Indian writer Amitav Ghosh pierces silence about looming climate-change catastrophe
Ghosh, whose latest book is The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable, says politics-as-usual is a great distraction from an ‘absolutely terrifying’ subject
Indian writer Amitav Ghosh’s latest book, The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable, is an extended essay of sorts on climate change, the catastrophe unfolding around us and the conspiracy of silence around the dangers of it. Apocalyptic the world may seem to be, yet in the near future, we will have another Ghosh to read, a non-fiction book – on India-China connections in the 19th century – based on research for his recently concluded Ibis trilogy. During a recent visit to New Delhi he spoke to Elizabeth Kuruvilla
Evidently you follow the climate change phenomenon quite intensely.
Yes, I do follow the actual climate change impact very closely, the scientific findings, what we see unfolding around us. And actually, even though climate science is a very advanced and complex science, it’s not conceptually as difficult as, say, string theory is.
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Climate science is based largely on empirical findings so anybody, even a layman, can understand that an ice-free Arctic is going to be a very serious development. We just don’t really realise the extent of the changes around us.
The changes don’t happen uniformly around the planet; they are concentrated on certain places.
There’s a sense of futility, hopelessness in your book.
The 20th century was this great carbon-fuelled party. And we arrived at that party very late. So, in a sense, we are still in party mode. Most of us, the Indians, Chinese, we Asians, we arrived at this party late, so we want it to go on. So I suppose we just aren’t looking at the reality, which is that this party is now on its last legs. That there are natural limits in this world which won’t allow it to continue.
