Impasseby Roy ScrantonClimate Change and the Limits of Progress

There’s no denying it: climate change is real. Global temperatures are on track to hit 4°C above pre-industrial levels by 2100 – possibly even as early as the 2060s. This means current human civilization is impossible to sustain. Yet instead of unified action, politics is growing increasingly divisive, and we're burning more fossil fuels than ever. 

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by this depressing reality, this lesson is for you. Instead of false optimism, it offers something radically different: a way to act ethically and purposefully even when facing probable civilizational collapse. 

You'll discover why our faith in progress blinds us to reality, why climate change is too complex for us to solve, and why embracing uncertainty can actually free you from dangerous illusions about technological salvation.

Let’s dive in. 

Humans like to believe that progress is inevitable. We think that with enough effort, innovation, and good intentions, we can solve any problem. But when it comes to the climate crisis, this blue-eyed worldview may be our greatest obstacle to meaningfully dealing with what we’re really facing. 

Climate change started as a purely environmental concern a few decades ago. Today it has morphed into something far more complex and unmanageable. 

Just look at the numbers. Despite three decades of warnings since 1990, global emissions continue climbing. Since 1945, in just three human generations, carbon dioxide levels have risen by three-quarters of humanity's total historical impact. During this same period, vehicles multiplied from 40 million to 850 million worldwide, while plastic production exploded from 1 million to 300 million tons annually. Energy consumption from fossil fuels, meanwhile, spiked by 3,000 percent. 

This reveals an uncomfortable truth: humanity’s material improvements of the past 250 years stem less from moral and intellectual advancement than from cheap fossil fuel energy. What we celebrate as civilizational progress is actually just the temporary result of burning through Earth's stored carbon reserves at unprecedented speed. Yet our progress narratives foster a dangerous optimism that prevents us from confronting ecological limits.

The truth is, climate change isn't a future disaster we can prepare for, like a hurricane. It's an ongoing dissolution happening gradually – what the author calls an “Apocalypse 24/7.” The collapse is already underway – it’s just slower, more banal and much harder to understand than we anticipated. 

To make things worse, climate change combines with general biodiversity loss, political instability, economic fragility, and civilizational complexity. Growing the economy and reducing emissions remain fundamentally incompatible tasks, forcing impossible choices.

Communicating this complex reality to the public is fraught with difficulties. Most people lack scientific literacy and respond more to group identity than facts when it comes to climate change. Partisan polarization has turned climate beliefs into markers of cultural allegiance. And big corporations have done their part to corrupt public discourse to protect their own economic interest.  

We must face the reality that the climate crisis has simply exceeded our comprehension and management abilities – be it through traditional political means or good-faithed activism. Maybe it’s time to finally abandon our faith in progress and embrace philosophical alternatives. 

What if you could remember everything perfectly – every detail of every moment, every leaf on every tree, every cloud formation you've ever seen? Sounds amazing, right? 

Actually, this kind of perfect memory would likely be a curse. You'd become paralyzed by infinite details, unable to think abstractly or function normally. This paradox illustrates a fundamental problem: humans rely on simplifications, generalizations and mental shortcuts to solve problems. 

This usually works pretty well for us in day-to-day life. But our cognitive limitations become catastrophic when facing global challenges like climate change. Consider two famous moral frameworks that people often try to apply to global challenges. In 1972, philosopher Peter Singer argued that if you'd save a child drowning near you despite getting your shoes muddy, you're equally obligated to save starving children in Bangladesh. Distance shouldn't matter – if you can prevent something terrible without comparable sacrifice, you must act. Singer’s argument treats everyone as global citizens with universal responsibilities to strangers worldwide.

A little later, biologist Garrett Hardin countered with a different scenario. Picture fifty survivors on a lifeboat that holds sixty, with a hundred more drowning nearby. Save too many and everyone dies; save a few and you risk capsizing. The only option left is to let them drown to preserve those already safe. According to Hardin, this argument suggests wealthy nations should limit immigration and foreign aid because self-preservation justifies letting others suffer. 

The problem is, both frameworks crumble when facing climate change. Singer's approach ignores how local context shapes meaningful moral choices. We can't be citizens of nowhere making abstract calculations. As for Hardin, he treats nations like isolated individuals. In reality, countries are interconnected through global systems where drought in one place affects bread prices everywhere. 

Equally paralyzing are the temporal contradictions around the climate crisis. We face impossible choices between addressing past injustices, present needs, and future survival. Should poor countries be allowed to pollute more to achieve economic parity, even if it dooms the global climate? Or should we demand immediate zero emissions, preserving historical inequalities by favoring rich countries already able to transition?

Even well-intentioned activist approaches backfire. The climate justice mantra that "those who contributed the least will suffer the most" was meant to inspire privileged people to act. Instead, it may have reassured elites they'll be safe due to their wealth, reinforcing a lifeboat mentality rather than motivating sacrifice.

Of course, the deeper challenge is philosophical. We've never been purely rational beings – we still live by myths and stories, just different ones than our ancestors. But the stories we’re telling ourselves about climate change are fundamentally mismatched to the unprecedented challenge we’re facing. They’re not helping us combat the problem, nor are they providing spiritual comfort. We're left needing new frameworks for living with catastrophe.

In 2017, journalist David Wallace-Wells published his essay The Uninhabitable Earth, a detailed prognosis of the potential catastrophic impacts of climate change. Within 24 hours, prominent climate scientists were attacking the article as "doomist," claiming it would lead to despair and inaction. They argued that negative messaging was as harmful as climate denial itself. But here's the problem: they had virtually no evidence to back up these claims.

When researchers actually examined the evidence, they found that fear-based communication is highly effective at motivating action, especially when combined with solutions. Think of the dramatic warning signs on cigarette packages – they actually worked in reducing tobacco use and promoting health awareness. Meanwhile, positive messaging often promotes dangerous complacency. 

Our resistance to climate realism stems from a deeper psychological phenomenon. Research shows that about 80 percent of mentally healthy people systematically overestimate their control and expect unrealistically positive outcomes. In a landmark 1979 experiment, students tried to control a flashing green light with a button. Non-depressed participants greatly overestimated their influence over the light, while mildly depressed students accurately assessed their actual control. A feel-good mental state comes at the cost of seeing reality clearly.

This optimism bias is neurologically hardwired and resists contradictory evidence. While such positive thinking might have helped our ancestors survive, it becomes dangerous when combined with modern powerful technologies and a global ecological crisis. We're essentially running on mental software designed for small-scale tribal life while facing planetary-scale challenges.

The roots of our dangerous optimism also run deep into cultural beliefs about inevitable progress. Our faith in being able to control and improve nature through technology is quasi-religious, blocking realistic assessment of our situation. French writer Voltaire understood this after witnessing the meaningless suffering of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. His satirical novel Candide mocked a philosopher who insisted "all is for the best" despite experiencing war, disease, and catastrophe.

Today, our hardwired optimism bias creates a perfect storm for catastrophe. We systematically ignore negative information, overestimate our control, and cling to solutions like "net zero emissions" that may be fantasy. Yet historical disasters often stem from unrealistic optimism, among leaders who refused to face uncomfortable truths. In our current ecological crisis, this same dangerous delusion prevents us from making the radical changes necessary for survival. We need to get pessimistic. 

Imagine you're the captain of a sinking ship. Traditional thinking says you should either believe the ship can be saved or abandon all hope entirely. But what if there's a third option – one that acknowledges the ship is going down while still caring for your passengers?

This is the essence of what philosophers call ethical pessimism. Unlike the optimism that promises technology will save us or the despair that leads to inaction, ethical pessimism offers a different path: accepting harsh realities while maintaining our moral obligations to each other. 

Consider the tale of Native American Crow Chief Plenty-Coups. As a boy, he had a prophetic dream of buffalos disappearing and trees falling in a great storm. Only one tree survived, sheltering a small chickadee. This little creature had survived when all the mighty eagles and powerful hawks had perished. 

Plenty-Coups was puzzled by this. Yet when the Crow way of life collapsed under American expansion in the late 1800s, Plenty-Coups used this dream to guide his people's survival. He didn't cling to the past, try to control the uncontrollable, or pretend nothing had changed. Instead, he embraced what he called "radical hope" – a commitment to future survival without knowing how it will look. 

This ancient wisdom directly challenges our modern addiction to progress narratives. English economist Thomas Malthus also challenged this narrative centuries ago, warning of population growth outgrowing food production. He was dismissed as heartless toward the poor. In reality, Malthus witnessed firsthand the devastating famines of 1794-1796 in Britain, when hungry mobs surrounded the King's carriage demanding bread. Perhaps his warnings about natural limits weren't callousness, but hard-earned lessons about what happens when optimistic theories meet stubborn reality.

Today's climate crisis demands similar intellectual honesty. According to scientists, we find ourselves on a “catastrophic trajectory”. But we also must acknowledge that the future remains fundamentally unknowable. Ethical pessimism means focusing on what we can control while accepting what we cannot. It demands of us to keep working to minimize harm while preparing for collapse, and to build mutual aid networks instead of depending on failed systems. 

Ethical pessimism recognizes the profound truth that some problems cannot be solved, only endured with grace. By abandoning false hope, we paradoxically discover genuine hope – the possibility of living ethically amid uncertainty, caring for each other despite not knowing what tomorrow brings. Like the chickadee in Plenty-Coups's dream, our survival depends not on strength or optimism, but on our ability to listen, learn, and adapt to a radically changed world.

No more hemming and hawing: climate change is here. We are living through the slow collapse of everything we’ve known. The central challenge of our time is to learn to hold both hope and despair simultaneously without letting either one dominate completely.

In the 2017 Paul Schrader film First Reformed, environmental activist Michael poses this haunting question to a pastor: "What do you tell a child in 2050 when she says 'You knew all along, didn't you?'" The film's ending breaks its own narrative logic, offering a slice of transcendent hope alongside relentless pessimism. It reveals something profound about navigating impossible circumstances: that we must hold contradictory truths simultaneously – both despair about reality and hope for meaning. Wisdom comes from embracing this paradox rather than seeking rational solutions.

While this approach might seem counterintuitive, it offers genuine virtues. It forces us to see the world as it actually is rather than as we wish it were. It builds resilience by helping us distinguish realistic goals from impossible dreams. Perhaps most importantly, when we recognize shared suffering and human limits, we foster compassion and egalitarian thinking. In the end, we’re all in it together. 

Ursula K. Le Guin illustrates the moral complexity of impossible situations in her story about Omelas, a utopian city where everyone's happiness depends on one child's suffering in a basement. Some citizens walk away in moral protest, but this doesn't help the child and may lead nowhere. The story reveals that our wealth inherently depends on others' suffering, and there's no clean escape from complicity. We face impossible choices where both staying and leaving have moral costs, yet we must still choose how to respond.

Philosopher David Benatar's stark mathematical analysis reinforces a similar paradox. Benatar calculated that if pain equals negative one and pleasure positive one, then life totals zero. Non-existence, on the other hand, totals positive one, if the absence of pain equals positive one and the absence of pleasure equals zero. By this logic, not existing is mathematically "better" than existing. Yet despite this rational argument, we still choose to engage with life. The meaning we find in life transcends calculations of suffering versus pleasure.

So what can we gain from this? Well, when logic and feeling create a paradox, it means we can’t think our way out of our predicament. All we can do is find meaning in the struggle itself. 

The main takeaway of this lesson to Impasse by Roy Scranton is that it’s time to get ethically pessimistic about climate change.

Climate change represents an unprecedented crisis, one that we cannot solve through traditional progress-based thinking. Despite decades of warnings, global emissions continue rising while civilization faces probable collapse by 2100. Our hardwired optimism bias and faith in technological solutions prevent realistic assessment of this creeping apocalypse already underway.

Our usual moral frameworks fail when applied to climate change's complex temporal and spatial challenges. Rather than false optimism or despair, we must embrace "ethical pessimism" – accepting harsh realities while maintaining moral obligations to each other. We need to learn to live meaningfully amid civilizational collapse, holding both hope and despair simultaneously, focusing on what we can control while building mutual aid networks for an uncertain future.