Thirty-five years ago, on this day, September 11th, 1989, The New Yorker Magazine publishes ‘The End of Nature’ , an essay by William McKibben.
In an interview with the same magazine in 2014 McKibben recognised he had initially miscalculated what we are up against.
“It took me a long time to realize that the scientists had won the argument but were going to lose the fight, because it isn’t about data and science, it’s about power. The most powerful industry is fossil fuel, because it is the richest. At a certain point, it became clear that our only hope of matching that money was with the currencies of movement: passion, spirit, creativity—and warm bodies”
https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/peoples-climate-march-interview-bill-mckibben
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 354ppm. As of 2024 it is 420ishppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that for the past 13 months, everyone had been banging on about the “greenhouse effect” since James Hansen’s testimony. This had been neatly secured by Grant Swinger. And here was the first one of the first big philosophical pieces written by then young Bill McKibben. Talking about the End of Nature/
The New Yorker, of course, had been the venue for Rachel Carson’s 1962 effort Silent Spring. So this was in keeping with their general long form, big picture jeremiads (see also Elizabeth Kolbert’s Field Notes from a Catastrophe).
What we learn is that there are specific publications where if you really want to have an influence, that’s where you need to be. Because everyone will be reading it and the mere fact that it got published there will mean that people take it seriously. Even if more interesting, important work is appearing somewhere else. Because we do mental shortcuts – we have to, because we’re surrounded by so many potential sources of information.
What happened next McKibben’s essay got published as a book. Good Book. McKibben went on to found 350.org involved in divestment and so forth. Probably still thinks that the situation is salvageable. I don’t know. Maybe I should interview him. Anyway, that’s 35 years ago.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
References
https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/peoples-climate-march-interview-bill-mckibben
Also on this day:
September 11, 1961 – New York Times reports “Air Found Gaining in Carbon Dioxide”