“Voskoboynik’s book offers an exhilarating introduction to our ecological crisis, what caused it, and how we can imagine a better future.” —Jason Hickel, author of Less Is More
The Memory We Could Be moves beyond the sterile, technical language around climate change and ecology to humanize the abstraction of global warming and bring different voices into the conversation.
Drawing on sources from anthropology to hydrology, botany to economics, agronomy to astrobiology, medicine to oceanography, physics to history, the author weaves a lyrical and powerful story of our relationship with nature.
The book has three parts:
“Past” addresses memory. Our inability to comprehend our staggering present partly lies in our ignorance of our staggering past. We peer into the black box of history to understand how we got here. We go on a journey across the roots of our ecological crisis, from the Roman Empire to the forests of Burma, from Congolese rubber plantations, to Colombian oil fields.
“Present” illustrates how climate change is shaping our world today, explores how it relates to poverties and inequalities, and equips readers with a set of intuitive instruments to understand climate impacts.
“Future” looks at alternatives and strives to illustrate in human terms the world we could lose and the world we can win. It asks what we can do and develops a transformative vision of a more ecological and equitable economy.
The Memory We Could Be is vital reading for all of humanity.
“A gripping review of where we’ve been, where we are, and where we may be headed.” —Michael E. Mann, author of The New Climate War
Table of Contents:
Foreword by Raoul Martinez
1. The Might of Memory
Authority and humility
PAST
2. Separation
Relinquishing a way of thinking
Making connections
From machines to organisms
Looking forward
3. Origins
Beginnings
4. Colonialism: The Acceleration
The impact on nature
The impact on peoples
Work and slavery
The destruction of memory
Colonialism within countries
A Cold War consensus
Violence and technology
Neocolonialism: The metabolism of misery
5. Fossil Fuels, Furious Flames
The exceptionality of fossil fuels
Black gold: The story of petroleum
Oil and power
The deceit and the delay
Recovering our historical memory
6. Human Nature or Human Ignorance?
What human nature?
The myth of collapse
A history of knowledge and ignorance
Institutions and discussions
Laws and actions
Climate change and human influence
The impotence of knowledge
Science as a way of thinking
Science's contemporary challenges
Thinking ahead
PRESENT
7. The Great Burning
Atmospheric basics
Knowing climate change
What we don't know: Uncertainty and humility
Interpreting uncertainty
8. Understanding Emissions: Where, Who, What, When and How
Where: Types of emissions
Who: Emissions and authorship
What: Temperatures and targets
When: Too little, too late
How: The carbon budget and the roadmap
Literacy and ambition
9. The Poverty of Wealth: Economics and Ecology
Metabolism
Prosperity
The true costs
Routes ahead
10. The World at 1°C: A Guide to Climate Violence
Extreme weather and climate conditions
The inequality of exposure
Social conditions
Climate violence and you
Poverties, strictures and precarities
A story we can't tell
FUTURE
11. A Plausible Future: Approaching Apocalypse
Trendlines
Health
New horizons of heat
Adaptation and loss
Blame and opportunism
Ecological conflict
A world beyond 4°C
Reactions and responses
12. A Possible Future: The World We Can Win
Solutions in a complex world
Connection
Humility
Radicalism not romanticism
Avoiding false solutions
Democracy, diversity and accountability
The paradox of pace
The business of boldness
13. A Mosaic of Alternatives
An economy of life
Justice
Nourishment
The commons
Energy
Dismantling hierarchy
Care
Restoration
Adaptation
Education and culture
Healing
Reconstruction: Cities and space
14. What Then Must We Do?
Stepping into the sea
Connection and solidarity
Communication
Ordinary hope
15. Hope, A Horizon
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index
About the Author
About New Society Publishers
About the Author :
Daniel Macmillen Voskoboynik is a young journalist and activist. His work has been published in Pacific Standard, Open Democracy, and New Internationalist. He is the co-founder and co-editor of www.worldat1C.org, a communications initiative designed to humanize the ecological crisis and clarify its causes.
