While some may give in to despair and retreat, many more will rise up and turn this message into a call to action.
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| Bring on the Climate Doomers! We Need More of Them |
(NEWS UPDATE USA FAST)-- All of the public narratives on climate change currently in circulation-mostly those espoused through mainstream outlets and sewn into ambiguous sound bites from Democratic candidates-can, more often than not, be reduced to fallacious rhetoric. We are left with two false options; thus is reflected in our two-party political system, which gives us two equally unsatisfactory options. On one side, Republicans deny climate change altogether, or at least minimize it as a minor fluctuation in the Earth's natural cycles. On the other hand, Democrats present a utopian vision of the future completely powered by wind and solar energy. Meanwhile, corporations are merrily burning fossil fuels as though there is no tomorrow.
There is little use deconstructing the Republican stance since it is literally powered by followers holding onto simplistic explanations. But the Democratic story of a clean energy future is due more critical examination. A large section of people seems to have readily bought into the idea that an endless future of consumption is within reach, powered by "free" renewable energy in the form of wind and solar. In other words, once we tap into these inexhaustible resources, humanity will somehow decouple its prosperity from the planet's finite resources. So, all persons-indigent and rich alike-can have everything they may ever want. A personal utopia can be created in which consumption has no limits. But this vision of limitless abundance in a renewable-powered world is an extremely dangerous fantasy. It blinds us to the reality of the climate crisis, leading us down a path where hope is built on false promises and denial.
Unrealistic promises have fooled many of us into the facts that there are four key reasons why nations can't build energy systems to harness the unlimited power of the wind and sunlight without planetary depletion. Among the four key points it includes that:
1. No nation can create energy systems for harnessing limitless power from the wind and sun without planetary depletion.
2. Materials involved in the production of solar panels and renewable energy storage systems often have to be extracted from the Global South through exploitation.
3. Under capitalism, renewable energy does not substitute for fossil fuels but is adding to economic growth and thus boosting further the demand for fossil fuel consumption.
4. The destruction of ecosystems, fueled by greenhouse gases and industrial pollution, is at this point so advanced that increase in sea levels, oceanic destruction-as in coral bleaching, anoxic waters, and mass fish die-offs-and desertification will continue for some time to come-whatever sudden change toward sustainability may be brought about on a global scale. In the best possible scenario in which society rapidly becomes eco-conscious, it may already be too late to stop the wide-scale species extinction and further environmental collapse.
But one of the reasons for growing pessimism is, without doubt, the dire state of our climate and environment - worsened by the reckless behaviour of corporations, governments and the public's widespread indifference. Rather than paralysing people with despair, many are blinded by unfounded optimism or a naı̈ve faith in technology and human ingenuity. Even the Left has a hard time maintaining coherent messaging on issues of climate, a confusion with which the private boardrooms of the oil industry can only be delighted.
One of the stranger tropes making the rounds in progressive discourse is that "doomerism"-that is to say a pessimism about the future-has somehow been a defeat for the environmental movement. Take for instance Nathan Robinson of *Current Affairs*, who lays down the following:
One reason climate coverage is a 'ratings killer' is that writing about climate change in a way that makes people feel scared and hopeless-like they're doomed to die in a wildfire no matter what-is a real turnoff. It's not that people don't want to address climate change-*Don't Look Up* tackles it head-on and is hugely popular-but if the conversation feels disempowering, no one will engage. At *Current Affairs*, our most popular climate pieces are those focused on action, not impending doom. I don't think it's helpful to tell people to 'settle into the trans-apocalypse.' No! Join the Sunrise Movement and vote out leaders who refuse to act.
Climate scientist Michael Mann has expressed a similar argument as Robinson's, cautioning that "Doomerism is the new denial." I respect both Robinson and Mann for what they bring to the table- Robinson's voice in the mainstream progressive and Mann's important climate research- but there's a hole in the argument. This notion that paralysis is born of collective despair feels exaggerated. Is doomerism the latest sideshow? Is anyone really moved from an awareness of the destructive capacity of corporations to a hopeless resignation, throwing up their hands? Or does pessimism merely travel along with the honest consideration of our precarious future environmentally?
To assume that defeatism en masse leads to inaction is at least dubious. Perhaps facing the bleak truth is what is needed for meaningful change, not something to be feared.
If doomerism were really the "new denial," a battalion of fatalists who renounce hope and absolve the oil industry would dominate publications like The Heartland Institute, touting the work of Guy McPherson and Eliot Jacobson. Again, nothing of the kind exists.
The last message Big Oil and their think tank cohorts want to communicate is that their business has succeeded in irreparably ruining the planet. The industry is well aware that despair can fuel as much fury as defeatism. Doomerism, if anything, is the furthest thing from denial. You won't find pessimism plastered on oil-funded propaganda sites. Instead, what those corporations would like to fill your mind with is optimism. Why? Because faith in human ingenuity and progress fuels energy profits. Just look at the next Chevron ad-full of happy, hopeful messaging-as proof.
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| chevron’s future of human energy |
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| chevron’s future of human energy |
Recent polling from Pew suggests 63 percent of Americans don't even think climate change is the most important problem facing the country. Fewer than a third of US adults would support phasing out fossil fuels altogether. To the degree this poll is representative, the country does not seem crippled by fatalistic resignation, or some sort of collective environmental defeat. Instead, we seem paralyzed by omnipresent Chevron-style advertising campaigns.
Our most convincing narratives of climate change fizzle when battered by the cold air of capitalism. Most authors fall back on some amorphous, collective "we," as can be seen from Priya Satia's good analysis, The Way We Talk About Climate Change is Wrong.
With an emphasis on delayed gratification and prioritizing the future, Satia presents a genuinely innovative and provocative argument about how the capitalist mindset lies at the heart of systems of imperial plunder and overconsumption. But there is an important undercurrent question buried in that assertion: who is this "we" that talks about climate in the wrong way?
Satia implies that, in this sense, there is no "we"—no unified public narrative about climate. Instead, we're all products of industry and political will, our climate narratives shaped by repeated messaging from those in power. Satia contrasts this with indigenous communities-a people who have long lived in harmony with the earth's natural rhythms. Such a philosophy leading to living in proximity with nature taught them to appreciate the present life, and that way of thought has found a fan base even in the west in the form of Henry David Thoreau. If a political movement were able to develop outside the circuits of consumption that have so marked late capitalism, Satia would predict it needs to be led by those with little to lose and more in tune with the earth.
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Yet, Satia's analysis is not without its blind spots. While she realizes the structure of the capitalist mentality itself fastens an impediment to real climate action, she does not take up the critical bigger issue: calling for the end of capitalism. Of course, such a mountainous task-provided it's possible at all-will most presumably need leadership on the part of those who understand the stakes in the bleakest terms. It's actually the so-called "doomers" who understand the gravity of it all that might just end up playing perhaps the most vital role in forcing humanity toward last-minute, transformative action. If we are to survive the climate crisis, it won't be through the optimism of the hopeful, but through the realism of those that have accepted the possibility of catastrophe.
Movements like Extinction Rebellion demand that the governments tell the truth about the climate crisis. But if they did, a wave of doomerism would likely break over the population. Most people would finally understand how bad things are, which of course is the very reason that governments sugarcoat the truth and paint visions of solar-powered utopias instead of facing the heavy darkness of our situation.
Writers like Jonathan Franzen and Roy Scranton have made similar arguments-that it's unlikely we can prevent a huge amount of climate disaster-and for that, they got roasted in those same intellectual circles, despite neither having discouraged climate activism, nor either having large enough platforms to sway mass opinion. Their positions, informed by an understanding of the history of destruction wrought by capitalism, were anything but illogical.
But the real causes of the obstacle to meaningful climate action aren't literary pessimists like Franzen or Scranton but rather the relentless optimism of corporate media, politicians, and other mainstream voices. Take, for example, Barack Obama's declaration at the 2024 DNC Convention that the U.S. would "lead the way on climate.
This type of hopeful rhetoric-so hopeful it denies the gravity of the situation-receives considerably less pushback than the blunt, though pessimistic, analyses offered by writers like Franzen. If we were to push back with the same force on this hopeful propaganda, our climate future might look a little less bleak.
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We need more voices that are willing to confront the brutal truth: that we are in deep crisis. We need people unafraid to take to the platforms and shout that we're in trouble. Some people will hear this and immediately collapse into defeat, but far more will become galvanized to take action.
History has often proved that it is when all hope is lost that rebellion arises. It wasn't until despair had fully set in that the prisoners rose up in the Warsaw Ghetto during the Nazi Holocaust. It is hopelessness that has often catalyzed revolution. Nat Turner, John Brown-fierce fighters with no seeming chance of success-might be viewed as early doomers. While I am not suggesting that all is lost, it would be pure denial to ignore what is real about how the hopelessness at this juncture could be a sane response to the current state of affairs.
Hope is a sort of sedative, numbing us into doing nothing. Real mass civil disobedience begins with a sense of collective direness. It's only through pessimism that we can actually create something resembling a movement that could actually change anything. Smart thinkers such as Nathan Robinson and Michael Mann might think otherwise, but they're wrong about doomers. We don't just need them-we need as many as we can get.