In 2020, they published The Worst Is Not Certain (Premier Parallèle), an “essay on catastrophist blindness” which fought step by step the rhetoric and theories of collapsologists. Three years later, Catherine and Raphaël Larrère, philosopher and sociologist specializing in the environment, have seen the collapse of collapse… but the growing anxiety of populations in the face of climate change, the effects of which are constantly being measured.
Le Point: Since the publication in 2020 of your essay The worst is not certain, megafires, heat domes and historic floods have multiplied… Have these events given food for thought to collapsologists?
Catherine Larrère: It seems to me that the collapsing discourse itself has weakened considerably. Far fewer publications fall into this vein, and collapsology’s claim to scientificity has fizzled. It is now accepted, I believe, that the idea of ??an overall collapse of the “thermo-industrial system” is not serious… On the other hand, and this is the reason why we are republishing our essay in paperback format this fall, the affects linked to collapsology have spread. I’m thinking of “eco-anxiety”, the feeling of amazement and unease. To the idea, in short, that we are heading for the worst and that we cannot avoid it.
Raphaël Larrère: The extreme climatic events of recent years confirm, in fact, that the situation is worse than expected. The objective of a warming limited to 1.5°C is now considered out of reach. The question is therefore whether we settle for the idea that everything is going badly or whether we try to understand in order to act better… while looking for reasons to hope.
Where can it be found?
Raphaël Larrère: The elements of desperation all come from the global diagnoses: as moderate as the IPCC reports are, they have enough to send you to the bottom of the bed, a sheet over your head. Especially since, at the global level, there is no institution capable of making decisions that change the course of things.
Catherine Larrère: On the other hand, we find good reasons for hope when we focus on a reading of the situation that is no longer global, but “worldwide”, that is to say when we observe the myriad of movements and of actions that are developing everywhere. Citizen initiatives and collective mobilizations are multiplying. Some take the form of struggles but all, far from it, are not protesting.
We willingly dwell on very spectacular actions, such as the creation of a ZAD or the Sainte-Soline demonstration, often ignoring the much more daily and much less visible background on which these actions are based: the permaculture movements or agroecology, social and solidarity economy networks, etc. However, it is through this that the reality of ecological transformations passes.
Catherine Larrère: I am convinced that commitment is the only way to get people out of their depression. The philosopher Baptiste Morizot is right when he talks about “finding a living place to love personally and to defend collectively”. Is this going to change things? Anyway, that’s the only way.
Raphaël Larrère: The idea being to succeed in networking these initiatives, to enable them to learn from their successes and their failures. There is profoundly political work to be done here. We are actually very poorly informed on this subject. A number of researchers around the world are working on issues of climate governance. Very little on civil society mobilizations.
Catherine Larrère: In addition, today we have a generation to whom it is not necessary to say that things are going badly. In the 1980s and 1990s, the idea was to seize environmental problems for the next generation. She is here now, and she is determined to act here and now. This is, for me, a considerable change.
Catherine Larrère: There has always been confusion between meteorology and climate. Remember that global warming – it is more appropriate to speak of climate “disruption” – has very different and complex effects depending on the place and the period… and that it obviously does not mean that it will be, every day, 1.5 °C more! What strikes me all the same is the conspiratorial character that this discourse takes on: among those who hold it, we find the antivax and the covidosceptics! I believe, basically, that there is no longer any real climatoscepticism.
In 1992, when I started to take an interest in these questions, one could still discuss the anthropogenic origin of the phenomenon or its seriousness. Today, doubt is no longer allowed. Nevertheless, persisting in denial is first and foremost a way of saying that one does not want to hear about it. Or, when it comes to political leaders, that there is no intention of taking over the problem.
We often look for exclusively cognitive causes of conspiracy: people don’t know how to think, they reason in a biased way, etc. But I think the feeling of helplessness plays a big role here: in people like you and me, it can produce anxiety or denial.
