The Impossible Revolution - Stolen Future, Broken Present: The Human Significance of Climate Change - page 65

climate transforms before our very eyes, we will hesitate to act, because
for virtually all of us, our ultimate homeland, the domain that counts as
real for us, is not the Earth, but the political and social traditions in which
we live. No natural events are strong enough by themselves to dislodge
our unthinking loyalties.
Why can climate change not get us to budge out of these fidelities?
What about the ecological revolution of our time simply does not com-
pute? The answer can only be that it goes against the nation's traditions
so directly that it can hardly be understood in familiar terms. As a truly
ecological revolution, it creates a number of unprecedented challenges.
For one thing, every previous revolution in the classic sense (such
as the Puritan Revolution, the American Revolution, or the French
Revolution) has promised some degree of liberation—from a monar-
chy or aristocracy, a foreign government, or a system of exploitation or
enslavement. In all these cases, people fought hoping that victory would
give them much greater liberty and happiness. An ecological revolution
promises no such reward. It seeks the liberation of the Earth's ecosys-
tems, and ultimately of human beings as well, from climate change. But
it undoubtedly goes against the stream of modern culture. It requires
us to renounce what we thought we had gained from those previous suc-
cesses. It tells us that we do not have certain rights—that we live within
an intricate web of mutual relations that are not subject to our control.
Rather than promising us a wonderful expansion of our lives, it offers
us something altogether more subtle: it tells us that if we give up a cer-
tain kind of abundance, or a certain way of securing it, we will safeguard
what we thought we could take for granted, our opportunity to have a
livable future.
Similar reflections apply to a social change that, unlike violent revo-
lution, follows the rules of American political culture—a change that
takes place through compromise, over many generations. For most of
the history of this nation, the great movements for emancipation have
taken place within the context of economic growth, industrialization,
increasing population, and a greatly expanding use of natural resources.
Expanding individual rights is difficult—it has taken generations and is
still ongoing—yet it is somewhat easier when economic growth holds
out the promise that if relatively privileged groups recognize the rights