In a world gripped by daily catastrophes, there is one that affects all but lacks the attention it deserves. The climate crisis — pervaded by ecological collapse, war, endless resource accumulation fueled by capitalism — is the issue of our time. The warning signs are there but as author Eiren Caffall tells host Chris Hedges, people are not able to handle the facts regarding the “fragility of our ecosystem, and [they] just don't really have a great way of managing the emotional impact of that.”
Caffall joins Hedges on this episode of The Chris Hedges Report to discuss her novel, All the Water in the World, and her memoir, The Mourner’s Bestiary. She explains that climate talk is often a tough pill to swallow because it deals with ideas of impermanence: “I think we are struggling to talk about our climate grief, our experience with the eco-collapse as a collective, as a planet who are all confronted with the evidence of our mortality.”
As someone who has dealt with loss and trauma her whole life as a result of inheriting polycystic kidney disease, a genetic illness that has plagued her family for over 150 years, Caffall employs a unique perspective when it comes to preserving her family’s stories and art.
“That sense of it is vital to protect whatever stories we can in the face of great loss is kind of baked into my background, my childhood, my understanding of my role as an adult to tell the stories of the dead, to hold on to the culture of those folks, to make sure that there's a continuance,” she tells Hedges.
Caffall understands the need for stories like hers to create the empathy that is lacking in a world that continually sees violence as an answer to problems. “I just think actually it's that vulnerability and that presence that's the real tool that we need to be able to move carefully through the world that we're being confronted with at this moment and in a possible bleaker future.”