March 2024 marked the 10th consecutive month in which planet Earth broke historical temperature records. Today, we already know that April will be no exception to this globally alarming trend.
Climate change—from rising temperatures to melting glaciers—is progressing faster than even the most dire climate models had predicted. Europe, America, Africa: in March 2024, record-breaking temperatures were recorded in Albania, Belarus, Croatia, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Moldova, Poland, Greece, Turkey, Ukraine, and Russia. In Japan and Hong Kong, the last day of March saw temperatures reach 31.7°C. On March 24th, Taiwan matched its all-time high of 39.2°C. Across Central America, March temperatures exceeded 40°C.
We still feel compelled to repeat that this is not an irreversible whim of nature, but a complex, natural response to human activity—within the framework of an expansive technological and economic system that drives the global flow of goods and capital. This reminder is necessary simply because parts of the political spectrum, significant segments of the public, and the powerful fossil fuel lobby continue to deny what has been scientifically confirmed hundreds of times. This denial, with its reckless construction and detachment from reality, increasingly resembles historical self-deceptions by which dominant systems tried to convince themselves they would last forever—that there was no alternative.
In this impasse, even those of us who accept the terrifying scope and trajectory of the climate crisis—and respect scientific authority—still tend to operate with a concept of nature inherited from the last millennium.
More than a decade ago, readers were introduced to a book by prominent climate activist, 350.org founder, and American journalist Bill McKibben, who was a guest of the Inspiration Forum in 2020. The book was titled Eaarth (translated into Czech as Zeeme). The seemingly misspelled title pointed to a crucial insight: the Earth we picture in our minds—the one immortalized by the famous “Blue Marble” photograph taken in December 1972 by Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt—no longer exists. What we visualize is an illusion, a fantasy we still call the “Blue Marble.”
That blue has turned to brown carbon, and we, as its vulnerable inhabitants, continue to engage in the very activities that cause, accelerate, and intensify this transformation.
Slavoj Žižek often says: “It’s not as bad as it seems—it’s much worse.” With each passing year, scientists struggle more to explain current climate anomalies or predict their future developments. More troubling still, who can guarantee that even if we launch a radical ecological transformation, nature will “return” to a state of harmony? What if the “nature”—in which we find ourselves today as the most complex products of its evolution—has long been unknown to us?
One of the tasks now before us may be to reassess the very concept of “nature.” As early as 2007, writer, philosopher, and leading figure in object-oriented ontology Timothy Morton suggested that humanity must abandon the concept of nature altogether. This year, Morton is preparing to offer new perspectives in a new book titled Hell. According to Morton, humanity can escape “hell on Earth” only through its opposite: the vast biological and scientific knowledge we've amassed about our fatal situation must undergo a “mystical marriage” with Christian mythology.
In other words, if we’re already in hell, we must find heaven on Earth—through this unlikely coalition.
Petr Bittner’s Recommendations
Speakers from the Inspiration Forum community choose from a collection of essays, podcasts, and videos.
Writing books will no longer help us. Renowned American journalist Bill McKibben visited the Jihlava Festival and Inspiration Forum in 2020. He said, “I am a writer. For a long time, I believed that writing more books would help win the climate change debate. It took me 15 years to realize my mistake. We won the argument long ago. But we’re losing the match.” His keynote was followed by a debate on what the “match” should look like—and where “action” should lead. You can revisit this standout IF event through the podcast.
To know the Earth means to know the other planets. Lukáš Likavčan is one of the younger generation of “global” philosophers. A classmate from the Brno School of Philosophy and a co-founder of the public school of critical theory Generation Z, he has dedicated himself to applying humanity’s oldest science—astronomy—to our most pressing mission: saving the planet from climate change. In his 2022 IF lecture, he presented his book Introduction to Comparative Planetology. Do We Have a Philosophical Theory of the Planet? Don’t miss the video recording of the lecture and interview.
“We make our lives unlivable in the name of freedom.” Judith Butler, one of the most important living philosophers, gave a deeply resonant lecture at the IF during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. She presented the pandemic as a symptom of an interconnected world—and a warning about the habitability of our planet. “The pandemic reminds us that our civilization must reckon with limits, or risk rendering its own planet uninhabitable”. You can watch Judith Butler’s lecture and interview with Tereza Matějčková in the video recording.