Uncovering the origins of the climate crisis

JVL Introduction

Tao Leigh Goffe has written a book about the founding exploitation for environmental breakdown. She traces the possible extinction of much of life on earth to the colonisation of indigenous, Black and Brown peoples, starting from the setting foot of Christopher Columbus in the Caribbean. The book has received much attention and mixed reviews. It is described in review we reprint here from Damien Gayle in the Guardian as “groundbreaking” but also as failing “to develop a coherent analysis”, in a critical article by John Clarke in Counterfire. For, Goffe is also a collage artist and uses narrative juxtaposition to create multiple foci of interest, rather than a linear exposition. So, there is detail about the effect of colonisation on biodiversity, a theme also emphasised by Mazin Qumsiyeh in Palestine, as well as wide ranging consequences of imperialism in the Americas, Africa and Asia.

Like Robin Wall Kimmerer in Braiding Sweetgrass, she sees the relationships to nature of indigenous peoples as offering sustainable futures in contrast with the destructive forces of colonialism and capitalism. She could have taken as her founding exploitation, that of women by men. And as John Clarke points out she might have made more of the relatively recent development of fossil fuel capitalism and its impact in rapidly rapid accelerating climate collapse.

Goffe argues that we will not find a solution to climate breakdown until we relate differently to the world and each other. Yet, extreme time pressures may mean that we have to do “everything, everywhere, all at once” and engage successfully in the art of the impossible.

This article was originally published by The Guardian on Fri 28 Mar 2025. Read the original here.