The Great Wild Hope
Only one scenario can save us!
In wildness is the preservation of the world…Let us improve our opportunities, then, before the evil days come.— H.D. Thoreau (1851)
Call it The Great Wild Hope*—There is a thin, sweet layer on the probability horizon. It’s sandwiched between two dismal scenarios, civilizational collapse on one hand and techno-dystopia on the other. In either of those cases, precious little would remain of us and the natural world.
Climate chaos is the fait accompli of a growth-obsessed civilization that’s managed to radically change Earth’s physical and biological systems:
Record-breaking heat waves on land and in the ocean, drenching rains (more intense/sustained), severe floods, years-long droughts, extreme wildfires, and widespread flooding during hurricanes are all becoming more frequent and more intense.
Yet, there is a silver lining to the darkest of forecasts. What follows is an abridged scenario of how a great hope may become a reality.
Nature tightens the screws on us with each passing year. Something has to give. If the living world is fortunate, large numbers of people across the globe, repeatedly browbeaten by horrific weather and social inequity, will revolt and demand the right solution. Mass protests scare the pants off political leaders.
And so it happens. Civilization begins to unravel. Global temperature blows past pre-industrial levels by more than 2°C. Renewable energy is neither timely nor at sufficient scale. Low-carbon energy fails to replace fossil fuels; oil, coal, and gas continue to dominate. New technologies, and most notably artificial “intelligence,” simply add to the overbearing demand for energy.
With ever more climate chaos, options narrow. To curtail global heating, world leaders battle over whether to dramatically reduce energy consumption to cut greenhouse gas emissions, or go all in on geo-engineering to block sunlight and capture atmospheric carbon.
Technocrats insist on the later. But their pilot experiments flop and signal grave unintended consequences. Moreover, as global debt spirals out of control, geo-engineered solutions require sharp compensating cuts in social programs to meet basic human needs, like food, shelter, and medical aid for growing numbers of climate-related victims. The public won’t stand for it.
Only one option remains—a dramatic reduction in energy use, as society prepares for, what Nate Hagens calls, a “bend don't break” period. World leaders deliberately adopt degrowth policies to avoid collapse.
By the end of the century, the world’s gross domestic product and energy use fall by half, allowing renewable energy to meet most energy needs. Human fertility improves to 1.5 (the average number of children per woman, down from 2.2 in 2025), with a global population forecast of under 4 billion people by the 23rd century.
Steady-state economics becomes the rule. The Earth re-wilds—and humanity reinvents itself accordingly.
What if the above “great wild hope” scenario fails to play out? What if our relationship to the natural world remains unchanged? What if our world becomes a mere fabrication of the corporate state and artificial intelligence?
What would befall life?
* Why the “Wild” in the Great Wild Hope?
H.D. Thoreau foresaw how western civilization would crush wild nature and consequently the human spirit. Check out the opening and closing lines of his essay “Walking” (1862), which appeared in the Atlantic Monthly shortly after his death from tuberculous:
I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute freedom and wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil, to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society...
So we saunter toward the Holy Land, till one day the sun shall shine more brightly than ever he has done, shall perchance shine into our minds and hearts, and light up our whole lives with a great awakening light, as warm and serene and golden as on a bankside in autumn.
Sit back and take a little time to read what’s between those lines!
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Faithfully for the Living World,
Dr. Tony Povilitis
Let's hope we squeak through, especially the innocent non-human others. If people consume less and have only one child, two at the most, and build local communities, eat more bioregionally, and volunteer/donate to nature conservation everywhere, there is a chance. Degrowth on all levels is the path. Scale down!
Thoreau expressed his love for nature so well. When I taught “Walden,” the students always loved it. “In wildness is the preservation of the world” —what a great expression of wisdom and insight. I am very upset with the Trump administration for cutting funding to the national parks, which are among our greatest national treasures and a manifestation of our commitment to preserve wildness. Also upset with his decision to remove protections for wild salmon, an amazing species once abundant. One of the elders of a native tribe that relied on salmon for subsistence recalled how as a boy he heard the sound of the salmon returning to spawn and making their way up the river. He said you could hear them coming and everyone got so excited—it was like “the sound of a thousand oars striking the water.” So sad what has happened to them. Thanks, Tony, for your article and for continuing to inspire us! Your work is impressive.