41 pages • 1 hour read
Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-CarnacThe Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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Winning the Fight against Climate Change
The main theme of the book is how to win the fight against climate change. The authors focus on what humanity needs to do (as of 2020) to successfully combat the effects of climate change, while warning that success is not assured. In Chapters 2 and 3, they present two scenarios of what the world could look like in 2050: one in which humankind does nothing and one in which it works together and fights climate change. This is intended to grab the reader’s attention and galvanize their commitment to the fight.
The rest of the book presents strategies for winning the fight. However, the authors do not jump straight into “practical” steps. Instead, they spend three chapters (the fifth through seventh) discussing the shifts in mindset that taking on the challenge necessitates. They argue that for true transformation—not merely incremental improvements—to take place, “we have to change how we think and fundamentally who we perceive ourselves to be” (38). These mindsets include stubborn optimism, endless abundance, and radical regeneration. The significance of these mindsets to climate activism varies. Stubborn optimism largely provides the movement with the strength to keep going, but endless abundance and radical regeneration both have direct implications for humanity’s relationship to nature; to win the fight against climate change, the authors argue, people cannot continue to view the environment as something separate from humankind.
Only once the authors have explored these changes in thinking do readers get practical steps for fighting climate change. The authors present 10 actions that each person can take. Many books in the climate change genre focus on the actions of companies and governments because their activities make up the vast majority of greenhouse gases emissions. However, in this book the focus is on individuals. That’s not to say that the authors think businesses and governments have no role to play. However, in what the authors frame as an all-out, comprehensive struggle, no one should sit on the sidelines, and focusing primarily on the need for systemic change could alienate readers who feel powerless. Furthermore, the authors believe that it is precisely through grassroots movements that systemic change becomes possible. Companies and governments won’t act alone; the people must hold both accountable. Thus, the 10 actions include many that require citizens to use their power as consumers to reward environmentally responsible companies with business while boycotting those that do not make changes. Governments should also answer to their citizens and be responsive to the people’s wishes. The authors place much emphasis on the need for democracies to remain strong in order to lead the fight against climate change, as the disruption and change involved could otherwise play into the hands of demagogues and lead to fascism.
Optimism in the Face of Challenges
The Future We Choose begins with a grim portrait of the current state of the Earth’s environment, implying that the fight against climate change is a daunting, uphill battle. However, the authors are quick to emphasize that the scale of the challenge should not keep people from being optimistic as they undertake the necessary work. The authors take optimism so seriously that they make it one of the three new mindsets discussed in Part 2—and not just any optimism but what they call “stubborn optimism.” In fact, the paperback version of the book included a new subtitle: “The Stubborn Optimist’s Guide to the Climate Crisis.”
The idea of “stubborn” optimism is what it sounds like. This is not feel-good hope stemming from positive results but rather a necessary quality for those in the trenches before and during the fight. The authors emphasize that climate activism will entail many setbacks and that people will often be acting in an atmosphere of uncertainty. They stress, however, that this is precisely the time for optimism. In fact, they argue that stubborn optimism is the inspiration and catalyst that can ultimately help humanity prevail over near-impossible odds: Faith and determination are contagious and others will absorb a similar mindset, imbuing the movement with boundless human ingenuity to find the necessary solutions.
The book provides a firsthand example of this dynamic in the shift from the failure of the 2009 Copenhagen Accord to the breakthrough success of the 2015 Paris Agreement. Shortly after Figueres became executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, she made a statement to the press that an agreement was not possible in her lifetime. Realizing the self-fulfilling prophecy that defeatism would be, she changed her mindset. As the authors write, “Impossible is not a fact. It is an attitude” (50). From that moment on, she became focused on being optimistic in order to persuade others to hope for a deal. With hard work over the next six years, all the participating countries ultimately adopted the Paris Agreement.
Humans Versus Nature, Humans Partnering with Nature
The age-old theme of humans versus nature is at the heart of this book. In a way, it underpins the entire issue of climate change, and the authors have a lot to say about it. In Chapter 7, they discuss the theme at length but also subvert it: The crux of their argument is that humanity cannot continue to have a combative relationship with nature if it is to survive. For too long, society’s approach to nature has been a linear, extractive one. People have treated natural resources as if there were an endless supply of them, extracting them from the Earth and using them wastefully.
Part of the problem with this is that humanity’s relationship is one-sided: People rely entirely on nature for their existence. Thus, if humanity does not take care of nature properly, increasingly inhospitable environmental conditions will make humankind’s survival impossible. Humanity’s mindset must therefore shift from one of extraction to one of regeneration based on natural ecosystems. From now on, the authors propose following this advice: “When considering an action, we have to ask: Does it actively contribute to humans and nature thriving together as one integrated system on this planet? If yes, green light. If not, red light. Period” (77). Such a mindset implies that humans are part of the natural world rather than separate from or above it; while natural forces may at times make human life difficult, humanity’s attitude towards the environment must be one of collaboration rather than conflict.
The authors further argue that this idea of regeneration should carry over into how people organize their societies. Rather than emphasizing individualism, humankind needs to take the model of interconnected ecosystems and apply it to social structures. In Chapter 3, which foresees a future in which humans successfully deal with climate change, the authors describe a new spirit of cooperation among people. Rather than strictly competing with each other, people in this world have learned to focus on the collective well-being of the community. This, the authors suggest, is its own kind of sustainability—one that nurtures people’s souls and works in concert with the sustainability of the natural world. By connecting more with neighbors and local community, people will feel a contentment that supersedes the old materialistic ways of finding self-identity through consumer goods.
