Dark Mountain

Paul Kingsnorth, the author of “Beast”, is one of the co-founders of the Dark Mountain Project, a network of people who see the world quite opposite to what I do. Or maybe not, I also recognize the shallow nature of much around us. But I reject their conflation of inner psychological development with the politics of global sustainability. As I have written time and again, we will not save nature by harmonizing with it but rather by liberating it through technological innovation. And as much as it is true that worldly success in a capitalist society often comes at someone else’s expense, so does any retreat from “civilization”, something which becomes painfully clear when the book’s protagonist leaves behind his partner and young child to find himself on the moor.

Still, I deeply value reading the work of people with whom I disagree. If anything, the Trumpocene has underscored the need to engage rather than unfriend. Yesterday, Alex Trembath, now the deputy director of the Breakthrough Institute, sent me his excellent review of two new books on climate change that reminded me of how easily these conversations break down when we stop listening.