Humanity is not trapped in a deadly game with the Earth – there are ways out | David Wengrow

The author of a landmark book that challenges our view of history argues catastrophe is not foretold. We are freer to act than we think

As the Cop26 climate summit gets under way, scientists and activists are in broad agreement that our prevailing cultural system has placed us, and our planet, on a course to disaster. They agree that it is time to change course. Yet, at this critical moment, we find ourselves paralysed, with new horizons closed off by a false prospectus of human possibilities based on mythological conceptions of history.

We need only look at the notion that underpins our idea of human development. In this story, our species originated in egalitarian bands of hunters and foragers, at one with their surroundings, only to somehow fall from grace into a state of inequality. In this coming-of-age" fairytale, we humans began in innocence and then developed by way of a voyage of technological discovery - from foragers to farmers to fossil fuels - that enabled our advancement", but saw us relinquish our original freedoms. We became civilised", only to find ourselves locked in a tug of war with nature that now threatens the planet.