Midterm Blog Post

 Me: I am so pleased to be having this conversation today with Bill McKibben, Robin Attfield, and Hope Jahren. The three of which are successful authors mainly on the topic of environmental issues.  The question I would like to start with is, do you believe we will avert the worst imaginable outcomes of climate change in the century ahead? And how or why not?

McKibbien: I would like to kick off with one thing to note before we dive into this question. As you just said, the three of us are successful writers in our own regard.  And I firmly believe that “A writer doesn’t owe a reader hope—the only obligation is honesty.” (3) For me personally, “I want those who pick up this volume [Falter] to know that its author lives in a state of engagement, not despair. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have bothered writing.” (3)  So yes, I believe we are capable of averting the worst imaginable outcomes. 

Me: How do you suppose that aversion could come about? Since I grew up in the southern bible belt, it seems to me that before there can be any kind of change, there needs to be a wider acceptance of environmental issues amongst the wider population, especially in America.   

McKibben: I completely agree with you Tanner.  I believe I made this view apparent in my book, or at least in the margins if you really read into it. “The human game is a team sport. Or, at least, so it seems to me. If the antigovernment conservatives are right instead, and individuals are all that really matter, if “there is no such thing as society,” then we do not stand a chance. We won’t be able to mount a real common effort against climate change. We’ll stand and watch, slack-jawed, as the latest inventions roll out of the silicone valley.” (242)  So yes, we are capable of averting the effects of climate change, but only if we work together to do no. Which is not a foreign idea. 

Me: Attfield and Jahren, you two have been surprisingly quite, what do you think of Mckibbon’s statement of “the human game is a team sport”?

Attfield: I completely agree with everything said by McKibben. I believe “both sustainable development and ecological preservation depend on strong action, both individual and governmental, local and global, in matters of climate change. Despite their disagreements, Deep Ecology, ecofeminism, Social Ecology, the environmental justice movement, and Green parties can (and must) unite in support of such action. Jewish, Christian, and islamic supporters of stewardship, whether anthropocentric or not, need to lend such action their support, as do adherents of secular understandings of stewardship, and the adherents of other religions seeking to preserve the Earth and its sacred places. For the future of the planet and all its species are at stake.” (121)

Jahren: I agree as well. My hopes for  The Story of More was that it became “the essential pocket primer on climate change that will leave an indelible impact on everyone who reads it.” (Blurb)  

Me: I would agree with that statement as well as the points made previously by both Attfield and McKibben.  I firmly agree that we not only are capable of averting this crisis in the next century, but the only way to do so is to take a global stance to defend our world from ourselves. 

Jahren: If I may, I would like to close our conversation with a few words of comfort and hope.  In most ways, we are just as noble and frail and flawed and ingenious as the people who cures and dared and built and forged centuries ago. Like them, we are ultimately endowed with only four resources: the earth, the ocean, the sky, and each other. If we can refrain from overestimating our likelihood of failure, then neither must we underestimate our capacity for success.  

Me: Thank you so much for those closing words Jahren. It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from Carl Sagan that also sums up this entire conversation. In regards to the pale blue dot photo taken by Voyager 2, he says “There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.” (Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space) We need to band together and defend the Pale Blue Dot to preserve “the only home we’ve ever known.”