p. 11 #
In the same spirit, I think it also needs to be asked, What is it about climate change that the mention of it should lead to banishment from the preserves of serious fiction?
I find this quote typical of Gosh work. It’s a simple observation and yet I found it so surprising when I read it.
p. 35 #
At the air force base where my plane had landed there was another, even more dramatic, illustration of this. The functional parts of the base— where the planes and machinery were kept-were located to the rear, well away from the water. The living areas, comprised of pretty little two-story houses, were built much closer to the sea, at the edge of a beautiful, palm-fringed beach. As always in military matters, the protocols of rank were strictly observed: the higher the rank of the officers, the closer their houses were to the water and the better the view that they and their families enjoyed. Such was the design of the base that when the tsunami struck these houses the likelihood of survival was small, and inasmuch as it existed at all, it was in inverse relation to rank: the commander’s house was thus the first to be hit.
I admit I’m not 100% sure what Gosh is trying to say here but I loved this observation, it stayed with me for weeks after I read this book. So, while I don’t really know why it struck me, I like to think about it. Waiting for a moment of clarity that may never come.
p. 54 #
my life is not guided by reason; it is ruled, rather, by the inertia of habitual motion. This is indeed the condition of the vast majority of human beings, which is why very few of us will be able to adapt to global warming if it is left to us, as individuals, to make the necessary changes; those who will uproot themselves and make the right preparations are precisely those obsessed monomaniacs who appear to be on the borderline of lunacy.
I bring this up a lot in my conversations about the next two decades. I often find myself telling people that I understand that most things I say sound like a conspiracy theory but that, in reality, I’m not crazy for preparing myself for what I think it’s coming.
p. 145 #
From this perspective, global inaction on climate change is by no means the result of confusion or denialism or a lack of planning: to the contrary, the maintenance of the status quo is the plan. Climate change may itself facilitate the realization of this plan by providing an alibi for ever-greater military intrusion into every kind of geographic and military space. And it is quite likely that this plan commands widespread but tacit support in many Western countries. Significant sections of the electorate probably understand that climate change negotiations may have the effect of changing their country’s standing in the world’s hierarchies of power as well as wealth: this may indeed form the basis of their resistance to climate science in general.
This is in fact exactly the kind of thing I always say that convinces the average idiotic liberal out there that I’m getting lost into conspiracy theories. My argument here goes further than Gosh: I’m actually pretty sure most people in the west can feel they’re supporting atrocities but choose to ignore it because otherwise how do they keep telling themselves they’re the good guys?