Reading summary In the reading excepts I have provided, Ghosh makes two main arg

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Reading summary
In the reading excepts I have provided, Ghosh makes two main arguments
Our cultural elites (artists, writers, musicians) have rarely acknowledged climate change in the stories they tell through their art.
Non-human forces have a presence and impact on our lives.
Notes pp. 3-14
On page 3 Ghosh introduces an analogy to capture his understanding of the earth as a living entity, what he refers to as the Gaia hypothesis Links to an external site.. He describes a scene from Star Wars where Luke Skywalker lands on what he sees as an inert planet, meaning that it isn’t alive, but then much to his consternation, it turns out to be alive. Ghosh speculates that future generations will look back and see humanity as similarly ignorant of the earth as a living entity.
Starting on page 4 Ghosh tells stories from his own life and that of his ancestors where nature acted as a powerful force that shaped their lives.
On page 7 he gets to his central point which is that the humanities, especially literature, has not been able to absorb the reality of climate change because it does not view nature as a significant force that has the potential to shape our lives.
On page 9 Ghosh defines our current era, which he (and others) refer to as the Anthropocene, which is characterized by the fact that humans have become geological agents in their own right, fundamentally reshaping the earth’s climate.
Beginning on page 11, Ghosh describes his own experience in a climate event – a freak storm – and how the press had difficulty understanding it.
Book Review by Andrew Walzer
Amitav Ghosh argues in his book The Great Derangementthat the humanities—the arts, literature, and popular culture—rarely acknowledged the reality of climate change because it views nature as a largely passive entity that has little impact on our lives. Ghosh rejects this; instead, he suggests that the non-human presence of nature greatly influences our lives, all the more so with the advent of climate change.
Ghosh evokes the idea of nature as a sentient force by describing a scene from The Empire Strikes Backin which Han Solo lands on what he thinks is an inert, lifeless planet, only to realize that it is alive. It almost consumes him and his ship. He suggests that future generations will look back and see humanity as similarly ignorant of the earth as a living entity.
Ghosh also illustrates the presence and awareness of nature when he describes the unseen presence of tigers in the forests of the Sundarbans, a huge area of swampy forest in Bangladesh and India. The people living there are aware of the presence of tigers lurking and watching them, but they rarely see them. But then periodically someone gets attacked by one of them and suddenly the forest is alive and threatening.
Similarly, we view nature as a relatively benign presence in our lives, until a climate event occurs and we are suddenly awakened to the presence and force of nature in our lives. With the advent of the Anthropocene—the current time period in which humans have become a force fundamentally altering the world’s climate and habitat—this is becoming increasingly frequent. As a result, our culture is being forced to come to terms with nature as a powerful force shaping our lives. Ghosh suggests that the ubiquitous presence of zombies, vampires, and aliens in popular culture is a reflection of our subconscious awareness of the presence of non-human forces in our lives.
Ghosh concludes by warning us that we ignore nature at our peril. He takes hope in the many activist groups and communities that have woken up to the reality that we need to live with greater awareness of the natural world.
The Great Derangement. By Amitav Ghosh. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2016. 196 pages. $10.98 (paper).
Discussion Prompt
Read the attached reading, review the reading notes above, and then address the following question:
According to Ghosh, how is climate change forcing humans to change their view of nature as inert and inactive?Instructions
Respond to the question as directly as possible in the first line of your response.
In the body of your response support your answer by referring to a specific passage from the reading in your own words.
Submit one additional contribution to the discussion, either a comment on another post, a reflection on the topic, or a link to a related website or video (with commentary on your link).
Resources
Review the instructor introduction to each reading which is located right above each discussion question.

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