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drewbutler's review against another edition
5.0
A Brief History of Violence
Climate change is the largest problem that humanity has ever faced and ever will face. An obstacle truly and fully global in scale, nowhere on the planet will remain untouched. As climate deniers so loudly proclaim, the climate has indeed changed before, several times. However, what they fail to address is that any massive shift in climate has coincided each time with a global mass extinction event. While the human species may survive such an extinction event, human societies likely won't.
The enormity of this problem cannot be understated, but one of the largest shortcomings (beyond legitimate bad-faith actors seeking to undermine public understanding) is that the majority of reporting and information regarding climate change is presented in the terms of the natural sciences. The average person hears statistic after statistic about CO2 concentrations, ocean acidification, insect extinction, but in many instances that is as far as the information goes. Climate change is certainly a problem for the natural world, but for humans it is fundamentally a societal problem. In this book, Harald Welzer approaches climate change from a sociological and historical lens, and in so doing discusses the actual implications and inevitabilities on human society, which is ultimately the only thing that will matter to humans. Telling someone "climate change will bring two nuclear powers into conflict over water" is much more useful in heightening awareness than simply informing someone that the reefs are dying. These two things are intrinsically related, but the issue of climate change desperately needs to be discussed, first and foremost, on what it means for human society and survival.
The most dangerous impact of climate change on human societies is violence. Harald Wexler says repeatedly that "violence is always an option," and this really is the crux of the book (the title kind of gives it away). He explores history, both ancient and contemporary, to demonstrate all the different kinds of violence that humans have perpetuated over our existence, arguing that "peace" is an aberration rather than the norm, and that human societies have always had violence to turn to in the face of any threat to survival, real or imagined. That last phrase is important - Wexler examines the Holocaust and the Rwandan Genocide to show how such atrocities were perpetrated through the creation of a threat. In both these instances, through steady propaganda/disinformation spread by those in power, one part of the populace was turned against another. In all instances of violence, however, it becomes necessary to define the opponent as an "other" to oneself, someone less deserving of survival for whatever reason. And as history shows us, it's a lot easier than we want to admit for most people to go along with this reasoning. This brings us to what Harald (and myself) believe are the most pressing impacts of climate change on human society: access to resources, and refugees that resource inequality will create.
As the world heats up, water becomes scarcer and crop yields plummet. At the time this book was written, over a decade ago, regions and countries around the globe were already seeing crop yields fall below what was needed to properly feed the population, and conflicts broke out as a result. This trend has obviously only worsened in recent years - lest we forget, there is strong evidence that one of the main catalysts of the Arab Spring, and the Syrian Civil War, was lack of access to food. As resources become scarcer, countries and groups who once shared the same arable land or water sources are pushed into increasing tension with one another. Such scenarios have the possibility to increase already existing tensions, or create a reason to unify the country/group in conflict against another.
Attached to the issue of dwindling supplies of food and water is an influx of refugees. In my opinion this poses the largest threat of conflict within the West, and I believe all the evidence we need is to look at the rise of far-right, nationalistic movements across the hemisphere. For your consideration: Marie Le Pen legitimately challenging the presidential race in France, Switzerland and Denmark codifying Islamophobia into their law, a rise in neo-Nazi movements in Germany, and the poster child of nationalistic fervor and hatred, the American Right with its wholehearted embrace of Trump and his proto-fascistic leanings.
The weaponized arm of the United States media machine, whether it be the outright, visceral fearmongering on the part of the right-wing media or the more passive "center" publications, has a deadly capacity to whip up the kind of fervor and anti-refugee sentiment that threatens entire populations of people. For a very timely example, turn back just last year to 2020. China was blamed for COVID-19 in openly racist and conspiratorial terms by the far-right, and also subtle versions of those same sentiments by "centrist" publications like The Economist or The New York Times. As a result, anti-AAPI hate crimes rose over 1000%, resulting in a mass shooting directed against the community barely a year later. As billions around the world leave their homes because they have no other option, this same kind of fearmongering will be applied to them, and in the case of the United States, it already is. Fox News spends much of its day pointing towards a nonexistent "crisis" on the southern border, but as climate change worsens and more and more of Central America and Mexico is driven north, there's no doubt that it will reach a fever pitch.
We can only expect this rhetoric to get worse as the climate crisis heightens and it becomes impossible to deny. As stories of dwindling resources and abundant disaster spreads around the world, threats against refugees heighten. Only by acknowledging this possibility can we prepare for it. The message needs to be spread now that climate change will bring refugees, and we need to establish the necessary systems to prepare for them and provide for the most efficient and supportive transition. Lives depend on it.
Climate change is the largest problem that humanity has ever faced and ever will face. An obstacle truly and fully global in scale, nowhere on the planet will remain untouched. As climate deniers so loudly proclaim, the climate has indeed changed before, several times. However, what they fail to address is that any massive shift in climate has coincided each time with a global mass extinction event. While the human species may survive such an extinction event, human societies likely won't.
The enormity of this problem cannot be understated, but one of the largest shortcomings (beyond legitimate bad-faith actors seeking to undermine public understanding) is that the majority of reporting and information regarding climate change is presented in the terms of the natural sciences. The average person hears statistic after statistic about CO2 concentrations, ocean acidification, insect extinction, but in many instances that is as far as the information goes. Climate change is certainly a problem for the natural world, but for humans it is fundamentally a societal problem. In this book, Harald Welzer approaches climate change from a sociological and historical lens, and in so doing discusses the actual implications and inevitabilities on human society, which is ultimately the only thing that will matter to humans. Telling someone "climate change will bring two nuclear powers into conflict over water" is much more useful in heightening awareness than simply informing someone that the reefs are dying. These two things are intrinsically related, but the issue of climate change desperately needs to be discussed, first and foremost, on what it means for human society and survival.
The most dangerous impact of climate change on human societies is violence. Harald Wexler says repeatedly that "violence is always an option," and this really is the crux of the book (the title kind of gives it away). He explores history, both ancient and contemporary, to demonstrate all the different kinds of violence that humans have perpetuated over our existence, arguing that "peace" is an aberration rather than the norm, and that human societies have always had violence to turn to in the face of any threat to survival, real or imagined. That last phrase is important - Wexler examines the Holocaust and the Rwandan Genocide to show how such atrocities were perpetrated through the creation of a threat. In both these instances, through steady propaganda/disinformation spread by those in power, one part of the populace was turned against another. In all instances of violence, however, it becomes necessary to define the opponent as an "other" to oneself, someone less deserving of survival for whatever reason. And as history shows us, it's a lot easier than we want to admit for most people to go along with this reasoning. This brings us to what Harald (and myself) believe are the most pressing impacts of climate change on human society: access to resources, and refugees that resource inequality will create.
As the world heats up, water becomes scarcer and crop yields plummet. At the time this book was written, over a decade ago, regions and countries around the globe were already seeing crop yields fall below what was needed to properly feed the population, and conflicts broke out as a result. This trend has obviously only worsened in recent years - lest we forget, there is strong evidence that one of the main catalysts of the Arab Spring, and the Syrian Civil War, was lack of access to food. As resources become scarcer, countries and groups who once shared the same arable land or water sources are pushed into increasing tension with one another. Such scenarios have the possibility to increase already existing tensions, or create a reason to unify the country/group in conflict against another.
Attached to the issue of dwindling supplies of food and water is an influx of refugees. In my opinion this poses the largest threat of conflict within the West, and I believe all the evidence we need is to look at the rise of far-right, nationalistic movements across the hemisphere. For your consideration: Marie Le Pen legitimately challenging the presidential race in France, Switzerland and Denmark codifying Islamophobia into their law, a rise in neo-Nazi movements in Germany, and the poster child of nationalistic fervor and hatred, the American Right with its wholehearted embrace of Trump and his proto-fascistic leanings.
The weaponized arm of the United States media machine, whether it be the outright, visceral fearmongering on the part of the right-wing media or the more passive "center" publications, has a deadly capacity to whip up the kind of fervor and anti-refugee sentiment that threatens entire populations of people. For a very timely example, turn back just last year to 2020. China was blamed for COVID-19 in openly racist and conspiratorial terms by the far-right, and also subtle versions of those same sentiments by "centrist" publications like The Economist or The New York Times. As a result, anti-AAPI hate crimes rose over 1000%, resulting in a mass shooting directed against the community barely a year later. As billions around the world leave their homes because they have no other option, this same kind of fearmongering will be applied to them, and in the case of the United States, it already is. Fox News spends much of its day pointing towards a nonexistent "crisis" on the southern border, but as climate change worsens and more and more of Central America and Mexico is driven north, there's no doubt that it will reach a fever pitch.
We can only expect this rhetoric to get worse as the climate crisis heightens and it becomes impossible to deny. As stories of dwindling resources and abundant disaster spreads around the world, threats against refugees heighten. Only by acknowledging this possibility can we prepare for it. The message needs to be spread now that climate change will bring refugees, and we need to establish the necessary systems to prepare for them and provide for the most efficient and supportive transition. Lives depend on it.
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