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<h1 class="css-19v093x">The great unravelling: 'I never
thought I’d live to see the horror of planetary
collapse'</h1>
<div class="css-1x1jxeu">
<div class="css-7kp13n">By</div>
<div class="css-7ol5x1"><span class="css-1q5ec3n">Joëlle
Gergis</span></div>
<div class="css-8rl9b7">theguardian.com</div>
<div class="css-zskk6u">10 min</div>
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<p>It breaks my heart to watch the
country I love irrevocably wounded
because of the Australian
government’s refusal to act on
climate change</p>
<ul>
<li>This is part of a series of
essays by Australian writers
responding to the challenges of
2020</li>
</ul>
<p>by <span> <span>Joëlle Gergis</span></span></p>
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<p><span><span>I</span></span>f you’ve ever
been around someone who is dying, it may
have struck you how strong a person’s
lifeforce really is. When my dad was
gravely ill, an invisible point of no
return was gradually crossed, then
suddenly death was in plain sight. We
stood back helplessly, knowing that
nothing more could be done, that something
vital had slipped away. All we could do is
watch as life extinguished itself in
agonising fits and starts.</p>
<p>As a climate scientist watching the most
destructive bushfires in Australian
history unfold, I felt the same
stomach-turning recognition of witnessing
an irreversible loss.</p>
<p>The relentless heat and drought
experienced during our nation’s hottest
and driest year on record saw the last of
our native forests go up in smoke. We saw
terrified animals fleeing with their fur
on fire, their bodies turned to ash. Those
that survived faced starvation among the
charred remains of their obliterated
habitats.</p>
<p>During Australia’s Black Summer, more
than 3 billion animals were incinerated or
displaced, our beloved bushland burnt to
the ground. Our collective places of
recharge and contemplation changed in ways
that we can barely comprehend. The koala,
Australia’s most emblematic species, now
faces extinction in New South Wales by as
early as 2050.</p>
<p>Recovering the diversity and complexity
of Australia’s unique ecosystems now lies
beyond the scale of human lifetimes. What
we witnessed was inter-generational
damage: a fundamental transformation of
our country.</p>
<p>Then, just as the last of the bushfires
went out, recording-breaking ocean
temperatures triggered the third mass
bleaching event recorded on the Great
Barrier Reef since 2016. This time, the
southern reef – spared during the 2016 and
2017 events – finally succumbed to extreme
heat. The largest living organism on the
planet is dying.</p>
<p>As one of the dozen or so Australian lead
authors involved in consolidating the
physical science basis for the United
Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment
report, I’ve gained terrifying insight
into the true state of the climate crisis
and what lies ahead. There is so much heat
already baked into the climate system that
a certain level of destruction is now
inevitable. What concerns me is that we
may have already pushed the planetary
system past the point of no return. That
we’ve unleashed a cascade of irreversible
changes that have built such momentum that
we can only watch as it unfolds.</p>
<div class="RIL_IMG" id="RIL_IMG_2">
<figure> <img
src="https://pocket-image-cache.com//filters:no_upscale()/https%3A%2F%2Fi.guim.co.uk%2Fimg%2Fmedia%2F01ed2f36348a5451c1faa5f024a3d1a13a263207%2F0_0_5569_3713%2Fmaster%2F5569.jpg%3Fwidth%3D300%26quality%3D85%26auto%3Dformat%26fit%3Dmax%26s%3D097992557122ecb8db81495e9f2be4c4"
alt="‘Australia’s horror summer is the
clearest signal yet that our planet’s
climate is rapidly destabilising.’
Photograph: Adwo/Alamy"> <figcaption>‘Australia’s
horror summer is the clearest signal
yet that our planet’s climate is
rapidly destabilising.’ Photograph:
Adwo/Alamy</figcaption> </figure>
</div>
<p>Australia’s horror summer is the clearest
signal yet that our planet’s climate is
rapidly destabilising. It breaks my heart
to watch the country I love irrevocably
wounded because of our government’s denial
of the severity of climate change and its
refusal to act on the advice of the
world’s leading scientists.</p>
<p>I mourn all the unique animals, plants
and landscapes that are forever altered by
the events of our Black Summer. That the
Earth as we now know it will soon no
longer exist. I grieve for the generations
of children who will only ever experience
the Great Barrier Reef or our ancient
rainforests through photographs or David
Attenborough’s documentaries. In the
future, his films will be like watching
grainy archival footage of the Tasmanian
tiger: images of a lost world.</p>
<p>As we live through this growing
instability, it’s becoming harder to
maintain a sense of professional
detachment from the work that I do. Given
that humanity is facing an existential
threat of planetary proportions, surely it
is rational to react with despair, anger,
grief and frustration. To fail to
emotionally respond to a level of
destruction that will be felt throughout
the ages feels like sociopathic disregard
for all life on Earth.</p>
<p>To confront this monumental reality and
then continue as usual would be like
buying into a collective delusion that
life as we know it will go on
indefinitely, regardless of what we do.
The truth is, everything in life has its
breaking point. My fear is that the
planet’s equilibrium has been lost; we are
now watching on as the dominoes begin to
cascade.</p>
<p>With just 1.1C of warming, Australia has
already experienced unimaginable levels of
destruction of its marine and land
ecosystems in the space of a single
summer. More than 20% of our country’s
forests burnt in a single bushfire season.
Virtually the entire range of the Great
Barrier Reef cooked by one mass bleaching
event. But what really worries me is what
our Black Summer signals about the
conditions that are yet to come. As things
stand, the latest research shows that
Australia could warm up to 7C above
pre-industrial levels by the end of the
century. If we continue along our current
path, climate models show an average
warming of 4.5C, with a range of 2.7–6.2C
by 2100. This represents a ruinous
overshooting of the Paris agreement
targets, which aim to stabilise global
warming at well below 2C, to avoid what
the UN terms “dangerous” levels of climate
change.</p>
<p>The revised warming projections for
Australia will render large parts of our
country uninhabitable and the Australian
way of life unliveable, as extreme heat
and increasingly erratic rainfall
establishes itself as the new normal.
Researchers who conducted an analysis of
the conditions experienced during our
Black Summer concluded “under a scenario
where emissions continue to grow, such a
year would be average by 2040 and
exceptionally cool by 2060.”</p>
<p>It’s the type of statement that should
jolt our nation’s leaders out of their
delusional complacency. Soon we will be
facing 50C summer temperatures in our
southern capital cities, longer and hotter
bushfire seasons, and more punishing
droughts. We will be increasingly forced
to shelter in our homes as dangerous heat
and oppressive smoke become regular
features of the Australian summer. Looking
back from this future, the coronavirus
lockdown of 2020 will feel like a luxury
holiday.</p>
<p>Australia’s Black Summer was a terrifying
preview of a future that no longer feels
impossibly far away. We’ve experienced,
first-hand, how unprecedented extremes can
play out more abruptly and ferociously
than anyone thought possible. Climate
disruption is now a part of the experience
of every Australian.</p>
<p>We are being forced to come to terms with
the fact that we are the generation that
is likely to witness the destruction of
our Earth. We have arrived at a point in
human history that I think of as the
“great unravelling”. I never thought I’d
live to see the horror of planetary
collapse unfolding.</p>
<p>As an Australian on the frontline of the
climate crisis, all I can do is try to
help people make sense of what the
scientific community is observing in real
time. I use my writing to send out
distress beacons to the wider world,
hoping that processing the enormity of our
loss through an international lens will
help us feel the sting of it. Perhaps,
then, we will finally acknowledge the
terribly sad reality that we are losing
the battle to protect one of the most
extraordinary parts of our planet.</p>
<p>I often despair that everything the
scientific community is trying to do to
help avert disaster is falling on deaf
ears. Instead, we hear the federal
government announcing policies ensuring
the protection of fossil fuel industries,
justifying pathetic emission targets that
will doom Australia to an apocalyptic
nightmare of a future.</p>
<div class="RIL_IMG" id="RIL_IMG_3">
<figure> <img
src="https://pocket-image-cache.com//filters:no_upscale()/https%3A%2F%2Fi.guim.co.uk%2Fimg%2Fmedia%2F7818df2c1f85a045e74b64e9a6d885085b83372b%2F0_0_4608_3153%2Fmaster%2F4608.jpg%3Fwidth%3D300%26quality%3D85%26auto%3Dformat%26fit%3Dmax%26s%3D6eeceed0c5f70419a2719844c90e7e91"
alt="Recording-breaking ocean
temperatures triggered the third mass
bleaching event recorded on the Great
Barrier Reef since 2016. Photograph:
Greg Torda/ARC Centre Coral Reef
Studies/EPA"> <figcaption>Recording-breaking
ocean temperatures triggered the third
mass bleaching event recorded on the
Great Barrier Reef since 2016.
Photograph: Greg Torda/ARC Centre
Coral Reef Studies/EPA</figcaption> </figure>
</div>
<p>The national conversation we urgently
needed to have following our Black Summer
never happened. Our collective trauma was
sidelined as a deadly pandemic took hold.
Instead of grieving our losses and
agreeing on how to implement an urgent
plan to safeguard our nation’s future, we
became preoccupied by whether we had
enough food in the pantry, whether our job
or relationship would be intact on the
other side of the lockdown. We were forced
to consider life and death on an intensely
personal level.</p>
<p>When our personal safety is threatened,
our capacity to handle the larger
existential threat of climate change
evaporates. But just because we can’t face
something doesn’t mean it disappears.</p>
<p>As many trauma survivors will tell you,
it’s often the lack of an adequate
response in the aftermath of a traumatic
event, rather than the experience itself,
that causes the most psychological damage.
And if there is no acknowledgment of the
damage that has been done, no moral
consequences for those responsible, it’s
as if the trauma never happened.</p>
<p>How can we ever re-establish trust in the
very institutions that let things get this
bad? How do we live with the knowledge
that the people who are meant to keep us
safe are the very ones allowing the
criminal destruction of our planet to
continue?</p>
<p>Perhaps part of the answer lies in TS
Eliot’s observation that “humankind cannot
bear very much reality”. To shy away from
difficult emotions is a very natural part
of the human condition. We are afraid to
have the tough conversations that connect
us with the darker shades of human
emotion.</p>
<p>We are often reluctant to give voice to
the painful feelings that accompany a
serious loss, like the one we all
experienced this summer. We quickly skirt
around complex emotions, landing on the
safer ground of practical solutions like
renewable energy or taking personal action
to feel a sense of control in the face of
far bleaker realities.</p>
<p>As more psychologists begin to engage
with the topic of climate change, they are
telling us that being willing to
acknowledge our personal and collective
grief might be the only way out of the
mess we are in. When we are finally
willing to accept feelings of intense
grief – for ourselves, our planet, our
kids’ futures – we can use the intensity
of our emotional response to propel us
into action.</p>
<p>Grief is not something to be pushed away;
it is a function of the depth of the
attachment we feel for something, be it a
loved one or the planet. If we don’t allow
ourselves to grieve, we stop ourselves
from emotionally processing the reality of
our loss. It prevents us from having to
face the need to adapt to a new, unwelcome
reality.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, we live in a culture where
we actively avoid talking about hard
realities; darker parts of our psyche are
considered dysfunctional or intolerable.
But trying to be relentlessly cheerful or
stoic in the face of serious loss just
buries more authentic emotions that must
eventually come up for air.</p>
<p>As scientists, we are often quick to
reach for more facts rather than grapple
with the complexity of our emotions. We
think that the more people <em>know</em>
about the impacts of climate change,
surely the more they will <em>understand</em>
how urgent our collective response needs
to be. But as the long history of
humanity’s inability to respond to the
climate crisis has shown us, processing
information purely on an intellectual
level simply isn’t enough.</p>
<p>It’s something Rachel Carson – the
American ecologist and author of Silent
Spring,<em> </em>the seminal book warning
the public about the dangerous long-term
effects of pesticides – recognised nearly
60 years ago. She wrote: “It is not half
so important to know as to feel … once the
emotions have been aroused – a sense of
the beautiful, the excitement of the new
and unknown, a feeling of sympathy, pity,
admiration or love – then we wish for
knowledge about the object of our
emotional response. Once found, it has
lasting meaning.” In other words, there is
great power and wisdom in our emotional
response to our world. Until we are
prepared to be moved by the profoundly
tragic ways we treat the planet and each
other, our behaviour will never change.</p>
<p>On a personal level, I wonder what to do
in the face of this awareness. Should I
continue to work my guts out, trying to
produce new science to help better
diagnose what’s going on? Do I try to
teach a dejected new generation of
scientists to help fix the mess humanity
has made? How can I reconcile my own sense
of despair and exhaustion with the need to
stay engaged and be patient with those who
don’t know any better?</p>
<div class="RIL_IMG" id="RIL_IMG_4">
<figure> <img
src="https://pocket-image-cache.com//filters:no_upscale()/https%3A%2F%2Fi.guim.co.uk%2Fimg%2Fmedia%2F242f1c74f638ad0c542ed037f5daa9803f079c74%2F0_0_5304_7952%2Fmaster%2F5304.jpg%3Fwidth%3D300%26quality%3D85%26auto%3Dformat%26fit%3Dmax%26s%3Dec59f1934b9efdadc4b5fb464d3b399d"
alt="Joëlle Gergis: ‘Something inside
me feels like it has snapped, as if
some essential thread of hope has
failed.’ Photograph: Lannon
Harley/ANU"> <figcaption>Joëlle
Gergis: ‘Something inside me feels
like it has snapped, as if some
essential thread of hope has failed.’
Photograph: Lannon Harley/ANU</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<p>While I hope this will be the summer that
changes everything, my rational mind
understands that governments like ours are
willing to sacrifice our planetary
life-support system to keep the fossil
fuel industry alive for another handful of
decades. I am afraid that we don’t have
the heart or the courage to be moved by
what we saw during our Black Summer.</p>
<p>Increasingly I am feeling overwhelmed and
unsure about how I can best live my life
in the face of the catastrophe that is now
upon us. I’m anxious about the enormity of
the scale of what needs to be done, afraid
of what might be waiting in my inbox.
Something inside me feels like it has
snapped, as if some essential thread of
hope has failed. The knowing that
sometimes things can’t be saved, that the
planet is dying, that we couldn’t get it
together in time to save the
irreplaceable. It feels as though we have
reached the point in human history when
all the trees in the global common are
finally gone, our connection to the wisdom
of our ancestors lost forever.</p>
<p>As a climate scientist at this troubled
time in human history, my hope is that the
life force of our Earth can hang on. That
the personal and collective awakening we
need to safeguard our planet arrives
before even more is lost. That our hearts
will lead us back to our shared humanity,
strengthening our resolve to save
ourselves and our imperilled world.</p>
<p><em><span>•</span> This essay will be
part of the anthology Fire, Flood and
Plague, edited by Sophie Cunningham and
published by Penguin Random House in
December</em></p>
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