In a world often consumed by headlines of environmental and political crisis, acclaimed author Ian McEwan offers a note of cautious optimism. The Booker Prize-winning novelist, known for his incisive examinations of human morality, believes that despite the significant challenges we face, humanity "will scrape through." In recent interviews, McEwan has expanded on this perspective, which is central to his latest novel, a work that grapples with a future shaped by climate change and past mistakes. His hope is not rooted in naivety, but in what he sees as a deep-seated human and natural resilience.
McEwan’s optimism is not a grand, sweeping declaration but rather a more grounded, pragmatic faith in our ability to endure. Speaking on his belief that humanity will survive, he has pointed to the remarkable resilience of the natural world. He notes that "if you just stop doing bad things" to the environment, nature has an extraordinary ability to recover. He connects this natural resilience to human civilization, suggesting that we too possess a similar "knack of surviving somehow" through all self-inflicted catastrophes. While he acknowledges the collective "derangement" of our era, where we know what is happening but fail to act firmly enough, he finds hope in the "hundreds of pinpoints of light" that exist globally small projects of re-wilding and biological movements that represent a collective will to repair. He sees these small-scale efforts as evidence that a grassroots movement toward sustainability and conservation is already underway, giving him a reason to believe in the future.
McEwan's latest novel, What We Can Know, is a fictional exploration of this very theme. Set in a future where a climate-ravaged Britain has been partly submerged, the book features a character from the 22nd century looking back on our present day. Through this narrative device, McEwan creates a dialogue between past, present, and future, contemplating what our descendants will think of the world we left them. He imagines they will look back "filled not only with dismay at the decisions we took or didn't take, but also with envy" for some of the things they have lost. This perspective suggests that while our actions today will have consequences, they will not necessarily lead to total ruin. Instead, a diminished, but surviving, world will carry on, bearing the scars of our current inaction.
In McEwan's view, the greatest human attribute is our ability to adapt and our "ruthless urge to survive." He argues that unless we face a total nuclear exchange that makes the planet uninhabitable, we will manage to persevere through calamities, however damaged. His belief is that our descendants will "scrape through," even if they have to live with the costs. This slender hope, as he calls it, is a departure from the more apocalyptic narratives that dominate the public conversation. It is a reminder that while the road ahead is uncertain and fraught with risk, the human and natural capacity for survival may just be our most powerful asset. He emphasizes that while the path is not easy, humanity has a deep-seated instinct for self-preservation that, when combined with scientific innovation, can overcome even the most daunting challenges.
