There may not be any heritage in the future

Professor Ewa Bińczyk talks to Przemysław Witkowski

If we look at things in terms of man's exceptional hyper-agency, then it seems more than natural that we should combine it with the category of responsibility, not arrogance. Because if the power of our species allows us to transform planetary systems, to modify something that has been subject to certain natural cycles for millions of years, then we must take responsibility for it.

Przemysław Witkowski: The title "Herito" refers to heritage. What are the prospects that there will be people to whom we will be able to pass it on?

Ewa Bińczyk: Good question. We are all so agitated about the 500+ programme and we want to have more children in the country, but do we really care about them? After all, it is clear that the youngest generation is ignored when it comes to political priorities. I am not at all surprised that the young generation takes part in the Youth Climate Strikes or Extinction Rebellion activities. In my opinion, they are right to be sincerely concerned about the dangers of the future. The debate about the planetary environmental crisis shows that there is not only a risk of losing nature, but also a risk of losing the future. This is an exceptional threat because it is very well documented empirically by natural sciences. This is something new, different from previous disaster-mongering, which has recurred from time to time in human history.

Looking at the reaction to COVID-19 and the climate crisis it is easy to see which age group is in power. The reaction to the disease, which is affecting seniors especially, is global panic. The reaction to the climate crisis, which can take away the future of the young generation, is much weaker. Do you notice such a pattern?

Please note how paradoxical it is: we are all currently living in a state of hibernation or suspension, because we have been deprived of the future, of the possibility of planning. Everyone says that it would be good to know when it will end. But in the pandemic the prospect of having no future is temporary, only a few weeks or months. Commentators speak about two years at the most. And in the debate on climate change we are talking about a quite real, complete loss of the future for other species and ecosystems, but also of the future of all of civilisation. At stake in the game is that our economic order to which we are attached, our values and lifestyles - what we call civilisation - will not be sustainable by the end of this century. With the coronavirus we panic and serious measures have been taken. We are suffering from a short-term loss of the future, and the threat of losing the future in general hardly impresses anyone (especially the decision makers). Meanwhile, if business as usual in the economy, meaning high-carbon and resource-intensive practices, is continued, it means our end.

In the debate on climate change we are talking about a quite real, complete loss of the future for other species and ecosystems, but also of the future of all of civilisation.

Are we then on the way to the extinction of life on Earth? Or is it rather man who will be extinct?

At the moment there is a high probability that we are living in the era of the sixth great extinction. But we're not talking about the loss of life as such. Earth system science stresses that life forms are changing. Some life will survive. At stake, however, is the life of the Holocene era, our agriculture, the species we know, our practices, our ways of life, and how we have arranged our ecological niche.

But doesn't calling this epoch Anthropocene presuppose the claim that man has transformed the biosphere in such a way that we can talk about a completely new era?

Homo sapiens as a species have become the driving force influencing geological processes and planetary systems, transforming them. The biosphere; the atmosphere; the hydrosphere; the lithosphere. So how else do you call it? This claim didn't come out of nowhere. It came from hundreds of studies, conducted by thousands of scientists, within projects to assess the intersection of Earth systems. These projects led to the so-called Second Copernican Revolution - a huge paradigm shift in Earth science, in the way of thinking about our planet. It turned out that we should see all these systems I just spoke about as interconnected and mutually dependent, and it turned out to be a myth that they will self-regulate no matter how much human impact there is. After the Second World War, the impact of homo sapiens assumed such proportions that, according to scientists, regeneration of the Earth will no longer be possible. We actively processed three quarters of the biosphere. More than fifty percent of ice-free land has been appropriated and processed by man. We have a serious problem with ocean acidification. As for carbon dioxide, the current scale of emissions has not been known for millions of years. These are irreversible processes. Naturalists say these are changes unknown for hundreds of thousands, millions of years.

What does that mean to us as a species?

Humankind developed in the Holocene era, which has been going on for about 11,700 years. In terms of parameters such as precipitation and temperature, the Holocene was an extremely stable epoch. The stake of the game is tipping points - breakthroughs and the risk of knocking our planet out of the relatively stable state of equilibrium that characterised the Holocene. That's why scientists are so concerned about it. One species, homo sapiens, has become a planetary force that redefines the feedback system throughout the Earth. This is problematic for the stratigraphers because they are used to epochs that changed under the impact of great events visible in the stratigraphic layers. From their point of view, the change of the geological epoch must be visible synchronously across the globe. And such a marker of Anthropocene may be, for example, radioactive fallout. Sometimes plastic is also named. This is mainly about the changes we made in the era of the "great acceleration" after the Second World War. This scale of destabilising on planetary systems and all-embracing degradation has no analogy in history. There has never been such a thing on Earth. As researchers write, "we are entering the era of terra incognita," of changes so violent that even the most affluent countries will not be able to adapt to them.

prof. Ewa Bińczyk ? Archiwum prywatne

Isn't that to a certain extent a strange catastrophic humanism? Huge power is attributed to man here. A bit in the spirit of the Gaia concept, where man is the only animal that can destroy the entire planet, but also the only one that can save it from a meteorite, a comet, he is a kind of white blood cell...

That would be a very optimistic vision, and I don't think that's really how it looks. Rather, Earth system science says that the planet loses resilience - endurance, resistance. "Global change is real and happening now," write the researchers. In 2050, there will be more plastic in the oceans than fish. By manufacturing artificial fertilisers, we are producing more nitrogen than is produced by natural processes on Earth. There are a lot of such examples. We're not really a white blood cell, but a pathogen that poses a threat to itself. You are right that the debate is very narcissistically anthropocentric because we are still talking about "us". And many of the participants do not like it, especially the humanists. You can sometimes even feel tons of arrogance from natural scientists. They talk about how powerful homo sapiens have become! Let's look at these changes!

We're not really a white blood cell, but a pathogen that poses a threat to itself.

We are reversing the history of natural conditions! We are changing them! We are putting an end to bad things! Incredible! One species! And this delight in human efficiency has several dimensions. As a philosopher, I would stress that if we look at things in terms of man's exceptional hyper-agency, then it seems more than natural that we should combine it with the category of responsibility, not arrogance. Because if the power of our species allows us to transform planetary systems, to modify something that has been subject to certain natural cycles for millions of years, then we must take responsibility for it. Perhaps we will never be mature enough to responsibly use the power of the technology we possess. The extraction of fossil fuels; the possibilities of agriculture; the use of fertilisers. We know we've crossed at least four planetary boundaries. It's time we took responsibility for that. We need some kind of all-planetary "we" for that.

But how? Compulsion? An externalised religious commandment? For the time being, all I see is building a huge sense of guilt and climate depression in people for not being self-limiting and ecological enough, and nothing changes in the world at large...

The empirical data are so grave and frightening that they can cause paralysis and increase discouragement, which would be very bad. You're right, it could reinforce the already prevailing stagnation. But we can't begrudge scientists for doing their job and warning us, being aware of the scale of the threat; for being frustrated with disinformation campaigns sponsored by the fuel industry. They don't know how to communicate it to humanity either. They are not specialists in social movements. Many have abandoned their scientific careers and become activists anyway. As a sociologist, I believe in the division of social labour. This is what journalists are for, after all: to give a true picture of the gravity of the situation. And in this respect, we have experienced radical changes in Poland for several years. We may complain that they are too weak and too slow, but they do occur. Journalists provide information on climate strikes, IPCC reports, reports on the loss of biodiversity, and the need to switch economies onto low-carbon tracks. The coronavirus epidemic can be beneficial in the latter regard - allowing us to take the lid from our economic "common sense" and business as usual modes. We stopped global trade and hyper-consumption, making what was previously considered impossible suddenly feasible. The pandemic has already provoked much reflection on what our civilisation's priorities should really be. Even the Financial Times stressed in April that we cannot continue the pursuit of GDP growth and high consumption on a planet with shrinking resources in the 21st century. Not to mention Pope Francis. We see with our own eyes that it is not the free market, but an efficient state, a strong social fabric of mutual solidarity, and a subsidised public service sector that can save us. And above all, we must take into account human relationships with non-human factors: viruses, other species, ecosystems, atmosphere, and oceans. We are dependent on each other.

In my mind the problem is not a lack of research or alternatives, but a the lack of a transmission lane that would transfer it in a comprehensible way to people - a political or social movement on a mass scale...

Very many serious institutions in the world, such as the UN, the EU, the Vatican, the World Bank, etc., at least on the level of declarations, speak the language of the Earth system sciences and climatologists, not the language of denialists. When it comes to whether we can make the radical changes we need in time, the key is how democracy works. How strong the actors blocking change, such as the fuel and automotive sectors, will turn out to be... the planetary environmental crisis is a hyper-complex problem. To address it properly, we suddenly need to become experts in everything: the economy in China; the financial markets; plutocracy, that is the richest governments that are destroying democracy; and lobbying and populism that is further destabilising our political systems. Social movements and civil attitudes are our greatest hope. It does not have to be that we all should take to the streets, but a certain critical mass must start protesting. All pro-environmental regulations have so far been introduced at the initiative of citizens making demands on politicians. Business will not change by itself, that is clear. Whether the politicians of the 21st century will turn out to be statesmen is still to be revealed.

The Finnish ecological ultra-Darwinist Kaarlo Pentti Linkola died this year. He believed that we had already lost the battle, that the whole of humanity could not be saved and that it was time for depopulation. In the context of the coronavirus epidemic I even hear a sort of satisfaction that the virus is a natural setting the scores, that people "are a virus." I have the impression that this stagnation is beginning to turn into bitter satisfaction for some people because of various partial collapses.

I am aware that all critical situations multiply fears and tensions. I am also aware of the existence of eco-fascist movements and such themes in some ways of thinking about the climate crisis. However, they do not appear in the mainstream academic debate. They should be rather described as social moods. There are studies by climate psychologists indicating the causes of climate denialism, claiming that we have a very strong sense of justice and want the world to be arranged so that the guilty will be punished, and if some people are polluters, they will be punished for it. In this mode of thinking we close our eyes to facts and do not want to realise that we are depriving our offspring, coral reefs, and many animal and plant species of a stable, secure future. This is a very strong structure of repression. I hope that the attitudes of bitter cynical satisfaction you describe will never become a dominant narrative.

Members of the neo-Nazi movements are already speaking out loud - it's great that there is a coronavirus; it's great that the climatic disaster is happening; we can finally get out of our niche. They almost paraphrase Mao Zedong, who said: "The world is in chaos. The situation is perfect." Racism, hierarchy, violence can finally flourish. For those who support these options, this is paradise, not hell.

In the literature I am familiar with, what you call paradise is called "threats of barbarism" or "militarism", as well as in NATO, Pentagon, or financial sector reports. These institutions are well aware that a century of chaos awaits us, and climate aberrations, conflicts over the environment and resources will be at the root of the 21st century tensions. Surprisingly, there are no denialists in the US defence and financial sectors. Razmig Keucheyan writes about it passionately. In his book La nature est un champ de bataille: Essai d'écologie politique (Nature is a Battlefield: an Essay on Political Ecology) he describes the Pentagon's plans on how to protect ourselves against the impending waves of climate refugees and the financial sector's plans to earn money from climate destabilisation. He calls this "capitalising on chaos". Meanwhile, if we want to maintain the familiar order, with values in which fascism is barbarism rather than the desired status quo, and earning money from chaos is simply immoral, we need to change, switch to low-carbon tracks, invest in RES, move away from the hegemony of GDP growth and hyper-consumption, reduce inequalities, tackle the fossil fuel and advertising sector; and introduce radical climatic and environmental corrections to capitalism. I admit that it is quite possible that all this will not work, and it is the eco-fascist future that awaits the world in the 21st century. We will witness recurring droughts and weather anomalies. There is no insurance system in developing countries, which will increase tensions. There is talk of millions or even hundreds of millions of climate refugees by 2050. If we can't really afford to sober up while there is still time, then unfortunately it is very likely that what you are talking about will flourish.

In the context of the West, it is very often argued by countries such as China and India that they have already made an industrial revolution there, that they have become enriched, and now all this talk about ecology is just an attempt to stop the growth of former developing countries...

It seemed to me that this was a bit passé, but there were indeed arguments about the historical right of developing countries to pollution. But we have a distinction between "luxury" and "survival emissions". In the scientific world no one denies that luxury emissions should be radically cut. The 20 percent of the richest countries emit about 50 percent of harmful greenhouse gases. It would be immoral to take away ambition and the right to prosperity from countries that are battling poverty.

In the debate on the Anthropocene there are concepts of "climate debt", "climate creditors", and compensation.

At the moment we have almost one billion people in the world who are starving, and the problem of obscene, ever growing inequality. This is the other side of the coin with the problem of environmental degradation. So here we have a system of connected vessels. In the debate on the Anthropocene there are concepts of "climate debt", "climate creditors", and compensation. During the negotiations under the Paris UN climate agreement of 2015, developing countries were forced to abandon demands for "climate compensations" from developed countries, in exchange for which developed countries undertook to create financial mechanisms to support the poorer ones in the transition to low-carbon solutions. But will such mechanisms be created? The challenges facing humanity in the 21st century are more serious than ever before. Is it time to look at who will get more for themselves? However, the starting point must be to achieve a solidarity-based planetary "we"; decarbonisation must not be done in a slapdash way and on the corpses of the weakest. The scientific theories of post-growth and redirection of economies to low-carbon tracks also talk about fighting drastic inequalities.

Perfect systems for curing humanity's ailments were announced to have been found many times, but with time they became instruments of oppression. Countries are sovereign. How can we force them if they do not want to adapt to such a shift in the economy? By force?

On our planet, no matter what subject you take up, it is clear that we are dealing with a monstrous amount of suffering, injustice, exploitation, and abuse. One billion of the poorest emit hardly any harmful greenhouse gases into the atmosphere because they do not consume. This is the only reason why we in developed countries can enjoy luxuries and a privileged lifestyle, namely that somewhere far away from us someone's cheap labour is brutally exploited and the environment is ruthlessly degraded. This is the global economic system, international trade, the power of transnational corporations, the power of developed economies, dictating the rules of the game of so-called "free trade" to the whole world. But I stubbornly try to remain optimistic when talking about constructive visions for a fair and sustainable future: a world of prosperity rather than blindly pursuing GDP growth, a world of high-quality social bonds, leisure, unconditional basic income, and post-work. A world where the rich, pensioners, dividend income, landowners, and financial speculation will finally be taxed; tax havens eliminated; corporations regulated; real environmental protection introduced; clubs of low-carbon countries established, cooperating and imposing sanctions on countries such as the United States, trying to stowaway, turning their backs on the rest of humanity. Kate Raworth, Tim Jackson, Alf Hornborg, Peter Dauvergne, William Nordhaus, Nick Srnicek, and hundreds of other researchers are writing about it. Where does my optimism come from? The history of mankind shows that what once seemed unimaginable eventually came true. It has been possible to gradually build a civilisation of universal human and women's rights, to move away from feudalism, to overthrow absolute monarchies, to introduce social shields for the weakest. The people who did this were not as satiated, healthy, and strong as we are. Thinking about a good anthropology in the face of the stunning data we have today is probably an overwhelming task, but I see no other way for a philosopher in the 21st century.

Translated from the Polish by Tomasz Bieroń

Ewa Bińczyk - a philosopher and sociologist; she deals with sociology of knowledge, philosophy of science, and science and technology studies. She is an associate professor in the Department of Practical Philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy of the Nicolaus Copernicus University. Recently she has published a book Epoka człowieka. Retoryka i marazm antropocenu (The Age of Man: the Rhetoric and Apathy of the Anthropocene). The book will soon be published in Russian.

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