The Great Derangement
Impressions and insights from Amitav Ghosh's 2016 treatise on climate change.
Thus far, my exposure to climate change has primarily been through economics and climate science. In The Great Derangement, Ghosh discusses why the disciplines of Literature, History, and Politics have failed to address the full scope of climate change.
Literature
Truly understanding climate change requires us to imagine alternate realities. Instead of thinking of climate change as an abstract, futuristic possibility, we must understand that climate change is here and is already affecting lives across the planet. The arts in general, and literature in particular, are the most suited to helping us envision these alternative realities. Why, then, is there so little literature about climate change?
Novels — the gold standard for literary fiction — possess a couple defining characteristics. First, they tend to focus on the prosaic and everyday, not fantastical or improbable events. The extreme effects of climate change — city-destroying storms or droughts that cripple entire countries — are so improbable and “uncanny”, as Ghosh puts it, that they seem almost ridiculous when written about in novel form. Consequently, novels that address climate change are relegated to the genres of fantasy or sci-fi — they’re not considered “serious” literary fiction. Second, to make a novel “narratable”, authors must establish a discontinuity of time and space. Doing so allows for an individual and their surroundings to become a microcosm of a broader context. Climate change, however, is not an issue that can be understood through an individual frame. The full scope of its creation and effects can only be fathomed at the level of the collective.
Ghosh argues that these shortcomings of literary fiction emerge from the Western conception of modernity. First, the need to splice life into rational, individual-based forms of narrative stems from economic systems that are both predicated on isolation and designed to produce it. Second, the exclusion of the improbable is a result of the bourgeois belief in regularity. Ghosh illustrates this through the link between the waterfront and colonialism. Historically, cities were never built near the coast. Even the great port cities of Asia and Europe — Surat, Guangzhou, London, Rotterdam — are protected from the open ocean. Only during the colonial period were large cities consistently situated on exposed coastline. Examples abound — New York, Mumbai, Singapore, Boston, Hong Kong, and my hometown, Chennai. This reckless ignorance of ecological risk in pursuit of human growth is based on the belief that humanity could control nature. The costs of that recklessness will only grow with the impact and severity of those ecological risks.
History
The history of modern climate change starts with the Industrial Revolution, with emissions and capitalism spreading synchronously across the world. Ghosh argues that this view is dangerously limited. Instead, he argues that imperialism was an equally if not more important determinant of climate change. The Industrial Revolution in the West was fueled by raw materials extracted from colonies. Maintaining this arrangement required the suppression of indigenous capitalism — if colonies started to industrialize, they would use the raw materials themselves. As Ghosh puts it, “the emerging fossil-fuel economies of the West required that people elsewhere be prevented from developing coal-based energy systems of their own, by compulsion if necessary”. There is no better example than the British Raj, where British rule was founded on the suppression and destruction of the Indian economy.
Integrating imperialism into our historical understanding of climate change yields the fascinating insight that colonial powers may have actually slowed the onset of climate change by stunting the growth of the carbon economy in Asia. This fact strongly supports the case for climate reparations. In Ghosh’s words, “Inasmuch as the fruits of the carbon economy constitute wealth, and inasmuch as the poor of the global south have historically been deprived of this wealth, it is certainly true, by every canon of distributive justice, that they are entitled to a greater share of the rewards of that economy”.
Politics
The idea of individual freedom is the most important value of the modern era — not just in politics but also in the humanities and arts. Freedom is primarily understood as an escape from injustice caused by other humans or human-made systems. By introducing a non-human threat to freedom, climate change fundamentally challenges this conception.
In this section, Ghosh posits that the ability of the public sphere to influence politics has rapidly dwindled. In supporting this point, he highlights key differences between coal- and petroleum-based economies.
The nature of coal, as a material, is such that its transportation creates multiple choke points where organized labour can exert pressure on corporations and the state. This is not the case with oil, which flows through pipelines that can bypass concentrations of labour.
He also describes climate change as a “threat multiplier” that will deepen existing geopolitical divisions and intensify a range of conflicts. He suggests that for many Western countries, business as usual is the plan for climate change. Since these countries will escape the worst impacts of the climate crisis despite being the biggest contributors to it, they may just be waiting for a Malthusian “correction” in terms of population and resource-use. He expects high-income countries to follow a “Politics of the Armed Lifeboat”, which involves “preparations for open-ended counter-insurgency, militarized borders, and aggressive anti-immigrant policing”. As horrific and outlandish as this sounds, “such a Darwinian approach would not be in conflict with free market ideology”.
Ghosh concludes his book with a comparative analysis of The Paris Agreement and Laudato Si’, Pope Francis’ encyclical about climate change. Contrary to one might expect, Laudato Si’ is far more pragmatic and direct about the challenges presented by climate change than the Paris Agreement. Their approach to climate justice is perhaps the most stark point of difference. Laudato Si’ emphasizes “how inseparable the bond is between concern for nature, justice for the poor, commitment to society, and interior peace”, echoing the principles of true sustainable development. Conversely, The Paris Agreement sole mention of climate justice merely acknowledges “the importance for some of the concept of ‘climate justice’ when taking action to address climate change” further clarifying that “the Agreement does not involve or provide a basis for any liability or compensation”. Taken together, these two clauses essentially amount to a complete rejection of the idea of climate justice.
Like many books on climate change, Ghosh closes with a call to action, encouraging activist movements and highlighting the dwindling amount of time we have to take action to avoid the worst effects of climate change. He notes that there are some reasons for optimism about the climate movement, including growing public urgency, emerging green technology, and widening activism. The possibility of religious groups’ entry into the politics of climate change is, he says, the single most promising development — these large, already-existing communities could add a great deal of impetus to the climate movement. Importantly, religious language and communication is not subject to the same limitations as literature, history, and politics regarding climate change.
The Great Derangement was a great, engaging read. It provides an expanded framework to better understand climate change through a variety of lenses. While I don’t agree with everything Ghosh writes about, the depth of his research, breadth of his understanding, and his ability to synthesize information across disparate disciplines made it more than worth reading.
Loved the read, and learned a lot!