The Memory We Could Be: Overcoming Fear to Create Our Ecological Future

by Daniel Macmillen Voskoboynik

Overview

"Voskoboynik's book offers an exhilarating introduction to our ecological crisis, what caused it, and how we can imagine a better future." —Jason Hickel, author of Less Is More
The Memory We Could Be moves beyond the sterile, technical language around climate change and ecology to humanize the abstraction of global warming and bring different voices into the conversation.
Drawing on sources from anthropology to hydrology, botany to economics, agronomy to astrobiology, medicine to oceanography, physics to history, the author weaves a lyrical and powerful story of our relationship with nature.
The book has three parts:
"Past" addresses memory. Our inability to comprehend our staggering present partly lies in our ignorance of our staggering past. We peer into the black box of history to understand how we got here. We go on a journey across the roots of our ecological crisis, from the Roman Empire to the forests of Burma, from Congolese rubber plantations, to Colombian oil fields.
"Present" illustrates how climate change is shaping our world today, explores how it relates to poverties and inequalities, and equips readers with a set of intuitive instruments to understand climate impacts.
"Future" looks at alternatives and strives to illustrate in human terms the world we could lose and the world we can win. It asks what we can do and develops a transformative vision of a more ecological and equitable economy.
The Memory We Could Be is vital reading for all of humanity.
"A gripping review of where we've been, where we are, and where we may be headed." —Michael E. Mann, author of The New Climate War

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781771422888
Publisher:	New Society Publishers
Publication date:	09/17/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	339
File size:	4 MB
Age Range:	16 Years

About the Author

Daniel Macmillen Voskoboynik is a journalist and activist with writing in Pacific Standard, Open Democracy, and New Internationalist. He co-founded and is co-editor of www.worldat1C.org, a communications initiative designed to humanize the ecological crisis and clarify its causes.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Raoul Martinez

1. The Might of Memory
     Authority and humility

PAST

2. Separation
     Relinquishing a way of thinking
     Making connections
     From machines to organisms
     Looking forward

3. Origins
     Beginnings

4. Colonialism: The Acceleration
     The impact on nature
     The impact on peoples
     Work and slavery
     The destruction of memory
     Colonialism within countries
     A Cold War consensus
     Violence and technology
     Neocolonialism: The metabolism of misery

5. Fossil Fuels, Furious Flames
     The exceptionality of fossil fuels
     Black gold: The story of petroleum
     Oil and power
     The deceit and the delay
     Recovering our historical memory

6. Human Nature or Human Ignorance?
     What human nature?
     The myth of collapse
     A history of knowledge and ignorance
     Institutions and discussions
     Laws and actions
     Climate change and human influence
     The impotence of knowledge
     Science as a way of thinking
     Science's contemporary challenges
     Thinking ahead

PRESENT

7. The Great Burning
      Atmospheric basics
     Knowing climate change
     What we don't know: Uncertainty and humility
     Interpreting uncertainty

8. Understanding Emissions: Where, Who, What, When and How
      Where: Types of emissions
     Who: Emissions and authorship
     What: Temperatures and targets
     When: Too little, too late
     How: The carbon budget and the roadmap
     Literacy and ambition

9. The Poverty of Wealth: Economics and Ecology
     Metabolism
     Prosperity
     The true costs
     Routes ahead

10. The World at 1°C: A Guide to Climate Violence
     Extreme weather and climate conditions
     The inequality of exposure
     Social conditions
     Climate violence and you
     Poverties, strictures and precarities
     A story we can't tell

FUTURE

11. A Plausible Future: Approaching Apocalypse
     Trendlines
     Health
     New horizons of heat
     Adaptation and loss
     Blame and opportunism
     Ecological conflict
     A world beyond 4°C
     Reactions and responses

12. A Possible Future: The World We Can Win
     Solutions in a complex world
     Connection
     Humility
     Radicalism not romanticism
     Avoiding false solutions
     Democracy, diversity and accountability
     The paradox of pace
     The business of boldness

13. A Mosaic of Alternatives
     An economy of life
     Justice
     Nourishment
     The commons
     Energy
     Dismantling hierarchy
     Care
     Restoration
     Adaptation
     Education and culture
     Healing
     Reconstruction: Cities and space

14. What Then Must We Do?
     Stepping into the sea
     Connection and solidarity
     Communication
     Ordinary hope

15. Hope, A Horizon

Acknowledgments
Notes
Index
About the Author
About New Society Publishers

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"The Memory We Could Be" provides a gripping review of where we've been, where we are, and where we may be headed. Which future will we choose? Will we head down a path of continued environmental degradation rendering the planet unlivable for future generations, or will we act in time to avert catastrophic climate change and environmental ruin? This book makes an impassioned plea that we choose that latter path, and in so doing, assure that that be our legacy, the memory that future generations will have of us."
— Michael Mann, Distinguished Professor, Penn State University and co-author, The Madhouse Effect

"As we navigate our way through the Anthropocene, we need young writers' voices more than ever. Clear, poetic, and full of insight, Macmillen Voskoboynik's book offers an exhilarating introduction to our ecological crisis, what caused it, and how we can imagine a better future."
— Jason Hickel, anthropologist, Goldsmiths University and author, The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions

"This book is a timely call to action to prevent climate breakdown. Those who care about protecting this planet should read Daniel's work and prepare to build a new way of living."
— Caroline Lucas, Co-Leader, Green Party of England and Wales

"What is missing in climate change literature are bold, compelling voices, accounts that are accountable to the dignity of the afflicted... Macmillen Voskoboynik's work is a beacon in this regard."
— Asad Rehman, Executive Director, War on Want

"Macmillen Voskoboynik offers a sweeping overview of the ecological predicaments and choices that confront us in the 21st century. He's a hopeful realist — exactly the sort of storyteller and analyst we need at this fraught moment."
— Richard Heinberg, author, The End of Growth