The Climate Swerve: Reflections on Mind, Hope, and Survival

by Robert Jay Lifton

Overview

Longlisted for the PEN America/E.O. Wilson Prize for Literary Science Writing

"Well worth the read. . . . [A] prescient handoff to the next generation of scholars."
—The Washington Post

From "one of the world’s foremost thinkers" (Bill Moyers), a profound, hopeful, and timely call for an emerging new collective consciousness to combat climate change

Over his long career as witness to an extreme twentieth century, National Book Award-winning psychiatrist, historian, and public intellectual Robert Jay Lifton has grappled with the profound effects of nuclear war, terrorism, and genocide. Now he shifts to climate change, which, Lifton writes, "presents us with what may be the most demanding and unique psychological task ever required of humankind," what he describes as the task of mobilizing our imaginative resources toward climate sanity.

Thanks to the power of corporate-funded climate denialists and the fact that "with its slower, incremental sequence, [climate change] lends itself less to the apocalyptic drama," a large swathe of humanity has numbed themselves to the reality of climate change. Yet Lifton draws a message of hope from the Paris climate meeting of 2015 where representatives of virtually all nations joined in the recognition that we are a single species in deep trouble.

Here, Lifton suggests in this lucid and moving book that recalls Rachel Carson and Jonathan Schell, was evidence of how we might call upon the human mind—"our greatest evolutionary asset"—to translate a growing species awareness—or "climate swerve"—into action to sustain our habitat and civilization.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781620973486
Publisher:	New Press, The
Publication date:	10/10/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	144
Sales rank:	788,803
File size:	626 KB

About the Author

A pioneer in the field of psychohistory, Robert Jay Lifton is a psychiatrist and author best known for his studies of the psychological causes and effects of war and political violence and for his theory of thought reform and cult behavior. He has written over twenty books, including many seminal works in the field such as the National Book Award–winning Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima, Los Angeles Times Book Prize–winning The Nazi Doctors, National Book Award–nominated Home from the War, as well as The Climate Swerve, Losing Reality, and Surviving Our Catastrophes (all from The New Press). He has taught at Yale University, Harvard University, and the City University of New York. He lives in Wellfleet, Massachusetts.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for The Climate Swerve:
Longlisted for the PEN America/E.O. Wilson Prize for Literary Science Writing

"Well worth the read. . . . [A] prescient handoff to the next generation of scholars who may see the nuclear and climate swerves as steps in the same process: the evolution of awareness of ourselves as a collective force of nature. . . . Perhaps the best reason to read The Climate Swerve may be this note of hope that Lifton weaves throughout the book."
—The Washington Post

"Lifton wisely put his considerable experience and wisdom in his latest timely and important book: The Climate Swerve. . . . Read Lifton’s book. It is packed with wisdom."
—The Huffington Post

"Thoughtful, intelligent, and deeply human, Lifton will not disappoint his fans and will hopefully draw new readers with this deeply informative work."
—Booklist

"A powerful and well-reasoned call to action."
—Kirkus Reviews

"From one of the foremost chroniclers of the twentieth century's other great dilemma, we now have these powerful reflections on climate change—they set in useful and vivid context this great crisis, and will be of use to all as we try to think our way through it."
—Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature

"Robert Lifton's brave life, and his succession of masterful books on the most urgent questions of our time, have prepared him for this—perhaps the most urgent and timely of all his works. A rare combination of clear-eyed realism and chosen hope, The Climate Swerve comes just in time to move politics and resistance to the next, necessary level. A treasure still, Lifton is a prophet again."
—James Carroll, author of House of War

"In the 1980s, Robert Jay Lifton gave us the term 'psychic numbing,' to explain how people coped with the threat of nuclear annihilation by denying or at least discounting it. While denial might be beneficial to an individual, it was potentially catastrophic to society if it led us to fail to act to address the threat. In this important new work, Lifton addresses the existential threat of our day: climate change. He offers us the 'climate swerve,' not as explanation but as source of hope. We can swerve: we can become aware, change our ways, and avoid disaster. For one of our great qualities as humans is that we have the capacity to anticipate the future and act accordingly. Most important, the heart of the swerve is the commitment to telling the truth about climate change, which Lifton does unflinchingly in this courageous and crucial book."
—Naomi Oreskes, author of Merchants of Doubt and The Collapse of Western Civilization

Praise for Lifton's Witness to an Extreme Century:
"Written with the verve of great storytelling and the precision of history, this memoir is a moral meditation that illuminates the age. An exquisite example of how intelligence, erudition, and depth of feeling combine to make redeeming wisdom. A stunning book."
—James Carroll, author of Jerusalem, Jerusalem

"Robert Jay Lifton has long served as one of the most important, and profound, witnesses of the 20th century."
—Greg Mitchell, author of The Tunnels

"A call for a moral awakening by a deeply compassionate chronicler of our times."
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Robert Jay Lifton has profoundly illuminated the human dimension of the 20th century's most destructive events."
—Steven Pinker

From the Publisher

2017-07-12
A clear argument that "confronting the full danger of nuclear and climate devastation enables us to sustain rather than destroy our species."Renowned psychiatrist Lifton (Witness to an Extreme Century, 2011, etc.), a winner of the National Book Award, explains his use of the term "swerve" to describe "a significant, if not always logical or clear, shift in the way people experience their world." In this instance, the shift reflects the recognition of the dangers posed by global warming. The author is best known for his study of how decent people come to accept an apocalyptic view of the future and even condone atrocities such as the bombing of Hiroshima. He compares the attempt to normalize the use of nuclear weapons to the current claim that climate change is a hoax. "Like global warming," writes Lifton, "those weapons raised doubts about the future of our species." Failing to accept the reality of global warming, Donald Trump and his corporate backers continue to encourage the reckless consumption of fossil fuels. The author points out that nuclear radiation is also an environmental issue even though the threats posed by nuclear weapons and global warming are significantly different. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused sudden "unprecedented slaughter and suffering," while the effects of climate change are incremental. However, in both instances, acceptance of existing political power structures has led to widespread failure to act in a timely fashion. The similarity between them is in the quality of the responses they evoke; they both reflect a dangerous human tendency to "suppress and distort our perceptions of their danger" by "normalizing" them. Lifton argues forcefully for a significant swerve in popular understanding of the catastrophic potential of global warming, and he cites the 1982 million-person anti-nuclear weapons march in New York City as an example of the level of response needed regarding climate change today. A powerful and well-reasoned call to action.

Kirkus Reviews