As an issue, climate change was unlucky: when nonspecialists

Hear the words of Charles C. Mann, historian of earth and humanity, who observed with clear eyes: “As an issue, climate change was unlucky: when nonspecialists first became aware of it in the 1990s, environmental attitudes had already become tribal political markers.” In this reflection lies both sorrow and truth—that a danger of planetary scale was revealed not to a world united, but to a world already divided, where truth was judged not by its weight but by the banners under which men marched.

The origin of this saying rests in the history of modern politics. By the late 20th century, the environment was no longer a neutral concern of clean water and healthy forests, but a battleground between rival ideologies. One tribe saw environmental protection as duty; another saw it as threat to freedom and profit. When the great warning of climate change rose into public consciousness, it did not arrive as a universal alarm but as another weapon in the cultural wars. Thus, Mann calls it “unlucky”—not because the science was unclear, but because the soil into which the message fell was already hardened by division.

History offers echoes of such tragedy. Consider the tale of Galileo, who turned his telescope toward the heavens and revealed truths that shook the foundations of belief. His discoveries were not judged on their merit, but on whether they aligned with the tribal markers of his age—the authority of church and tradition. Truth, when chained to politics, is often silenced or delayed, and humanity pays the price. So it has been with climate change: its urgency drowned in argument, its science warped by partisanship, its remedies delayed by distrust.

Mann’s words remind us of the cruel irony that the greatest challenges often demand unity, yet are born in times of fracture. By the 1990s, as storms grew stronger and glaciers weakened, humanity had in its grasp the knowledge of looming peril. Yet instead of coming together, people asked: “Which side are you on?” And so, like soldiers in opposing camps, they fought each other while the storm gathered strength. The misfortune of the earth was not in the science, but in the spirit of the age.

Yet within this darkness lies also hope. For history teaches us that even truths once buried in division may rise again. Just as abolition triumphed over centuries of denial, just as women’s suffrage broke through walls of scorn, so too can the truth of climate change one day transcend politics. But this will happen only when people refuse to see it as the banner of a party and instead embrace it as the cry of the earth itself.

The lesson for us is clear: do not let truth become hostage to tribe. Whether one stands on the left or the right, beneath the skin of politics we all breathe the same air, drink the same water, and depend upon the same fragile climate. The storms do not ask for party affiliation; the drought does not choose its victims by ideology. To see the issue as “theirs” or “ours” is folly—it is everyone’s, and the cost of delay is borne by all.

And what shall we do in our daily lives? We must listen with patience, speak without scorn, and seek common ground. Build bridges of language that speak to farmers as well as scientists, to workers as well as activists. Support leaders who rise above the quarrels of tribe and act for the common good. And in our own households, let us live as examples—conserving, planting, teaching—so that others may see the path not as partisan, but as human.

So remember the wisdom of Charles C. Mann: climate change was “unlucky” to be born in a divided age, but it need not remain the prisoner of division. If we cast aside the blindness of tribal markers and embrace the truth as one people, then we may yet turn misfortune into renewal, and pass on to our children not a fractured inheritance, but a living, breathing earth.