Yes, thanks.
You know, when I was involved in a lecture on the notion of apocalypse and the Contemporary, listening to Rohit Goel of BICAR (who was not blithe about the subject at all) in Dubai in 2018, I was almost enraged by the oblique way in which the subject was being discussed in a Rem Koolhaas-designed gallery. My issue with the discourse was that in one of the richest places in the world, I felt like things like climate change was something to discuss in polite conversation over cucumber sandwiches and sav blanc.
I grabbed the mic, and said that this conversation is “interesting” and all, but let me lob a mind grenade in the conversation. Silent Spring was published a few months before I was born (1962) – 58 years ago, and I noted that Carson’s word were still grist for “polite consideration”. This galled me, and, as Geert knows, gall is borderline legal in Dubai.
I went on to say that (as an aside, Ryan is right on all points) we have to allow ourselves to be alarmed, to speak markedly. In 2018 (I believe) the Bienniale de Venezia informally dismissed climate change, only to have it accepted wholesale the next edition.
I was in one of the artistic loci of power of the Middle East, and I was just beside myself in that the End of the World was, in my opinion, being aestheticized into what I have termed a Pornography of Suffering.
Returning to America, on Instagram, I see the Alt Right framing Climate Change as CNN’s next “selling campaign”, and as I am back in the USA, I sit in horror at the blitheness of the powerful in the East, and the confusionism set upon the USA in the West.
I realize this is a bit of a rant, but I finished my statement in Dubai, saying that our theoretical framing of catastrophe is beautiful and well thought out, but if we don’t actually take the words of nearly 60 years ago SERIOUSLY -
We are Screwed.
That’s what I said, in the middle of millions of dollars.
It’s interesting that this seminal shot across humanity’s bow (Spring) is prophetic, and the US Justice Department knew Big Oil knew 40 years ago -
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-climate-change-almost-40-years-ago/
It’s just that humanity doesn’t give a damn unless it gets in the way of capitalism, or it causes so much suffering it causes unrest or disruption of biocapitalistic labor. It’s why there are times when I talk about Accelerationism, not because I think it’s the best option, but it seems to be the only way anyone is going to talk about the Sword of Damocles that awaits our civilization.
It can be seen from Covid that humanity can DO THIS. Mayne.
website: http:://www.patricklichty.com
email: voyd@voyd.com
instagram, twitter: @patlichty
From: nettime-l-bounces@mail.kein.org <nettime-l-bounces@mail.kein.org> on behalf of Ryan Griffis <ryan.griffis@gmail.com>
Date: Sunday, May 30, 2021 at 12:53 PM
To: nettime-l@mail.kein.org <nettime-l@mail.kein.org>
Subject: Re: <nettime> Democracy Net Zero
Thanks for this David!
Minor point: "Silent Spring" is not a work of fiction in any sense of the word; the short first chapter "Fable for Tomorrow," is, as its title suggests, a fable (of a "town that does not actually exist"). That chapter is obviously a literary device that establishes the stakes up front and in an accessible and compressed manner, but I wouldn't use it to classify the rest of the book as even "creative nonfiction." The book is otherwise a work of reportage, probably *the* model for popular contemporary climate/science journalists such as Elizabeth Kolbert who rely on a combination of first-person observations, interviews, and syntheses of scientific papers and policy documents.
Unfortunately, it's still deeply relevant 50 years later...
Take care all,
Ryan
"To get a comparative sense of where we currently stand its useful to
contrast today?s environmental politics with the political impact of
Rachel Carson?s ?Silent Spring? published in 1962. As is well known this
was an account of an imaginary community afflicted by environmental
calamity. Although a fiction the narrative drew on detailed evidence
from events that had already actually happened in a number of separate
incidents. Carson had simply and brilliantly drawn these threads
together into a worst-case scenario."