In your book, you show that the hypothesis of man-made climate change is not new and even dates from the 15th century …
It is during the conquest and colonization of America that the hopes that Western societies place in climate change are built. Upon his arrival in the Caribbean islands, Christopher Columbus faced a torrid climate that he deemed not very conducive to colonization: his speech, which took the form of a promise, was that by cutting down the trees we could improve this climate. Which is also a message sent to its patrons… The French and the English hold the same discourse, in xviiie century, in New France (in present-day Canada) and in New England (in present-day United States). They expected to find climates similar to those of European regions of the same latitude: but these are colder across the Atlantic. The explanation they offer then relates to the trees, which have not been cut. The climate of the New World has remained wild, it is that of the origins. But by colonizing and clearing, we can improve it, civilize it …
What type of climate change are we talking about then?
The climate change we fear then is not the current global warming, caused by our CO emissions.2. Contemporaries believe that the climate can be changed by altering the water cycle by planting or cutting forests. This theory of human action on the climate is also thought out at all scales: at the local level, but also at the level of countries, regions, and even the globe. In addition, it is about a climate change which at the beginning is seen as an opportunity, an opportunity to improve nature to make it more productive, more favorable to human life. All of this explains why forests are at the heart of our book. We could have called her The Roots of Heaven but the title was already taken!
In the context of European imperialism, the climate becomes an argument for sovereignty …
This discourse of the “anthropic transformation of climates” refers in fact to an argument of sovereignty, which must justify colonization. The idea is that since, in America, the indigenous populations have not cleared, and therefore improved the climate, they are not really the owners of these territories. The Europeans have a legitimacy to seize them in order to “enhance” them and soften them, civilize their climate, which will at the same time make agrarian colonization easier.
This discourse is also a way of ranking peoples, not by race or religion, but by climate action.. Europeans are those who know how to improve or protect their climate, while “the others” are those who are not able to do so or, worse, who degrade it because they do not know how to manage their forests and their lands. With my co-author Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, we refer to this type of discourse as “climate orientalism”. We show in the book that this form of indictment is recurrent in history, and that it applies as well to Amerindian populations as to French peasants after the Revolution, or to Arab communities in the Maghreb. In the French colonial empire in the Maghreb, local populations are accused of having degraded the climate by destroying forests. A French colonist, whom we quote, wrote thus: “The Arab is the enemy of the tree. This is what would have made the climate of Algeria arid and it allows the French colonial enterprise to present itself as a work of climatic restoration through reforestation.
With the French Revolution, you identify the transition from colonizing optimism to the anxiety of a climatic collapse. What is it?
At the time of the Revolution, we witnessed a formidable politicization, in the French context, of the question of climate change caused by man. It is linked to the formidable debates which, at this time and for several decades, will shake the country about the good modes of governance of forests, and environments in general.. The revolutionaries first accuse the monarchy of having degraded the climate of France due to poor forest management. Under the Restoration, this accusation was reversed: this time it was the Revolution which was singled out. In addition, ultra royalists accuse moderate monarchists of endangering the climate, because they sell state forests to repay state debts. If one seeks so many culprits in these years 1815-1825, it is because the explosion of the Indonesian volcano Tambora in 1815 caused climatic and agricultural catastrophes without precedent in Europe, even raising fears of a global climatic cooling.
You have discovered a survey on climate change dating back to 1821. How did it surprise you?
We discovered this survey during research in the archives of Météo France. Exactly two hundred years ago, in 1821, the French Ministry of the Interior organized a major survey on climate change. He asked his prefects if the climate in their department had changed over the past thirty years and if it could be considered that the man was responsible for it. What surprised us about the enormous mass of documents received in return was that this question did not surprise us too much. The possibility of human action on the climate was part, at the beginning of the nineteenthe century of the mental universe mayors, teachers, forest officials, landowners, etc., who responded to the survey. This archive was the starting point of a long investigation which led to this book.
At the end of the nineteenth century, the specter of human action on the climate gradually faded. What happened ?
The threat of man-made climate change fades from consciousness at the end of the 19th centurye century. There are several explanations for this. First, the Homeric debates which agitated the scientific community on this question, throughout the nineteenth century.e century, end in a dead end. No one can prove the existence, or non-existence, of human action on the climate. Climatology will then be built in its modern form, putting this issue aside.
Then, the advent of the railroad and the steamboats is accompanied by a drastic decrease in climate vulnerability. The globalization of the cereals market makes it possible to decouple climatic fluctuations and food supply. The hitherto classic sequence between bad season, food shortages, riots… and sometimes revolution is broken. The climate issue is losing its political centrality in Europe. There is a sinister irony here: It is under the effect of the deployment of high carbon technologies that we cease to be concerned about human action on the climate. Fossil fuels have desensitized us to the issue of climate change. We have been the victims of a kind of carbon production of apathy. The situation is different in the empires, where the threat of climatic degradation worries until in the years 1930-1940. All in all, the interlude was brief, since it was during the Cold War that the contemporary scientific diagnosis emerged on climate change caused by CO2 (although some scholars have prepared the ground before).
Can history help us think about the current climate issue?
Our survey shows that the issue of climate change has long involved fundamental social and political dimensions. It prompts us to politicize our vision, by understanding that it cannot be treated solely from the point of view of technical knowledge, or of a need to “become aware” of the degradations in progress. This is a question that should prompt us to rethink our lifestyles as well as the rules of world trade and the forms of financial regulation. Our book also has another message: to qualify what others do with nature, their climate or their environments, is also to exercise a form of power. This lucidity has its virtues.
Interview by Flora Trouilloud (ID4D editorial staff).
The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official position of their institution or that of AFD.
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