White Supremacy, Western Ancestry and the Climate and Ecological Emergency: Thoughts on Jane Ribbens McCarthy’s Death, Coloniality/Modernity and the Climate and Ecological Emergency
by Brigitta Mowat
In the July Digest, Jane McCarthy explored death in the light of the Climate and Ecological Emergency (CEE) and how the CEE is a systemic issue, inherent in coloniality/modernity. In this response, I want to unpack more about these inherently exploitative and violent systems and their links, especially their relation to White supremacy. White supremacy, globalisation and Western-style capitalism are based on the exploitation of resources and people.
The beginning of a global systemic shift started a long time ago. A new book by Tao Leigh Goffe [1] associates the violence of the modern world and climate change (the two go hand-in-hand) as dating back to the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Caribbean in 1492. Goffe’s assertion challenges us to re-think the origins of the climate and ecological emergency and the role of Western exploitation that has shaped modernity: the CEE is embedded in our shared (white) European history. Goffe’s perspective challenges Christopher Columbus’s status as a praiseworthy individual in British history books. For one section of the British public, Brexit has reignited the imperial mindset. Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage tapped into the nostalgia for Britain’s imperial past. The shift to the right in European and worldwide politics is a clear sign that, as Jane puts it, coloniality rooted in power and exploitation is reestablishing itself.
Responding to another point Jane raises about coloniality/modernity and its association with Whiteness, I am interested in how coloniality, even while it dates back to Christopher Columbus, might still unconsciously be present in our psyche, our institutions and our systems. Is a version of this being played out by US president Trump, whose policies are reinforcing the perception of a world populated by lesser beings? The link between coloniality/racism and the CEE calls us to urgently examine Whiteness and how Whiteness figures in White people’s relationships with People of Colour, who are under renewed attack. White, privileged people such as me need to show genuine empathy for those who are at the receiving end of structural and interpersonal hostility and social injustice.
Owning my ancestral past
Like Jane, I am part of the minority world. I grew up in an affluent working/middle class milieu in Switzerland – a country indirectly involved in colonialism: Swiss banks played a role in the slave trade by providing financial services to slave traders and plantation owners.
Jane makes the important point that Western lifestyles are inherently exploitative, and we do not acknowledge our dependency on the more-than-human world for our basic needs such as food and water. Minerals from the Earth power our e-cars, mobile phones and laptops. By using technology, I am by default plugged into coloniality/modernity. Minerals are mainly obtained from the majority world, a process that has a devastating environmental and social impact. I am also bearing in mind the extent to which the global South is impacted by Western lifestyles. Climate change in its essence is racist.
Looking at the climate and ecological emergency through the trauma lens
It is well-known that unprocessed trauma leads to trauma enactment. An Israeli colleague of mine suggested that Israel is currently acting out Jewish Holocaust experience on the Palestinians. I see parallels between depictions of emaciated Jews in German concentration camps, and those from Gaza of famine-stricken Palestinians. I am curious about the links between genocide and ecocide, for example the prevailing disregard not only for lesser beings but also for Nature. Nature needs to be given legal status. (Recently the first river in England has been given rights.)
Britain, a major colonizer, was key in spreading coloniality/modernity in the world. At its peak, its colonies encompassed roughly a quarter of the world’s land area. Many indigenous cultures were erased or significantly altered as a result of British interventionism. The colonization discourse is increasingly entering the public arena, reminding us that indigenous cultures have successfully lived and worked in an ecosystemic way, nurturing rather than depleting the soil.
Trauma theory posits that ancestral trauma is passed down through generations and can lead to epigenetic changes. [2] This would suggest that unprocessed collective White trauma from ancestral pasts could be one of the reasons why superiority and destruction − both defences against shame and guilt − are driving the world towards possible ecological and societal collapse. Recognising and, where relevant, owning harmful Western ways of life is essential. Shame and guilt often reside in the unconscious and, because of their painful nature, are strongly defended against. Owning shame and guilt can prepare the way for decentring harmful Western lifestyles. As Melanie Klein pointed out in her paper Love, Guilt and Reparation (1937), feeling guilt is part of a reparative process. The acknowledgment of guilt and shame might be as important as mourning, something that Jane touches on in her quote from Cunsolo Willox: “mourning can be a catalyst for political action between, among, and across species”.
Examining Whiteness
Part of decentring and overturning dominant Western attitudes involves examining how White supremacy lives in, and is enacted through, White bodies. Drawing from my experience as a member of an Examining Whiteness group, looking at Whiteness brings up feelings of shame and guilt in fellow participants. For some this is helpful, as it highlights unconscious attitudes, assumptions and ways of speaking that are perceived as hurtful or offensive to People of Colour.
The South African writer Magogodi oaMphela Makhene, founder of Love as a Kind of Cure, suggests that White supremacy has to be dismantled from the inside out. It has to be an embodied process – we cannot intellectualise our way through White supremacy or the CEE. If, as Jane pointed out, the Western approach “focusses on technology’s ability to mitigate and control the CEE’s life-threatening manifestations”, then this approach is looking to solve the CEE using the same superior attitudes that created it. How upsetting that Western-style control of nature and people disavows the systemic changes that are needed to heal our depleting ecosystems.
[1] Goffe, T.L. (2025) Dark Laboratory. On Columbus, the Caribbean and the origins of the Climate Crisis. Hamish Hamilton.
[2] A search for Gabor Mate on epigenetic trauma transmission will come up with numerous clips.
Author's Bio
Brigitta Mowat is an integrative psychotherapist and Course Leader on the MA in integrative psychotherapy at the Minster Centre. She is a member of CPA. Brigitta has a special interest in examining the colonial roots of the CEE. She is a member of the White Aware Anti-racist Network, and participates in a group which examines Whiteness. At the Minster Centre she initiated a White staff group. Brigitta teaches a weekend workshop on eco-anxiety and environmental trauma for MA students at the Minster Centre.
