By Karen Melton, Southeastern Pennsylvania Group
The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables For A Planet In Crisis by Amitav Ghosh is one of those books that left me ashamed of the human race. Ghosh is an award-winning Indian author of both fiction and non-fiction, once referred to by Foreign Policy magazine as ‘one of the most important global thinkers of the preceding decade.’ The Nutmeg’s Curse begins in the 1600’s with genocide and enslavement of the native inhabitants of the Banda Islands in Indonesia by the Dutch. They are in pursuit of the seeds of the tree from which nutmeg and mace are produced -- unique to the islands at that time -- and regard the spices, and anything else in nature for that matter, as their right to expropriate, and the indigenous people as obstacles to eliminate or exploit.
In the same era, widespread subjugation, massacres, and enslavements were taking place on our side of the world. In Ghosh’s telling, these and many other examples throughout the history of western colonization were based on assumptions and hubris about resources and people that also underlie today’s climate crisis and help explain why we can’t seem to get off fossil fuels, even as they destroy the natural world we depend on.
Ghosh discusses many climate-related topics that felt like a headslap. Here are a couple.
His view of how the military thinks about climate change: “The US military’s positive response to the findings of climate science is sometimes welcomed by those who regard the denialism of the political sphere as the primary obstacle to mitigatory action on global warming. But this is to mistake the disease for the cure. The job of the world’s dominant military establishments is precisely to defend the most important drivers of climate change – the carbon economy and the systems of extraction, production, and consumption that it supports.”
Another headslap came with his discussion about per capita carbon footprints: “What these graphs and charts exclude, of course, are institutional emissions, like those related to the US military and to the projection of American power. That entire reality . . . makes climate change a matter of personal responsibility.” He goes on to point out that carbon footprints were introduced by a well-financed advertising campaign – well-financed by British Petroleum (BP).
Ghosh also talks at length about climate refugees – a phenomenon we are seeing already both within the U.S. and the world at large. The plight of people whose lands have dried out, whose homes are underwater or burnt to the ground is one that governments will increasingly need to address but have no plan for.
This book will weigh on your conscience, but the writing and storytelling will keep you turning the pages. If you want to dig deeper into the historical references, the Notes and Bibliography at the end are very extensive.
The Deluge by Stephen Markley, at nearly 900 pages, will keep you hooked for many hours and might become that book you forever associate with the summer of 2023. It follows a number of characters whose lives intersect over the years from recent to near mid-century in a world where business-as-usual energy policies continue and climate disasters escalate as expected. Some of the people we follow are climate activists, supporters and caregivers of those activists, a few of the 1% relying on business-as-usual for a life of luxury, and some just struggling to survive in an increasingly hostile world. Important climate legislation generates huge public support and gets enacted, then somehow is undermined in the implementation by monied interests or undone by the next administration. It is a story that feels horribly plausible, but (spoiler alert) things seem to be improving at the end.
There are very detailed descriptions of specific climate policies here and there, so if you are reading this on the beach and want to pass for the moment on the exact details of regenerative agricultural practices, you might skip ahead a few pages. Carbon Fee and Dividend policy was described very accurately -- twice. Markley has clearly done his climate policy homework, although this does not always help advance the narrative.
You might consider reading these books at the same time. The first to help inform your thinking on the climate crisis and perhaps incorporate some new perspectives on how we got here. The second because it’s time to gear up for summer reading, and great stories should be on your list, even stories about climate change.
This blog was included as part of the May 2023 Sylvanian newsletter. Please click here to check out more articles from this edition!