Listening to the hull of the ship groaning and creaking under the pressure outside
HMS Erebus and Terror in the Antarctic by John Wilson Carmichael (before the fatal Franklin expedition)
Last week I was wondering whether we might be learning to live a smaller, slower way of life during all of this, and I think one way we are all experiencing that slow down is in reduced travel. That’s had me thinking about an early issue of the newsletter and so I thought I would revisit that one today. But it’s not a rerun so do not skip ahead I will be able to sense it. Also most of you have not read this before so it’s new to you.
In last year’s Halloween issue I reviewed the first season of this great show called The Terror, which adds these supernatural horror elements to already horrifying moments in history. And there were a bunch of Crisis Palace-y elements in that first season, which is about well actually I already wrote about it so here just read this:
In May of 1845, the HMS Terror and HMS Erebus set out for the Arctic on a mission to chart the last unknown section of the Northwest Passage. For centuries, European explorers had been trying to complete a route between the Atlantic and the Pacific by meandering through the treacherous waters north of Canada, and Sir Jon Franklin was going to be the guy to finish the job.
The expedition sailed into the Baffin Bay that July and was never heard from again. All 129 men aboard died presumably grisly deaths by disease or starvation or exposure, some resorting to cannibalism. It was the worst tragedy in the history of Arctic exploration. It was also a huge mystery, as the shipwrecks weren’t even found for another 170 years.
The show imagines what happened to the expedition after it got stuck in the ice over the winter and it’s this tense conflict between some people with good intentions trying to cooperate and help each other get through it, and others with not so good intentions, all in this deadly environment that doesn’t really give a shit either way.
There’s this sense of slow-moving catastrophe. One of the most effective touches kicks in after the ships become trapped in the ice pack, a deadly fate that not only carries a ship wherever the ice decides to drift, but can also crush a ship’s hull. Throughout much of the show, we hear this steady, dull creaking and groaning of the ice pressing against the hull, a reminder of what horror is to come.
The show made me think about climate change no doy, and one theme in particular, which is the way humanity (or at least one element of humanity) seems unable to sit still for one stupid second. So in the case of these 19th century explorers, there’s this unbelievable arrogance and just disaster after disaster from trying to travel from one place to that other place way over there, in part because of yes, expanding global capitalism through new trade routes, but also because it’s just kind of this thing we always do:
There’s a chapter in Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction where she explores what set modern humans apart from our prehistoric relatives like Neanderthals. Evolutionary geneticist Svante Pääbo brings up one important distinction, which is that we just can’t sit goddamn still.
Kolbert calls it our “Faustian restlessness.” See, unlike Neanderthals, it’s only modern humans who started to migrate by venturing out onto open water with no sight of land.
“How many people must have sailed out and vanished on the Pacific before you found Easter Island? I mean, it’s ridiculous,” Pääbo says. “And why do you do that? Is it for the glory? For immortality? For curiosity? And now we go to Mars. We never stop.”
We never stop.
He hypothesizes that there could be some “madness gene,” an evolutionary quirk that makes humans compulsively explore, and has ultimately led us to alter the ecosystem of the whole planet.
And yet, Kolbert also explores in that chapter another thing that sets humans apart—our skill at reading social cues, which gives us the unique survival advantage of collective problem-solving.
The Terror made me think of that part of the book, these human tendencies and the tension between them, particularly in the context of climate change—of conquering versus collaborating. You might describe it the way Eric Holthaus did in the last newsletter—the divide between colonialism and “relearning our interdependence.”
So this suddenly feels very relevant now, first, because the introduction of new viruses and their rapid spread across the planet is one consequence of that Faustian restlessness that Kolbert was writing about. Our razing of wilderness that has led us toward environmental crisis also kicks up these new viruses. Then, when a virus jumps from one species to another species and then to our species, our non-stop international travel just smears it across the face of the planet.
Now that a particularly bad virus is here, we suddenly have no choice but to sit still. As noted in the last issue, Kate Brown wrote in a recent article on the ecological factors behind a pandemic: “In an effort to expand our reach across the planet, we have cornered ourselves.” It really feels like we’re stuck in that ice, listening to the hull of the ship groaning and creaking under the pressure outside.
While we are stuck, we might rethink some of that restlessness. This is difficult, as I certainly traveled before the pandemic and I’ll certainly travel again. But back when things first started getting universally canceled, I remember it being so clear just how much people move around the globe, some way more than others. So many conferences, so many trips to work, so many events. With all of it now ground to a halt, maybe we are going to learn that it had become a little too easy to burn massive amounts of energy to shoot human bodies nearly anywhere on the planet we want to go.
I don’t mean for this to be a diatribe about how awful it is for people to fly in planes. It’s more about to what extent we can control how much we give into that madness gene of constant growth, expansion, exploration, conquering, colonizing, that got us, at least in part, into our current mess, and continues to drive the climate crisis.
Not everyone in England in 1845 was an Arctic explorer, and not every nation in 1845 was the British Empire. There are other ways to be. So instead of raging against our current constraints, rushing to return to slash and burn capitalism, I hope we have the ability instead to call upon our collective problem-solving nature. To work together toward a shared well-being that will get us through the rough times when we’re stuck in the ice, and steer us clear of it in the future.
—
OK one last thing on this, in the original post on The Terror, I noted that while I was first watching the show, there was an Arctic exploration mission just getting underway, the Mosaic Expedition, an international climate science mission that had been planned for several years. The Polarstern research vessel intentionally got stuck in the ice pack to drift with it and study the conditions along the way, in order to improve our understanding of how the Arctic is changing and inform our response to climate change.
The mission was in near total isolation for months as the coronavirus spread, and travel restrictions derailed its plans to resupply the mission and swap out the crew by plane. After considering dozens of alternatives, Mosaic now has a contingency plan to break out of the ice and meet a supply ship in open water, then travel back to complete the mission. The crew of 90 people will have been on board the ship for two months longer than planned. And yes, the ice against the hull of the Polarstern also makes noise, described as a dull scraping.
What I Wrote
I wrote a profile of an organization called Foundation for Louisiana, which among other things addresses the cascading societal and cultural impacts of coastal land loss and flooding. One impressive thing about this group is the way it fights against, or rather, funds community groups to fight against the structural racism underlying these impacts. Here’s part:
Underlying FFL’s work is an understanding of how these climate impacts are shaped by Louisiana’s deep history of systemic and environmental racism, dating back to colonialism and slavery, but also generations of wealth inequality and petroleum industry pollution. In particular, there’s a stretch of the state between New Orleans and Baton Rouge known as “Cancer Alley,” or “Death Alley,” because of the several petrochemical plants in the area and regional clusters of cancer cases in surrounding communities of color.
“The context is that these residents are exposed to any toxic fallout from that industry and are disallowed from fully participating in the economic boom that then came from that industry,” says Caressa Chester, climate justice program officer.
…
Of all the things they try to impress on funders wanting to have a positive impact in the Gulf Coast region, there’s one piece of advice they recommend above all else—listen.
“Listen to what has already been going on, because people have been fighting these battles for decades, generations, and they know what they’re doing,” Chester says. “And that doesn’t mean that they don’t need support, and that working together is not necessary, because of course it is. But you just have to listen to Southern black and indigenous leadership.”
In fact, the team sees the communities they serve as national leaders on climate change, with expertise they can share with other regions. Increasingly, people from other places experiencing coastal flooding and land loss are coming to Louisiana, looking for insights.
“We are not necessarily waiting on a Green New Deal or similar policy at a federal level for us to really transition and build anew the way that our communities and businesses and culture work,” Russell says.
Links
- The push to cancel rent continues. A third of renters across the country couldn’t pay on April 1, and even in places with eviction moratoriums, unpaid amounts will accumulate.
- Researches predict abrupt collapse of many animal species starting in the next decade due to climate change.
- Recent drought in the Southwest was among the most severe in 1,200 years, and human-caused climate change made it 47% worse.
- Another comparison between quarantine and a ship bound in ice, this one in 1898. “Time weighs heavily upon us,” writes the captain, as his crew was overcome with boredom.
- It’s crowds, not density, that contribute to the virus’s spread in cities, and the solution is competent government.
- The renewed importance of our balconies and bodegas.
- Oil prices fell to an all-time low this week, -$37.63 per barrel, yes that’s negative. Here’s an idea—instead of bailing them out, nationalize the fossil fuel industry so we can phase them out.
- The class tensions around the noodle dish in Parasite.
- Numbers losing meaning? Visualize the projected deaths from Covid-19 compared to other causes.
Watching
One time way before the pandemic, we were cleaning up the apartment and contemplating getting rid of a bunch of DVDs. My case for keeping them was that maybe there will be some catastrophic event and the internet will be gone, and then we wouldn’t have anything to watch. Jamie said, “Oh so you think during the apocalypse we’re going to want to sit around and watch Forgetting Sarah Marshall?” which goes to show that nobody can dunk on you like your significant other.
But lo and behold, the other night I really wanted to watch the 1978 zombie classic Dawn of the Dead and the only version online was a low quality YouTube version. So I did break out the DVDs during the apocalypse after all and found my copy. Who is glad we kept the DVDs now just me I guess.
One reason I wanted to watch this movie was I kept thinking of this sequence where the main characters settle down in a shopping mall during a zombie apocalypse and fall into this numb, hypnotic routine of bourgeois distractions. It is eerily familiar and might be a liiiittle on the nose for you right now but here it is queued up to the start of the five-minute montage if you are up for it.
I Endorse
Let’s not end on that depressing note, instead I endorse watching concerts on TV, with other people if possible. Every year for the past 11 years, my friend Eric Swedlund has thrown this kind of ridiculous music festival in Tucson to celebrate his birthday. This was the first year he couldn’t do it since Swedefest (yes that is what it’s called) started, so for his birthday on Monday, a few us got on a video call and watched some concert movies, Stop Making Sense and then Shut Up and Play the Hits. It was a lot of fun. Two weekends ago, Jamie and I watched a short concert of Phoebe Bridgers playing some songs in her pajamas, and then an old video of a boygenius concert. It is a little sad to see huge crowds of people dancing to live music but it is also nice, you can say to each other, oh it’s this song I love this song yeah me too it’s a good one, etc. Feels good.
Where are your friends tonight
So you know, good moments, bad moments, we’re all having them. Last Sunday I sat out in the backyard with a book and it was just a little too cold and windy to do that activity and I was just a little under dressed for it. But I decided to stay out there anyway with my little dog and book and just be cold for a while. For a few minutes, it felt like when you go on a vacation, and maybe you didn’t pack warm enough and you’re sitting on a beach or a deck or something and catch a chill and everyone is like, ooh got a little chilly, but you stay out there anyway because you’re on vacation and that’s what you came to do after all, just be some place, and a little cold never hurt anyone. So that was a nice moment for me is what I’m saying.
Maybe close your eyes for a second and imagine that we’re all on vacation together you and me and all the readers of this newsletter, and it’s a little cold but we can stay outside for like an hour more before it’s time to go in and make dinner.
Tate
P.S. There won’t be a newsletter next week, but don’t freak out everything is OK just taking a skip week.