“Even after the disaster, there will always be skeptics” assures the collapsologist Pablo Servigne

“Dad, what is this collapse story? “. It’s not always easy to explain to children the climate catastrophe at work. Between the repeated fires in the south and west of France and the recurring heat waves, the effects of global warming are more and more palpable in France and more and more worrying.

In his latest book The collapse (and after) explained to our children… And to our parents, Pablo Servigne, with his sidekick Gauthier Chapelle, lent himself to the perilous exercise of an educational explanation of the possible collapses of the thermo-industrial society for children. The opportunity to return to the news of recent weeks, with the co-founder of collapsology sometimes accused of stirring up fears.

What do you think of the invitation called “climate endgame”, launched by climatologists to their colleagues, in the scientific journal PNAS*, on August 1, on the need to develop a science of climate catastrophe?

It made me terribly happy! This is precisely what we wanted for years with the collapsologist comrades. Several studies in recent months believe that the IPCC has underestimated the risks associated with the climate crisis in its most negative scenarios. What scientists are proposing with their “climate endgame” is to study much better the hypercatastrophic scenarios which designate a climate having passed more than three degrees on average and in particular by taking into account the existential risks, that is to say say the disappearance of humanity. This is exactly the posture of our book in 2015, how everything can fall apartr. It is a question of looking the disaster straight in the eye in order to be able to mitigate the consequences, or even avoid it. So that means creating a kind of IPCC of the collapse.

How to explain that the climatologists evoke the possible collapse of the world company only now?

It is a complex question. The IPCC has been around since 1988 and we’ve been talking about possible collapses since the 1970s. And now it’s finally happening. The windows of opportunity are closing and today we are experiencing disasters. So people are waking up. And then many climatologists are in the process of switching, some are becoming activists. They experience all of this from the inside, confronted with the figures on a daily basis. In this context, should they remain optimistic at the risk of misleading people as we have done so far? Or do we really say things, at the risk of scaring people? There are many climatologists who are still hesitating, when some have already taken the plunge by joining Extinction Rebellion. I think we need both: to open horizons, to find solutions, to believe in them, and to better understand the catastrophic risks in order to avoid them.

Do you think that, with the effects of climate change becoming more and more felt, vocational crises, as we have seen with the young graduates of AgroParisTech, will be more and more frequent?

AgroParisTech, we talked about it a lot because it was remarkable and not necessarily expected. It is symptomatic of an era. For several years, more and more young people are quitting. I’ve seen a lot of young people who don’t dare to start studying because they think it’s useless. Or who drop out of school or change jobs. Many adults also branch off radically. And this mega machine that is the industrial system offers them money rather than meaning. So many no longer want to work for the oil majors and multinationals. It is an awareness that is also part of civil disobedience movements, with a temptation to radicalize and harden struggles, even sabotage.

Exactly, in an article published on August 30 in the scientific journal Natural climate Change, climatologists urged their colleagues to take part in non-violent direct actions, the only way, according to them, to be heard. Could civil disobedience be the key?

This is one of the keys. For the moment, it is clear that we have to go through this to be heard. If the government was doing its job, we wouldn’t have to go through that. But there is a real feeling of helplessness, which can be very toxic and generate anxiety. A study published in The Lancet in 2021 had also revealed that this anxiety was global and linked, not to disasters, but to the helplessness felt by the inaction of politicians. And faced with that, what other key than civil disobedience? There is revolution, riot, insurrection, which would be a step further. But today, in France, there is not this culture which would lead to a beautiful revolution.

When we see the number of verbalizations, police custody and lawsuits brought in recent years, isn’t being an environmental activist more and more risky?

Sure. And again, in France, it’s still nice compared to other countries where activists are threatened with death, even assassinated. The political climate has clearly hardened in recent years due to political inaction and a lack of listening from our leaders. Environmental activists are now being fought because they represent a threat to powerful interests that have the financial and political means. And the risk is to go towards even more violence.

Isn’t this education also parasitized by the climatoscepticism still present today? Enter a reputable title like Geo who, in May, relayed climatosceptic remarksor even the words of the philosopher Yves Roucaute, in Le Figaro, who declared, in June, that humanity had a derisory role in global warming, it can be difficult to navigate…

Fortunately, climatosceptics are increasingly rare. The new fashion, from now on, is no longer climatoscepticism, or climato-negationism, it is climato-reassuring. That said, I understand very well that some people do not want to hear bad news. Conversely, I can’t stand being told good news when there is a problem. I need bad news so I can avoid it. And I’m not the only one doing this.

The basic problem is that we don’t believe what we know. We’ve known about the risks for fifty years, we’ve started to quantify them better and better, and many people, even today, find it hard to believe. The rational brain of some will look for all the excuses not to believe it and therefore if they come across this article in the Figaro, they will be reassured. Even after the disaster, there will always be skeptics.

The reality of global warming can also be scary. You, for example, have sometimes been criticized, as well as certain scientific whistleblowers, for using the term “collapse”, which can be hard to accept…

It is true that it is a difficult term because it is implacable. He crushes everything. And above all, it refers to the Hollywood imagination, which is mostly post-apocalyptic and atrocious. The goal was, with this term, to make the link between the scientific studies that speak of collapse and our imagination.

But the collapse is a bit like the monster at the end of the level. When you start a game, you cannot go directly to the monster. You have to go through several steps first. To arrive and understand the collapse, you must first go through the climate, nuclear power, the end of fossil fuels, the destruction of the oceans… We must not, however, refrain from talking about collapse and dealing with the subject under the pretext that it is too hard. That’s why in our last book, we decided to take the reader by the hand to lead him on this very delicate, very sensitive little path,
between “everything is screwed up” and “everything will be fine”. It really is a balancing act.

You deeply believe in the power of a convergence of struggles and in the power of the collective to move the lines. Isn’t that utopian?

Maybe, but I don’t take it as a criticism. We need utopia, we need to dream, to open up horizons and to stimulate the political imagination, especially of young people. If we don’t dream, we are dead. And today, it’s even rather realistic to think about disasters, to want to get through them and act to avoid them. Conversely, it is illusory and irrational to believe that we will be able to continue towards infinite growth with a GDP that would increase by 5% every year.

The virtual absence of ecological issues during the debates of the presidential election, except around energies and more specifically nuclear power, is it symptomatic of our time and representative of our leaders?

I don’t know if it’s representative. It is mostly old people who are currently in charge. And unfortunately, they do not highlight the climate, biodiversity. It doesn’t seem to affect them. I think that if we mainly put young people in Parliament or in the executive, who would obviously be trained, we would undoubtedly have a government that only talks about the climate.

I find that the feeling of powerlessness and the generational divide are found in the discrepancy between the themes and the affects of the population and those of the ruling political class. This discrepancy creates a loss of confidence and a potential for the breakdown of the State and of living together. We have classes that isolate themselves, which has the consequence of fracturing society.

What to think of the term “sobriety” widely overused by the new government and of this famous “end of abundance, evidence and recklessness” announced by Emmanuel Macron?

It’s unbearable for whistleblowers and for activists of degrowth, because it’s only happening now, fifty years too late. But above all, instead of abundance, I would rather speak of weaning. Because we are really drug addicts, oil addicts, fossil fuels, gas and coal. It’s very hard because there is either a risk of overdose, it’s the climatic risk. Either a risk of too brutal weaning, it is the ruptures of supply, and therefore of risk of collapse of our society. And weaning is this difficult path, in the middle, and necessarily unpleasant.

We will therefore, for several years, need care, links, resources, love, patience, mutual aid, collective to get out of this addiction. For me, we are entering the era of weaning and not of sobriety. And you have to prepare for it.