I became so disheartened by where we were going and the unwillingness of most to face reality that I stopped working on climate change altogether. In 2010, I argued in my book Requiem for a Species that the world was on a path to a very unpleasant future, that it was too late to stop it, and that climate scientists themselves were in a state of barely suppressed panic. The message was met with a wall of silence. Even dedicated environmentalists didn’t want to hear it. At a writers’ festival, a well-known scientist took me backstage and berated me for taking away people’s hope. “So,” I asked, “are you telling us to lie?” It was a time when the climate science “denial machine”, imported to Australia from the United States, was just hitting its stride. His work would give us another lost decade. Spending my days working on non-climate issues helped, but it couldn’t quell the burning anger I felt toward those responsible for preventing any effective response to the scientific warnings. I knew about the psychological coping strategies we used to manage feelings of anxiety, despair and sadness (I wrote about them in 2010). But how does one deal with the fact that there are people in our community who worked hard to stop Australia responding to the unfolding crisis and are still in it? The tide has turned against the naysayers, although for most people the full truth is still hard to swallow My work on climate change, from the first paper in 1996 on the need for a carbon tax to my decision in 2017 to stop, takes up much of the memoir I just wrote. It was hard to keep the bitterness out of the book when naming some of those who actively undermined climate science and blocked any serious mitigation policy. Many of these appeared on the “dirty dozen” lists I compiled periodically over the years. In the last couple of years, the tide has turned against the naysayers, although for most people the full truth is still hard to swallow. We actually have a government that, for the first time, appears to be serious about reducing emissions. However, after the lost decades, here’s what climate scientists are telling us now. From a pre-industrial benchmark of 280 parts per million (ppm), the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rose to 390 ppm in 2010 and then to 420 ppm today. This year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an organization criticized for consistently underestimating the risks, concluded that the devastating effects of climate change are increasing much faster than previously reported. A recent publication in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America calls for a research program on a “climate endgame,” that is, the possibility of societal collapse and even human extinction. The authors argue that optimistic assumptions about global emissions reductions still put us on “dangerous Earth system trajectories.” The best-case scenario of a 2°C rise above pre-industrial levels – almost certainly unattainable – would lead to a state of the Earth system not seen for more than 2.6 million years. Even with reductions in global emissions, feedback effects and tipping points in the climate system could create concentrations of greenhouse gases so high that they do not appear in models. Passing tipping points – such as the melting of the Arctic permafrost and the disruption of the oceans’ ability to absorb carbon dioxide – could cascade across connected climate, ecological and social systems, with catastrophic consequences. Meanwhile, our political leaders, even the most enlightened ones, continue with the narrative that promoting economic growth must come first. A sharp increase in immigration and therefore population is promised without any thought to its impact on carbon emissions. Waving the net zero baton, our leaders assure us that technology can deal with rising emissions and remove carbon from the atmosphere. And we can adapt to the inevitable warming. In short, faith. Some don’t buy it. Students gather during the School Strike 4 climate rally outside Sydney Town Hall on May 6. Photo: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images The gloomy predictions of climate scientists have spread beyond their “holy shit” to sections of the wider community, especially young people who have grown up in a warming world. Tragically, many seem to have accepted that humanity is no longer in control of its own destiny. When I interviewed about 20 young climate activists in 2020, one echoed the sentiments of many young activists. There are people who don’t have much hope for the future… [they feel] great despair. … However, the more you show up, the more you get that sense of hope. But will this showing up and acting early be enough to solve the climate crisis? I honestly don’t think so. While Pakistan sinks under water, Europe faces a crippling drought and we in Australia struggle with the practical and psychological consequences of disasters such as the black summer fires and this year’s floods in New South Wales and Queensland, those most responsible recede into history . Should we leave them? A few years ago, I suggested that Greenpeace approach primary schools asking them to bury time capsules containing the names and deeds of the “dirty hundred” in their playgrounds. The capsules could be unearthed in 2100 to reveal who was responsible for the state of Earth. But perhaps it is best to leave the perpetrators to their demons. Better to devote our energies to responding to the situation we find ourselves in, especially helping young people learn to thrive as best they can in the world we have left them.
Clive Hamilton’s memoir, Provocateur: A Life of Ideas in Action, is published by Hardie Grant Books on September 7
