On the book Half-Earth Socialism, an advocacy of a utopian ecological society that can stop the catastrophe of climate change.
Lots of big problems afflict humans and other life on Earth. I was born in the 1960s, and this feels like the worst period in my country and globally I've lived through. But amidst fascism in mainstream politics, genocide, war, and many other problems, one hangs over all the rest which is climate change and the impending catastrophic results of this which will wipe out or radically reduce many forms of life on earth. This will happen in foreseeable generations to come. My grandchildren's life will be very different to mine because of this. Ensuing generations globally will suffer much more radical consequences, some already are, not just environmental but from the conflict and violence as people try to escape climate crises in their areas. Many are unaware how close impending climate disaster is, and corporations and governments are not only unwilling to tackle the issue, but are choosing to roll back solutions and make it worse.
Half-Earth Socialism (published 2022) is an original and different book that makes the case for radical eco-socialist solutions to climate change. One author, Troy Vettese, is an environmental historian who studies the history of environmental economics, energy, and animal life. The other, Drew Pendergrass, works on environmental engineering using satellite, aircraft, and surface observations of the environment to construct supercomputer models of the atmosphere. You can clearly see both their backgrounds in the book.
The book is short and uses dystopian and utopian fiction to make its case. It's utopian, not in the sense of what it proposes being unachievable (although see on unachievability below), but in the more accurate sense of the word 'utopia' meaning something that is not yet realised. The key proposals for solving climate change are for a global society where half the earth is rewilded (more technological means for lowering carbon emissions having been rejected), with renewable energy combined with caps on energy use, and the end of the use of animals for food, whether meat or dairy, so worldwide veganism.
The book goes through various thinkers and methods of reducing carbon emissions and planning, sometimes telling the stories behind them. There's an emphasis on story-telling and engagement and the book highlights education as an important part of solving climate change (especially so when people may see there's something funny going on with the climate but don't realise quite how serious and urgent the situation is).
Introduction: the dystopian future.
The book starts with some short dystopian fiction about a future where technological solutions (such as solar radiation management) have been tried and gone badly wrong with a number of unforeseen negative consequences. It's a different way, this fictional one, of explaining their case that technical management solutions are fraught with problems and those problems are the basis for Vettese and Pendegrass making the case for rewilding, renewables, energy quotas, and veganism instead. Of course, there are long traditions of dystopian and utopian fiction; the approach isn't new. But it is unusual and engages your imagination more than slogging through a more normally explained case would do (although for me - and others - there was a bit of slogging in reading this book too).
Chapter 1: Philosophers
The book looks at philosophies relevant to responding to climate change. One is Hegel's idea of the humanisation of nature, of course, a general perspective in society, way beyond Hegel, as behind many environmental problems we face. Malthus' idea of overpopulation (which they reject) is discussed. Also discussed more sympathetically is Jenner's warning against animal husbandry and the negative consequences of that, disease for example (hence I guess the mention of pandemics in the book subtitle). The Jenner stuff I knew nothing about, and this was quite eye-opening for me. The authors move from a critique of Hegel to one of Marx as Promethean. But Marx and Marxism are seen by many as far more ecological and less Promethean than this, albeit not without flaws on green grounds. There are Marxist greens.
Chapter 2: Solutions
Chapter two looks at solutions and their bases. The authors examine geo-engineering, carbon capture and storage, and nuclear power, all advocated by some environmentalists, more and more so as the situation gets more acute and urgent, but which Vettese and Pendergrass give reasons for rejecting. They discuss versions of Half-Earth that they aim to improve on. On nuclear power, for example, they give reasons to doubt claims, including those made by some greens, that it is safe, carbon-free, and that fast breeder reactors offer a solution.
On the basis of the shortcomings of these solutions, the book comes to Vettese and Pendergrass' alternative of a utopian green society based on: veganism (because of the emissions of the animal husbandry and meat industries - there are also, of course, other ethical reasons for veganism); renewables with energy quotas (so not just renewable energy but limits on energy use); and global rewilding of half the planet (an idea they get from E.O. Wilson, hence the book title; an unbuilding of the world, geoengineering by natural rather than technological means). World veganism, low energy use, and half-world rewilding are massive projects, and I doubt they have much popular backing. The question that then follows is what happens in the democratic planning process the authors advocate (see below) if there is a lack of support for these. Do they get abandoned, imposed (not democratic), or is it hoped that education about them will be successful and, if so, how? The authors reply (in an interview) that when faced with the climate crisis having a severe effect on the world's population, these alternatives will look a lot more attractive.
Chapter 3: Planning
Vettese and Pendergrass reject the market as a solution, and chapter 3 examines planning as the alternative - hence their project being called socialist. They go through a range of influences behind this, Soviet cybernetics and planning, Chile's Cybersyn programme, climate science modelling and more. There are intriguing history and stories about these influential experiences that make the account more curious and engaging. The planning they advocate is non-monetary, based not on monetary amounts but on physical units - 'in natura' calculation. A key element of what's proposed is democratic planning. Experts will come up with models with different balances and mixes of solutions. Some, for instance, could allow higher energy use, but this is offset in other areas, for instance by 100% veganism being required. Or rewilding could be less than 50% of the earth, but then energy quotas are quite strict to compensate for that. People have these models available and can then vote on what they would prefer. The planning process is multilayered and integrates local and global levels, so local plans are made within the context of global plans, and plans are adjusted in response to feedback on information and in response to change. There is a half-earth online game that you can play to try the planning out, and the game has several reviews.
Chapter 4: The Utopia 2047
Chapter 4 finishes the book (barring some later closing remarks) with a utopian fictional account of a person transported into the future in the new society who discovers what life there is like and how it all works. His name is William Guest, the same name as the narrator from William Morris' News from Nowhere, who also wakes up in the future in a non-materialist utopian socialist future. The details of how the new society works are laid out, but in fictional form to make them more engaging, although it helps if you have read the rest of the book to understand what's happening. Or you could read this chapter first and then go back to the more conventional parts of the book informed by this. It's all described in a way which is glowing and warm and I must admit it drew me in with an internal smile and feeling of well-being about it all. Stepping back, I could see why some would have reservations although I quite like a relatively austere life. The utopia is a very non-materialist and simple one, a different path to the hi-tech green societies envisaged by some 'accelerationist' greens/socialists.
Some criticisms
Eco-socialism. There is a huge literature on eco-socialism and many versions of this perspective. This book doesn't engage with other eco-socialisms, say what's different about their version, how it fits in with other eco-socialisms, what their perspectives are, etc. The book aims to be short, so it's fair enough. The absence leaves out knowledge, experience, and context which could feed into their project, but I think the aim to provide a short, simple book is justifiable.
Other non-capitalist solutions. There are many other proposed and practiced solutions to climate change going on in the world. This book presents its own but does not really touch on other eco and agricultural practices that are intended to be sustainable beyond market and capitalist approaches. Again, if this is supposed to be a short book, then this can be a justification. But it does omit a lot, for instance decolonial approaches like those covered by the Global Tapestry of Alternatives and more attention could be given to indigenous and anti-colonial sustainability theories and projects. Half-earth rewilding could easily displace indigenous and poor groups, so knowledge from such groups bottom-up could be emphasised more as part of their system.
Eco-modernism. The book rejects what are sometimes called 'accelerationist' or eco-modernist approaches, which are less austere and see technology allowing a more materially generous and comfortable lifestyle compatible with combating climate change. But while bioengineering approaches and nuclear power and such like are rejected eco-modernists will feel Vettese and Pendergrass could do more to justify why a more hi-tech post-carbon society is not possible. For many, the austere society of the alternative they present and the complex planning processes people will have to be involved in will be off-putting and unrealistic sounding. Although, as mentioned, the authors feel they may not seem so unappealing when the severe effects of climate change start to bite (though that could be too late).
Accessibility. I found some of the parts which go through the complexities of other thinkers, over-complicated things and temporarily alienated me, and where that route takes us in the book could be got to more directly. For someone like me who would like the argument not to be over-complicated and as accessible as possible for the public, this is not good, but such explanations do show the route to their conclusions and are intriguing for those who like their minds tested and expanded. Complicating things is rewarded (or required) in academia, and cutting such routes to your ideas out of books and articles for a simpler explanation is seen as poor work. At the same time, the authors do talk about making the case for half-earth society accessible, and they have the fictional parts to the book and the online video game on planning.
Transition, change, and utopianism. The authors explicitly make the case that their book is utopian; it imagines a radically different future. The aim is to encourage us to imagine something very different that might actually work. They quite reasonably argue that if people in the past had been held back in their ideas for the future by political realities of what seemed feasible at the time, many positive things that have happened would not have been attempted, neo-liberalism (less positive) being one example they give, but other progressive ones too.
At the same time, we have many solutions to climate change; this is not the problem, even if some are more adequate than others. The real issue is that corporations and politicians are not committed to tackling climate change despite it being an urgent and very serious issue. In fact, they are often not just not progressing but actually reversing in tackling climate change. So the most important matter, which this book does not tackle that much and does not really aim to, is what means we can use to get those solutions pursued and implemented. The main issue around tackling climate change is not solutions but transition to those solutions, means as much as ends or policies, getting from here to there, which there currently seems to be little progress on.
Coalitions and strategy. Having said this, the authors talk about coalitions and strategies for achieving power and change, albeit briefly and sketchily. The coalition for change, they say, can include socialists, environmentalists, the anti-nuclear movement, the animal rights movement, feminists, all adjusting their stances to take into account environmental limits and the social justice needs of other groups in the world. Strategies they say may include ones that model those of the ANC in South Africa - strikes, divestment, sabotage (also advocated by Andreas Malm), elections, boycotts, and violence. I don't think they really discuss indigenous and anti-colonial peoples as agents in the coalition (I'm happy for my memory to be corrected). But they should do, as ecological sustainability can be a high priority for such groups who have interests and investment in the change, and because groups beyond the Global North rich should be empowered and their knowledge and their wishes central.
Trying everything. The half-earth society is not going to happen in toto in the long-distance future, let alone in the foreseeable future. That's no reason not to advocate it as a utopia that we aim to achieve and take what we can. Yet a specific feature of the problem of climate change is that it needs very fast and achievable ends, as we are well into the crisis stage and heading past tipping points where things cannot be reversed. The consequences of climate change will be catastrophic. Given the end is so and is likely to happen within the lives of upcoming generations, and decline affects current generations, we need to try everything which might help. That means many proposals that this book does not propose, and more immediately possible ones, but also the proposals in this book.
Inclusivity and Positivity. Vettese and Pendergrass have been much criticised on some of the above points, sometimes quite angrily (see the list of reviews below). The criticisms are often accurate if not necessarily fair. I don't think we should evaluate this book on the criteria of whether it's the be-all and end-all of solutions on the topic. We should take it (and others on alternatives to the status quo) as a contribution. Those of us who are looking for real alternatives that will deal with the very serious issue of climate change need to stick together, not fight each other. Of course, being critical is important, especially towards those holding back progress, but also to those who have solutions to climate change that we think are flawed. But we need to be positive about alternatives proposals and be critical without turning against each other. This book has good radical suggestions, for all its flaws and limits. We should take it as one serious contribution, with very important proposals, amongst many, to solving this huge problem for life on earth.
Reviews
There are other reviews of this book, most better than my notes here. Here are some I've read; there are more.
There are reviews by ordinary readers on Bookwyrm (an anti-corporate 'fediverse' social book reading site), Storygraph, and Goodreads. I find these sites often more valuable than reviews by 'experts'.
Hema Vaishnavi Ale in the LSE Review of Books sees the book as contradictory and incomplete.
Review by Alex James on the Cosmonaut website from a Marxist and decolonial perspective.
Thomas Estabrook review sees positives and shortcomings.
Doug Henwood review and interview with the authors. The interview is very interesting, a robust exchange with the eco-modernist critical interviewer, well worth listening to.
Sentient short review by Spencer Roberts, positive if not uncritical.
Brian Napoletano, a very full and detailed Marxist critique in Monthly Review.
Richard Seymour review in New Statesman raises various issues, such as what if people aren't persuaded by the utopia set out for them.
Neil Mather Commonplace review is generally positive but says how do we get there.
Dave Peticolas review is interested in the computer planning side but worried about the sort of society proposed.
Huber's review from an eco-modernist and class perspective. Huber is a more materialist and less utopian eco-socialist who emphasises class struggle.
Saba's critique focuses on the agents for change
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