mutilation, ‘honour’ crimes or the subjugation of women, towards incompetence, negligence, nepotism, widespread corruption, towards xenophobia or racism on the grounds that they emanate from a different culture, does not constitute respect in my view, but disguised contempt. It is the behaviour of apartheid, even if it is done with the best of intentions. I have said this already, but I am keen to repeat it in these final pages so that there is no ambiguity about what I believe cultural diversity is and is not.
I shall continue to use the broad term ‘civilisation’ in the singular and the plural. It seems perfectly legitimate to speak sometimes of human civilisation
It is only if we believe in this common adventure that we can make sense of our own specific journeys. And it is only if we believe that cultures possess equal dignity that we have the right to evaluate and even judge them, in accordance of course with values which are part of our common destiny and which are above all our civilisations, traditions and beliefs. For there is nothing more sacred than respect for human beings, the preservation of their physical and moral integrity, the preservation of their capacity to think and express themselves; and also the preservation of the planet on which they stand.
If we want this fascinating adventure to continue, we have to go beyond our tribal idea of civilisations and religions, free the former from the iron grip of ethnicity, rid the latter of the identity-based poison which distorts and corrupts them and turns them away from their spiritual and ethical vocation.
In this century, we shall have to choose between two visions of the future.
In the first, humanity is divided into global tribes which fight and detest one another but, as a result of globalisation, feed more every day on the same bland cultural broth.
In the second, humanity is aware of its common destiny and as a result is united around the same essential values, but continues to develop more than ever the richest, most diverse expressions of culture, preserving all its languages, artistic traditions, crafts, sensibility, memory, knowledge and so on.
On the one hand, then, we have several ‘civilisations’ which clash, but which imitate each other culturally and become homogeneous, and on the other a single human civilisation, but one which displays an infinite diversity.
To follow the first of these courses, all we need do is continue to drift along lazily, buffeted by shocks, as we do today. Choosing the second course will require a life-saving step change on our part. Are we up to it?
Chapter 10
On this subject as on others, I am perpetually torn between extreme worry and hope. At times, I tell myself that in its darkest hours humanity always knows how to find the resources necessary to extricate itself, even at the cost of very heavy sacrifices. And at others, I tell myself it would be irresponsible always to expect a miracle.
My belief at the moment is that the paths to a solution are undeniably diminishing but that they are not yet closed off. What needs to be promoted is not despair but urgency. That is indeed the sole reason for this book’s existence, from its first page to its last. To say that it is late, but not too late. To point out that it would be suicidal and criminal not to mobilise all our energies to prevent collapse and decline. To suggest that we can still take action, but that we must be bold and imaginative rather than weak-willed, timorous and conventional; that we must dare to overturn our usual thought patterns and ways of behaving, upset our imaginary certainties and rebuild our scale of priorities.
Of all the threats awaiting us in this century, the most perceptible today, as well as the best-studied and documented, is climate change. There is every reason to believe that in the decades ahead it will provoke cataclysmic disturbances whose extent we are not yet able to measure. Sea levels may rise by several metres, engulfing many coastal cities and other maritime zones inhabited by hundreds of millions of people. Because of the disappearance of glaciers and changes to rainfall patterns, major rivers could dry up, condemning entire countries to desertification. One can imagine the tragedies — massive displacements of people, deadly struggles — which could result from such a trend.
This development does not belong to a vague and distant future. We already know that it will dramatically affect the existence of our children and grandchildren; it is probable that the generations born in the second half of the twentieth century will still have time, I dare say, to suffer from it themselves.
I am a sceptic by temperament. When I hear alarm bells, I bridle, take myself to one side, and try to ascertain calmly whether we are being manipulated. We have often been told that apocalyptic disasters are coming, only to find a few months or even weeks later that they have vanished, thank God, leaving no trace. Will it not be just the same with climate change? Were we not told just a few decades ago that the world was in fact heading for a new ice age? Writers and film-makers seized upon this theme with varying degrees of success.
So when I started hearing warnings about a global warming rather than cooling, the news naturally aroused my curiosity without greatly diminishing my scepticism.
When scientific studies became more numerous and insistent and when their results began to agree, I wanted to learn more.
Lacking a scientific education worthy of the name, I had first to plunge into the most elementary books in order to understand what was being said and to understand the much-discussed ‘greenhouse effect’, how it works and why it has been causing so much concern for some time. To understand what the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere means, and what its causes and consequences could be. To understand also why there is such fear about the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets melting, but less about the melting of the Arctic Ocean, which it is now possible to cross in a boat from one side to the other during the summer months for the first time in millennia.
Am I going to say that at the end of my investigation I can verify that this phenomenon is serious and that it constitutes a threat to human civilisation? That is indeed the deep conviction I came to; but — and I say this in all sincerity — my judgement in this matter does not count for very much. In matters of science, the opinion of a layperson such as me does not merit being taken into consideration. To use a term which keeps coming up in my analysis, I have no intellectual legitimacy in this field. However, as a man who cares about the well-being of those who are dear to him, as a responsible citizen, worried by the excesses of the human adventure, and as a writer who is attentive to the debates which animate his contemporaries, I cannot shrug and make do with the conclusion that only the future will tell us whether we have been too alarmist or too disbelieving, too pusillanimous, and that we will find out in thirty years who was right and who was wrong.
Waiting for the judgement of the future means running a terrible risk. If it is true that in thirty years the damage caused by climate change has become irreparable, and if it is true that planet earth will already have gone out of control, that it will function erratically and ultimately uncontrollably, it would be absurd, suicidal and even criminal to wait for the future’s verdict.
So what should we do? Act before we are certain that the threat is real? Act even if we were to discover in thirty years that the Cassandras were wrong? My answer — though I admit it is paradoxical — is yes, we must act, and even if we have remaining doubts, we must behave as if we do not.
This attitude may seem irrational. But for once I would own up to it without a hint of hesitation. Not based on my deep conviction, which, though informed, concerns no one but myself. Nor simply because an overwhelming majority of scientists are convinced of the reality of global warming, and that its causes are linked to human activity, and also that this change poses a deadly threat to the future of the planet and its inhabitants. This near- unanimous consensus cannot be disregarded and I of course take it into account, but it does not constitute the last word in my view. The majority is not always right, and scientists have been wrong before. However, I believe that we ought to heed them in matters of climate change and as a consequence we must act, even before we are certain they are right.
To clarify my position, I shall formulate a wager, inspired by the one devised in the past and in a quite different context by the incomparable Blaise Pascal. With, however, a difference of scale: the result of Pascal’s
