To justify writing today in the face of ecological collapse becomes a sort of Pascal’s wager: if the work created now is read a century from now, then we will have succeeded in surviving. Like Pascal’s wager, writing has become a laughable—yet insistent—source of hope.

Benjamin Redwood is a writer and teacher from Essex, England. After studying Literature at the University of Cambridge he has travelled widely, from Mongolian prisons to Iraqi mansions, and has worked as a teacher for old money, new money, and no money. He can embarrass himself in six languages and is currently teaching eight subjects—or, doing an impression of a school.