The Nutmeg's Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis

by Amitav Ghosh

There is, I think, an important question here for the climate movement. Activists have long sought to appeal to the conscience of the privileged by emphasizing the message that the costs of climate change will largely be borne by the world’s poor, mainly Black and brown people. It now needs to be considered whether these appeals to the conscience may not have had exactly the opposite of the intended effect. Is it possible that this message has actually persuaded the privileged to think they need do nothing about climate change because they will be insulated from the worst impacts of global warming by their affluence, and indeed by their bodily advantages? Some may believe that climate change is just another of the periodic challenges of the business cycle; others may have convinced themselves that they will ultimately reap some rewards from climate change, just as their ancestors benefited from the process of continental terraforming.