Biology: Are Earth’s climate problems the price of economic and political ‘progress’? – The Columbus Dispatch

Steve Rissing| Special to The Columbus Dispatch USA TODAY NETWORK

Timothy Snyder, a Yale historian, writes about the politics of inevitability.

In The Guardian newspaper, he described recently the politics of inevitability as a sense that the future is just more of the present, that the laws of progress are known, that there are no alternatives, and therefore nothing really to be done…. (N)ature brought the market, which brought democracy, which brought happiness.

Imagine the biology of inevitability.Ever since life first formed on Earth 3.7 billion years ago, humanitys rise and spread was inevitable.

To put it Biblically, we, or at least the meek, shall inherit the land and delight (our)selves in abundant peace (Psalm 37:11).

Ignore events in Ukraine.

In a recent podcast, Snyder explained that, ...(In) the politics of inevitability, if there is huge wealth inequality as a result of unbridled capitalism, we teach ourselves to say that thats kind of a necessary cost of this overall progress. We learn this dialectical way of thinking by which what seems to be bad is actually good.

In the biology of inevitability, theres a huge gap in human ecological impact between rich, developed countries and poor, developing countries.

Average Americans emit 130 times more greenhouse gases than average citizens of Madagascar.Yet, Madagascar, an island nation east of Africa, is much more vulnerable to climate change effects already underway, including typhoons (hurricanes), extreme floodingand drought.

To paraphrase Snyder, such huge inequalities in ecological relationships as a result of our unbridled capitalism and dependence on fossil fuels, is a necessary cost of human progress.

What seems bad increasing effects of climate change, biodiversity loss, pandemics is actually good because its part of inevitable human progress and the triumph of democracy and market forces.

Snyder argues in the podcast that our perspective of the politics of inevitability fails us. It inevitability …(teaches) you to narrate in such a way that the facts which seem to trouble the story of progress are disregarded.

Ukraine again.

Thats exactly what the biology of inevitably does.Burning fossil fuels and emitting greenhouse gases is part of inevitable human progress and the nature of market forces. If its inevitable, we cant stop it.

But what if it stops us?

Mars appears to once have had liquid water. Its hard to imagine rivers and seas of lifeless, sterile water on Mars or elsewhere.Under the right environmental conditions, life, at least microbial life, seems inevitable.

In his recent book, The Road to Unfreedom, Snyder also speaks of the Politics of Eternity that arises when the politics of inevitability collapse.In this view, time is a circle that endlesslyreturns to the same threats from the past … (where) government cannot aid society as awhole, but can only guard against threats.

Think Make America Great Again.

Mars currently appears free of liquid water and life.While likely in the past, life on Mars was not eternal.

Make Mars Alive Again (MMAA)?

Our policymakers may believe climate change, biodiversity loss, and pandemicsare inevitable costs of progress (often, to their benefit).

What if they are blinded by the biology of human inevitability and eternity and just flat-out wrong?

Where does that leave humanity, up a creek without any liquid water?

Steve Rissing is professor emeritus in the Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology at Ohio State University.

steverissing@hotmail.com

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Biology: Are Earth's climate problems the price of economic and political 'progress'? - The Columbus Dispatch