Gus Speth (and Me): A Call to Journalists, Writers, Researchers, and Everyone
There’s an urgent need for a new climate realism in 2024.
Dear friends: James Gustave “Gus” Speth is one of the U.S. climate movement’s great elders (who I first spoke with, for Grist, back in 2012), and he’s someone I correspond with now and then. Given the sort of jobs that Gus has held over the past half century—advisor to multiple presidents (he chaired Jimmy Carter’s White House Council on Environmental Quality), co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council and World Resources Institute, head of the United Nations Development Program, dean of Yale’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, professor at Vermont Law School, and fellow at The Next System Project, not to mention author of numerous books and articles—we might not seem like the most obvious pairing. (He was once called the “ultimate insider,” whereas I am … not that.) But in recent years, we’ve found ourselves more and more on the same page about the way things are going in the climate fight. See, for example, my review essay on his most recent book, They Knew.
A couple weeks ago, Gus and I had a conversation on Zoom, and he told me about a message he’s wanted to get out to climate journalists and writers, researchers, and funders—and he asked if I’d like to join him in the effort. I said yes—because I’m a hundred percent on board (also because I simply like Gus a lot)—and I helped write the message below. Gus and I are sending it out to our respective lists, so if you happen to be on both of them, please pardon the duplication. -Wen
A Call to Journalists, Researchers, and Other Writers—and Funders
Dear friends, colleagues, and comrades:
There’s an urgent need for a new climate realism in 2024, one that addresses the full range of consequences—the social, economic, and political knock-on effects—of the emerging climate catastrophe.
Despite an impressive flourishing of climate-related journalism and the great sophistication of many recent scientific analyses, the public—even the concerned public—is not getting the full picture with regard to the cascading consequences of regularly breaching 1.5C, then 2.0, and more, in the coming years (indeed, sooner than expected).
In 2023, global carbon emissions reached an all-time high. Assume, if we dare, that governments continue their slow and inadequate pace in doing what is so clearly needed—a dramatic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions for all the culprit gasses across all the offending sectors. Using your expertise and good sense, imagine what will then happen.
As the climate crisis grows, and as the so-called positive feedbacks become stronger, governments, communities, and individuals will all be increasingly forced to deal with multiple problems. The national and international consequences of climate change will unfold in almost all aspects of political, economic, and social life.
Among the first order effects will be wildfires, droughts, severe storms, extreme heat and recurring heatwaves, floods, sea-level rise, far-reaching changes in traditional weather patterns, changes in ocean currents, melting of glaciers and landed ice, and more.
These effects will lead in turn to second-order consequences, including biological losses and ecosystem changes, the spread of diseases, water and food shortages, persistent crop failures and famines, large economic losses and disruptions, uninhabitable zones along coasts and elsewhere, and incalculable loss of human life.
Simultaneously with these changes, we can anticipate still more effects: climate refugees and mass migrations, political destabilizations, resource and other conflicts within and between countries, and costly efforts at adaptation, much of it futile, and, most likely, risky geo-engineering.
As governments and societies struggle to cope with the ensuing situation, the stage will be set for political and other recriminations, scapegoating, anti-immigration hysteria, cross-border and other military conflicts, the proliferation of failed and failing states, and political responses that are anti-democratic, authoritarian, and yes, fascistic. Such responses may be brought on by ruthless opportunism but may just as likely result from widespread demand from a public that is fearful, feeling victimized, or betrayed.
Generally, it seems likely that governance at all levels will be heavily consumed by the extraordinary demands of coping with climate change’s effects, and could do so at the expense of other efforts. The multiple inadequacies and failures of global governance, never strong except in certain economic spheres, will likely be magnified by international tensions and conflicts as well as domestic preoccupations. A good guess is that governments in many cases will act to protect their major economic actors and elites, further dividing societies, as well as turn increasingly to their police forces and militaries for stability and solutions.
Equally telling could be the psychological burdens and other behavioral effects. The loss of homes, communities, and livelihoods; the millions of “excess deaths” caused by climate change; the destruction of much-loved natural and recreational resources including species, forests, and coastlines; the civil strife and social conflicts spawned by climate change; the pall of grief, dread, failure, and powerlessness—these can weigh heavily, especially on the young. Further, studies show that hotter temperatures are positively associated with hate speech, violent crime, and hostile behaviors and aggression.
The playing out in the real world of these and other knock-on effects is both more likely and more imminent than commonly supposed. You are at least as capable as we at assigning probabilities to these various outcomes, but they should not be dismissed.
Nevertheless, most climate reports and other writings about the emerging tragedy stop short of delving into the full range of consequences sketched above (the exception: speculative fiction), not to mention the issues of justice, human rights, and democracy they raise.
What kind of world would we be coping with in such cases? People need to know what could unfold and to face those possibilities. Climate change is now often recognized as an “existential” threat, but much needs to be done to explain what that really means. Importantly, such explorations would (1) dramatize further the need to head off the worst, (2) spur crisis readiness for what is coming, and (3) encourage people to ask what’s wrong with our society that it allowed the climate tragedy to happen—and advocate for transformational change.
A society can’t prepare for what’s coming, and head off the worst-case scenarios, if it doesn’t face reality. Please consider what you can do to help pull this picture together for the public in a credible, forceful way.
And please be in touch with us. Suggestions you have for encouraging work in these areas would be appreciated. We can undertake some modest efforts to help facilitate such work. If you’re in a position to organize something more ambitious, or to highlight these ideas in upcoming public forums, we could try to help.
Gus Speth
Wen Stephenson
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Gus Speth
Website: www.gusspeth.org
Ambassador, Wellbeing Economy Alliance: www.WEAll.org
Fellow, Next System Project: https://thenextsystem.org
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Wen Stephenson
Contributing writer, The Nation
Website: wenstephenson.com
Updates: wenstephenson.substack.com
Book: What We're Fighting for Now Is Each Other: Dispatches From the Front Lines of Climate Justice (Beacon, 2015)