Who caused climate change, the human race, or only 1% of it? And if the latter, how were they able to get away with it?
In other words: Is climate change an accident of history, or is it the teleological result of human nature playing itself out? There’s the question of individual free will, but then there’s the question of whether the species has a collective will. And do all the individuals, exercising their “free” will – which obviously is influenced by psychobiological factors – cancel one another out? Or add up to a collective death drive? Or could all this have been prevented? Who would have done it - and why? Our evolutionary psychology makes us very bad at dealing with abstract problems involving more than a couple of hundred people – let alone a global problem involving all the people in the world – especially when problems at the local, visible level are more pressing, and the rewards more palpable. This propensity is quite understandable, if you’re afraid that you or your child will be shot by the cops tomorrow; or you’ll be deported; or you don’t know how you will pay the heating or medical bills, then you’ve got more pressing life-and-death issues to deal with. But most of us just don’t want to think about impending climate catastrophe, even if we think there’s something we can do about it. Are people capable of facing up to the climate emergency? And mitigating it – at least for future generations? It’s something I wonder about. And a very good topic for writers to explore. How would you do so? Alternative history? Lyric poem? Problem play?
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June 2021
Kristin Prevallet Author/Editor
I'm a writer & teacher in Lawrence, Kansas who actually believes the scientists. I wrote a book of poems called Of Some Sky that seems to have something to do with all this. |