Introduction

This chapter has the feel of an incomplete literature review – that is, books talking to books – beginning with a fictional narrative that suggests we are living in the best and worst of times as argued, respectively, by Steven Pinker and Ulrich Beck. A number of prominent authors have identified several existential threats that, due to space limitations, can only be noted in the chapter. I have chosen to focus on arguably the most immediate threat of a global pandemic, linked as it is with intensive animal agriculture the worst features of which are within our collective wit to change.

The dark side of the human– animal link is only one of the factors associated with the existential threat of climate change, but it is one that offers hope of resolution via the combined efforts of relevant social movements (SMs) defending the rights of human and non- human animals. There are now thousands of books, official reports, scientific and socialscientific papers on the causes and consequences of climate change and global warming (sometimes used interchangeably in the chapter where appropriate) to the extent that it seems improbable than anything original could be added to the controversy. Hence the chapter focuses on a growing consensus among climate activists and scholars that in the absence of government action on climate change, mass mobilisation is needed to compel international and national authorities to act in the interests of the planet rather than those whose industries are destroying it.

A Fictional Foetus Reflects on the Future

In Ian McEwan's novel Nutshell, the foetus hears a lecture the pregnant mother is listening to on a podcast in which the speaker talks darkly about the state of the world: Russian actions in the Ukraine; the barbaric fringes of Islam; Europe in existential crisis; anti- Semitism incubating; the superrich a master race apart; greedy banks; China's expansionism; Middle East, fast- breeder for a possible world war; Africa's children dying, thousands by the week, for want of easy things – clean water, mosquito nets, cheap drugs. Other issues include altered climate; environmental destruction; profitable and poisonous agriculture; an ageing, sick and demented population needing urgent care; populations in catastrophic decline; free speech no longer free; job- stealing robots; liberty in close combat with security; and capitalism corrupt, destructive and in disgrace, no alternative in sight.