Review — Breaking Together by Jem Bendell
What sets Breaking Together apart from most books on the Climate and Ecological Emergency is the incredibly broad scope of its subject matter. For Bendell, the climate crisis is not simply a matter of too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It is a deep, existential crisis that threatens human beings on many fronts. This book is the evidence for his position.
Jem Bendell first became noticed when his 2018 paper, Deep Adaptation, became very widely read. Deep Adaptation stated that human mistreatment of the earth had caused immeasurable damage to Earth’s natural systems and there was no economic or political will to change course. Hence, because society is dependent on nature for food, water and well-being, a collapse of modern society was inevitable. The most sensible course for individuals and societies was to find ways to adapt in order to survive the crisis. This point of view struck a chord with many. Others dismissed him as a doomer, someone whose pessimism was contributing to the danger. Bendell formed a team of researchers and went away to gather further evidence for his argument. The result is Breaking Together, a powerful statement of where we are at and where our world is going. Bendell starts with the evidence for the imminent collapse of modern society.
The Human Development Index is a massive dataset collected by the United Nations and published annually since 1990. Bendell’s team dived into this data and found distinct trends. Generally speaking, quality of life was rising in 2012, then started to decline. The USA entered decline around 2013, and Asian countries from around 2018. Despite continued economic activity, quality of life in most global regions and individual countries has declined over a 10-year period. This is very significant but not in itself evidence of collapse. It should be noted that this decline preceded the effects of the Covid 19 pandemic which took effect from 2020. Covid exacerbated the decline in many ways: early death, loss of health, distrust in government, loss of income, poor mental health, and corruption. Covid was exactly the thing we didn’t need when we were already on a downward slope.
Covid makes regular appearances in the book because it is very much a product of the crisis that we are building around ourselves. There are two theories for the origin of Covid. One, that is a zoonotic disease that spread to humans because of our destruction and exploitation of natural habits. The second is that it leaked from a laboratory where research into viruses was taking place. Both theories are rooted in intrusion and exploitation. Both refer to the breaking of boundaries. Covid is a product of an exploitative mindset and it has cost millions of lives.
Even when specific steps have been taken to address the needs of people and the planet, these have not been successful. In 2015 the United Nations launched 17 Sustainable Development Goals, a 15-year programme to provide a better and more sustainable future. Half way through the programme, the UN secretary-general warned that rather than progress, many of the goals were moving backwards.
Measures of human fulfilment in decline, a worldwide crisis of mental health and suicide, the soil being degraded and lost, dangerous air pollution, rampant inequality, political corruption and paralysis, billionaire capture of the news media, a pandemic, the creeping realisation of the consequences of the climate crisis. Bendell devotes the first half of the book to an analysis of these multiple factors. He offers no predicted date for the collapse but makes it clear that with so many factors pulling towards it, collapse is inevitable.
The second half of the book is devoted to assessing how we should respond. Since Deep Adaptation was published, a world event has taken place that provides numerous case studies and insights into how modern society might respond to a crisis: the Covid 19 pandemic.
Despite the rapid development of vaccines and the global availability of advanced medicine, Covid killed over three million people. As well as these sad losses, there is also a legacy of degraded mental health, degraded physical health from long Covid, heavy-handed enforcement of lockdowns (people welded into buildings in China, country walkers fined in the UK), intrusive and pointless bureaucracy, politically motivated interventions by governments, fraud and corruption. Governments frequently acted to reward their friends, rather than act in the common interest.
As levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere climb ever higher, the effects of climate change are now being felt. Record-breaking heat, flooding, wildfires and storms are constantly in the news and opinion polls suggest that populations are waking up to what is happening. Despite pleas from scientists and the United Nations, national governments continue with business as usual, insisting they are doing what is needed and at the same time providing oil and gas companies with billions of pounds worth of tax breaks. Faith in government was shaken by Covid and is stretched to breaking point by their responses to the climate crisis.
Bendell makes it clear that the government is not going to save us. Appeals to authority are pointless because the authorities, of whatever political colour, are part of the problem. Impersonal top-down approaches, preference for the interests of friends and disconnection from the needs of ordinary people were obvious in the response to Covid and are increasingly obvious in the responses to all the crises that make up the Climate and Ecological Emergency. Develop your powers of critical thought, says Bendell. Stop believing in the corporate bullshit and the government greenwash. Stop looking up and start talking to your friends and family. Exercise your freedom to think and act. Organise, innovate and find ways to implement your ideas and the changes you know to be right.
Breaking Together is not a “green” handbook. It’s not about finding ways to improve your recycling. Breaking Together is a philosophical primer for the crisis. It sets out the empirical evidence for a crisis and the likelihood of societal collapse. It then encourages the reader to see clearly and critically what is going on. Then it encourages a free, personal response. The free part is important. Just joining a chanting throng is not going to make a difference. Reproducing the errors that got us into this mess is not going to get us out. It’s time to start again, to develop a critical and open understanding of where we are at and then work with like-minded people to achieve positive and useful change. Change which is revolutionary and appropriate to the enormity of our crisis.
Collapse, according to Bendell, is inevitable. Considering that every other civilisation has collapsed eventually, why should we be any different and why should we question his view? Our choice is what sort of collapse we want. Are we going to cling to the old ways, fighting each other for the final scraps amidst the ruins of our world? Or are we going to clear our minds of our destructive ways, rethink our world and break together, collapse together, gracefully supporting each other through the transition?
Breaking Together is a big book that befits a massive subject. It is a deep, challenging read that places considerable demands upon the reader. Are you willing to accept the inevitability of collapse? Are you willing to understand why? Are you willing to break together with others? If you want to be a positive participant in the future, I recommend Breaking Together to you.
