief among them those taught and practiced by Indigenous Peoples worldwide. On the day the IPCC report came out, President of the Association for Indigenous Women and Peoples of Chad Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim thus wrote:
“Indigenous peoples make up only 5% of the world’s population, yet they protect around 80% of the world’s biodiversity. Together, these communities manage 25% of the Earth’s land surface and a third of the carbon stored in tropical forests. We are guardians of nature: there is no route to a safe climate that does not include recognition and support for our communities. For the world to find a path out of these crises will depend on acknowledging and putting into practice indigenous knowledge and land management.”
Ibrahim’s stance echoes these words from Tiana Jakicevich (Te Whakatōhea, Ngāti Kahungungu ki te Wairoa) of Te Ara Whatu (Aoteraoa) in reaction to the IPCC report:
“Indigenous peoples, our knowledge holds the solutions to addressing this climate crisis. We don’t create the climate crisis but we have the solutions to fix the climate crisis. Whatever our mātauranga (knowledge) is, it isn’t going to work under the construct of your system and your table. In order for our voices to be heard, we need people to create systems and structures so that our voices can be heard.”
I could go on and on. But I’ll limit myself to sharing this tweet from Afro-Indigenous climate justice and Indigenous rights activist from Stellat’en First Nation Janelle Lapointe.
While I, for one, am committed to, and will, follow the lead of Indigenous Peoples and do the work, I can’t help but find myself disillusioned and rather pessimistic. Political, corporate, and settler colonial responses to the pandemic, as well as my work as an environmental historian, make me highly doubtful that our species will manage to avert the worst.
If there is one thing History shows us, it is that greed most often wins over ethics. But then, Candide’s tutor Pangloss is also right: Human grandeur is, indeed, extremely precarious. Hasn’t Mother Earth, with her heat, fire, smog, rising tides, oil spills, hurricanes, melting ices, sinking holes, fast-declining biosphere and new viruses, been reminding us of this very fact everyday for thousands of years?
The peoples of ancient Mesopotamia were deeply aware of their precarious status within creation. This is what transpires from the Flood story found in the Epic of Gilgamesh. Flood stories have been told by many Indigenous peoples worldwide for millennia. The Gilgamesh one belongs to a broader set of storied knowledge, whose earliest version (what scholars call the Sumerian Flood story) is found on Sumerian clay tablets dated to the 3rd. millennium BCE, and whose most famous emulation is the one starring Noah found in the Bible.
The Gilgamesh version of the Flood story that has come to us might have been copied from the 18th.c. BCE Epic of Atrahasis. It is preserved on a 7th c. BCE clay tablet found in Nineveh (Kouyunjik, Northern Iraq). In this story, the deified Utnapishtim recounts to Gilgamesh how the god Ea (also known as Enki) instructed him to build a boat ahead of a massive flood that would wipe out all life on Earth:
“I will disclose to you, Gilgamesh, a secret matter, and I will tell you a mystery of the gods. The city of Shuruppak — a city you yourself know, the [city that] is situated on the [banks] of the Euphrates — that city was old and the gods were inside it, (when) the great gods decided to cause the Deluge.”
(all the gods take an oath to go ahead with the Deluge)
Prince Ea was likewise under oath with them, but repeated their words to a reed fence: “Reed fence, brick wall! Reed fence, brick wall! Listen, O reed fence! Pay heed, O brick wall! O man of Shuruppak, son of Ubara-tutu, demolish the house, build a boat! Abandon riches and seek survival! Spurn property and save life! Put on board the seed of all living creatures!
(Utunapishtim goes ahead and follows Ea’s instructions; then comes the Deluge)
At the very first light of dawn, there came up from the horizon a black cloud, within it did Adad bellow continually. … The still clam of the storm god (passed across the sky), (all that was bright) was turned into gloom. […] Like a battle [the cataclysm] passed over the people. One person could not see another, nor people recognise each other in the destruction. Even the gods took fright at the Deluge! They withdrew, they went up to the heaven of Anu. The ones who were curled u like dogs, lying out in the open. The goddess, screaming like a woman in childbirth, Bēlet-ilī, the sweet-voiced, wailed aloud:
“Indeed the past has truly turned to clay, because I spoke evil in the assembly of the gods. How was it I spoke evil in the assembly of the gods, (and) declared a ware to destroy my people? It is I who gave birth (to them)! They are my people! (Now) like so many fish they fill the sea”.
The gods, the Anunnaki, were weeping with her, the gods were humble, sitting in tears, their lips were parched, being stricken with fever. For six days and seven nights, there blew the wind and the Deluge, the gale [and flattened the land]. When the seventh day arrived, the gale relented, [the Deluge and the battle]. The sea grew calm that had fought like a woman in labour, the tempest grew still, the Deluge ended.
I looked at the weather, and there was quiet, but all the people had turned to clay. The roof plain was level like a roof. I opened vent, and sunlight fell on the side of my face. I fell to my knees and sat there weeping, tears streaming down my face.” (transl. from A. R. George 2003)
A similar, though considerably shorter, story is also told in India. There, Ea is replaced by the fish incarnation of Vishnu called Matsya, and Utnapishtim by Manu. The story of Manu is part of the Satapatha Brahmana (the most famous commentary on the Vedas, whose original composition might date to the 1st millennium BCE). In that story, Matsya promises to save Manu from a cataclysmic flood if he accepts to care for him. Manu accepts, and Matsya ends up fulfilling his promise:
And in the same year which the fish had indicated to him, he attended to (the advice of the fish) by preparing a ship; and when the flood had risen, he entered into the ship. The fish then swam up to him, and to its horn he tied the rope of the ship, and by that means he passed swiftly up to yonder northern mountain. They then said, ‘I have saved thee, Fasten the ship to a tree; but let not the water cut you off, while you are on the mountain. As the water subsides, you may gradually descend! … The flood swept away all the se creatures, and Manu alone remained there. (transl. adapted from Julius Eggeling’s 1882 one)
Another Flood has come our way and there is no way around it. We just don’t know how high the waters will rise, and for how long. There will for sure be a lifesaving boat. But how large will it be, for whom, and how will it be built? The privileged few, including those most responsible for creating this utter mess in the first place, will no doubt be the first to save themselves. What remains to be seen is how many, and who, will be left behind to drown.
I would absolutely love my disillusioned historian self to be proven wrong and see the Earth heal and the waters recede in my and my son’s lifetime.
Because that, for once, would be news.
