Now Reading: Sunil Amrith on unequal costs of environmental destruction
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Sunil Amrith on unequal costs of environmental destruction
In an interview with Times of India, Yale historian Sunil Amrith discusses his new book 'The Burning Earth', which argues that elite pursuit of luxury and accumulation has disproportionately driven environmental destruction…
The Story in Brief
In an interview with Times of India, Yale historian Sunil Amrith discusses his new book 'The Burning Earth', which argues that elite pursuit of luxury and accumulation has disproportionately driven environmental destruction over the last two centuries. Amrith, winner of the Infosys Prize, MacArthur Fellowship, and Toynbee Prize, anchors his global history in Asia, home to most of humanity. Drawing on paleoclimatology and other disciplines, he traces how migration, plantations, and colonial economies reshaped the planet. He stresses that environmental inequality is central to understanding the climate crisis, though his book stops short of naming clear villains.
The Indian Opinion
Amrith’s focus on elite luxury as the driver of planetary crisis is a needed corrective to narratives that blame population growth in the Global South. Yet the book stops short of naming which elites today bear the most responsibility, and whether their accumulation is being challenged. The real test will be whether India’s own fast-growing elite accepts a binding carbon budget that constrains its consumption, or continues to externalise costs onto the poor.
Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com
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