{"title":"Robustness and Vulnerability: Caring for the Earth in an Age of Loss","authors":"W. DeBuys","doi":"10.18778/2083-2931.12.07","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"The old metaphor of the canary in the coal mine has lost its edge. When applied to global warming and climate change, the relevance of its parts has become reversed—the canary is clearly dead, and it died a good while ago, its warnings mostly ignored. The coal mines of the world, meanwhile, are busier than ever, as the power plants they serve pump vast amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. A better metaphor for the present human predicament is the frog and the kettle of water. Everybody knows that the frog, if thrown into hot water, will leap out. No problem there. But we pity the frog placed in cool water because, when its kettle is gradually heated, the complacent frog hasn’t the sense to escape, and it stays until it boils. . . . Climate change is transforming the polar regions of North America fastest—melting ice, thawing permafrost, and drowning polar bears— but for most people who live in the Lower 48, those transformations are nearly as remote as a tsunami hitting Borneo. While we lament such calamities at a distance, the warming kettle, now rattling up toward a boil, is working changes closer to home that promise sweeping transformations. The place where those changes might best be observed is a region already straining from rapid growth, whose water resources are stretched to the utmost—the aridlands of the North American West. What happens under the turquoise skies of the continent’s most celebrated landscapes will presage changes that human frogs in kettles the world over can expect to experience.","PeriodicalId":41165,"journal":{"name":"Text Matters-A Journal of Literature Theory and Culture","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2000,"publicationDate":"2022-11-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Text Matters-A Journal of Literature Theory and Culture","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.18778/2083-2931.12.07","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LITERARY THEORY & CRITICISM","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The old metaphor of the canary in the coal mine has lost its edge. When applied to global warming and climate change, the relevance of its parts has become reversed—the canary is clearly dead, and it died a good while ago, its warnings mostly ignored. The coal mines of the world, meanwhile, are busier than ever, as the power plants they serve pump vast amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. A better metaphor for the present human predicament is the frog and the kettle of water. Everybody knows that the frog, if thrown into hot water, will leap out. No problem there. But we pity the frog placed in cool water because, when its kettle is gradually heated, the complacent frog hasn’t the sense to escape, and it stays until it boils. . . . Climate change is transforming the polar regions of North America fastest—melting ice, thawing permafrost, and drowning polar bears— but for most people who live in the Lower 48, those transformations are nearly as remote as a tsunami hitting Borneo. While we lament such calamities at a distance, the warming kettle, now rattling up toward a boil, is working changes closer to home that promise sweeping transformations. The place where those changes might best be observed is a region already straining from rapid growth, whose water resources are stretched to the utmost—the aridlands of the North American West. What happens under the turquoise skies of the continent’s most celebrated landscapes will presage changes that human frogs in kettles the world over can expect to experience.
期刊介绍:
Text Matters: A Journal of Literature, Theory and Culture, based at the University of Łódź, is an international and interdisciplinary journal, which seeks to engage in contemporary debates in the humanities by inviting contributions from literary and cultural studies intersecting with literary theory, gender studies, history, philosophy, and religion. The journal focuses on textual realities, but contributions related to art, music, film and media studies addressing the text are also invited. Submissions in English should relate to the key issues delineated in calls for articles which will be placed on the website in advance. The journal also features reviews of recently published books, and interviews with writers and scholars eminent in the areas addressed in Text Matters. Responses to the articles are more than welcome so as to make the journal a forum of lively academic debate. Though Text Matters derives its identity from a particular region, central Poland in its geographic position between western and eastern Europe, its intercontinental advisory board of associate editors and internationally renowned scholars makes it possible to connect diverse interpretative perspectives stemming from culturally specific locations. Text Matters: A Journal of Literature, Theory and Culture is prepared by academics from the Institute of English Studies with considerable assistance from the Institute of Polish Studies and German Philology at the University of Łódź. The journal is printed by Łódź University Press with financial support from the Head of the Institute of English Studies. It is distributed electronically by Sciendo. Its digital version published by Sciendo is the version of record. Contributions to Text Matters are peer reviewed (double-blind review).