Mind the gap
A climate change expert argues that the world needs better myths to shape the future in uncertain times.
The Myth Gap comes with the recommendation that it is “a must-read for anyone considering how to save the world”. Perhaps; those who are already convinced that the world needs saving won’t need it, while sceptics are unlikely to want to do so. More to the point is the author’s question: “What happens when evidence and arguments aren’t enough?” This is certainly pertinent. The EU referendum and the American Presidential election offer examples of the triumph of feeling over reasoning.
Alex Evans is a Senior Fellow at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation “with nearly 20 years’ experience in climate and development policy.” So you know where he is coming from and where he stands.
He believes we are in the old Last Chance Saloon, even though he is honest enough to acknowledge that in a great many respects things are getting better. There have been worldwide improvements in life expectancy, literacy, and agriculture; we have the ability to feed everybody. It’s a question of organisation.
It’s also for Evans a question of how we think of ourselves and the world. He quotes Terry Pratchett: “People think that stories are shaped by people. In fact, it’s the other way about”.
We act in accordance with the stories we tell ourselves. So “if the myths we reach for in conditions of stress and crisis are ones about overshoot and collapse, and we all start to act accordingly... Then that will determine where we’re headed.” We need, he thinks, better myths. He quotes Karen Armstrong who calls a myth “a guide to behaviour”.
Well, he may be right. Actually of course there are sceptics and deniers who believe that the case for anthropogenic climate change is itself a myth that has been very effectively promoted; so much so that it is the dominant myth of our time. Governments have acted in accordance with its message. The carbon-based economy is, if not in absolute decline, on the back foot. So, for example, we have wind farms all over Yorkshire.
The sceptics point out that the world experienced far more extreme changes of climate – the Ice Age, for example – long before Man was making any contribution. So when Evans tells us we have “a myth gap”, they say “pull the other one”.
From their perspective the evidence of climate scientists (which they question, perhaps unreasonably) and the arguments resulting from it have been more than enough.
Nevertheless Evans is an attractive and persuasive writer. He believes we can use “our powers of collective story-telling to imagine a future in which it all goes right, creating a myth about redemption and restoration that adds up, if you like, to an Eden 2.0”. Paradise regained in other words.