The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable

by Amitav Ghosh

The fact that laissez-faire ideas are still dominant within the Anglosphere is therefore itself central to the climate crisis. In that global warming poses a powerful challenge to the idea that the free pursuit of individual interests always leads to the general good, it also challenges a set of beliefs that underlies a deeply rooted cultural identity, one that has enjoyed unparalleled success over the last two centuries. Much of the resistance to climate science comes exactly from this, which is probably why the rates of climate change denial tend to be unusually high throughout the Anglosphere. Yet it is also true that the Anglosphere, the United States in particular, has produced the overwhelming bulk of climate science, as well as some of the earliest warnings of global warming. Moreover, many, if not most, of those who have taken the lead on the issue politically, whether it be as thinkers, theorists, or activists, are from these five countries, which together possess some of the most vigorous environmental movements in the world. Bill McKibben’s 350.org is but one example of a group that has spearheaded a global movement. The tension between these two polarities—widespread denialism, on the one hand, and vigorous activist movements, on the other—now defines the public politics of climate change throughout the Anglosphere, but particularly in the United States. And since identity and performativity are now pivotal to public discourse, climate change too has become enm...