The Apocalyptic Dimensions of Climate Change

The Apocalyptic Dimensions of Climate Change PDF Author: Jan Alber
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110730286
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 191

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Book Description
Climate change and the apocalypse are frequently associated in the popular imagination of the twenty-first century. This collection of essays brings together climatologists, theologians, historians, literary scholars, and philosophers to address and critically assess this association. The contributing authors are concerned, among other things, with the relation between cultural and scientific discourses on climate change; the role of apocalyptic images and narratives in representing environmental issues; and the tension between reality and fiction in apocalyptic representations of catastrophes. By focusing on how figures in fictional texts interact with their environment and deal with the consequences of climate change, this volume foregrounds the broader social and cultural function of apocalyptic narratives of climate change. By evoking a sense of collective human destiny in the face of the ultimate catastrophe, apocalyptic narratives have both cautionary and inspirational functions. Determining the extent to which such narratives square with scientific knowledge of climate change is one of the main aims of this book.

The Apocalyptic Dimensions of Climate Change

The Apocalyptic Dimensions of Climate Change PDF Author: Jan Alber
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110730286
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 191

Get Book Here

Book Description
Climate change and the apocalypse are frequently associated in the popular imagination of the twenty-first century. This collection of essays brings together climatologists, theologians, historians, literary scholars, and philosophers to address and critically assess this association. The contributing authors are concerned, among other things, with the relation between cultural and scientific discourses on climate change; the role of apocalyptic images and narratives in representing environmental issues; and the tension between reality and fiction in apocalyptic representations of catastrophes. By focusing on how figures in fictional texts interact with their environment and deal with the consequences of climate change, this volume foregrounds the broader social and cultural function of apocalyptic narratives of climate change. By evoking a sense of collective human destiny in the face of the ultimate catastrophe, apocalyptic narratives have both cautionary and inspirational functions. Determining the extent to which such narratives square with scientific knowledge of climate change is one of the main aims of this book.

Future Ethics

Future Ethics PDF Author: Stefan Skrimshire
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1441189564
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 307

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Book Description
Future Ethics: Climate Change and Political Action presents a comprehensive examination of the philosophical questions facing activists, policy makers and educators fighting the causes of climate change. These questions reflect a genuine crisis in ethical reflection for individuals and groups in today's society and are also underpinned by a broader question of how the future forms the basis for action in the present. For instance, does the reporting of impending 'points of no return' in global warming renew a spirit of resistance or a spirit of fatalism? How is the future of the human species really imagined in society and how does this affect our sense of ethical responsibility? In this fascinating book, thirteen leading experts explore the philosophical and ethical issues underlying social responses to climate change and in particular how these responses draw upon ideas about the future. Ideal for students of environmental ethics in multiple disciplines, the book provides sources and discussion for anyone interested in issues to do with environment, society and ethics.

Apocalypse Never

Apocalypse Never PDF Author: Michael Shellenberger
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0063001705
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 482

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Book Description
Now a National Bestseller! Climate change is real but it’s not the end of the world. It is not even our most serious environmental problem. Michael Shellenberger has been fighting for a greener planet for decades. He helped save the world’s last unprotected redwoods. He co-created the predecessor to today’s Green New Deal. And he led a successful effort by climate scientists and activists to keep nuclear plants operating, preventing a spike of emissions. But in 2019, as some claimed “billions of people are going to die,” contributing to rising anxiety, including among adolescents, Shellenberger decided that, as a lifelong environmental activist, leading energy expert, and father of a teenage daughter, he needed to speak out to separate science from fiction. Despite decades of news media attention, many remain ignorant of basic facts. Carbon emissions peaked and have been declining in most developed nations for over a decade. Deaths from extreme weather, even in poor nations, declined 80 percent over the last four decades. And the risk of Earth warming to very high temperatures is increasingly unlikely thanks to slowing population growth and abundant natural gas. Curiously, the people who are the most alarmist about the problems also tend to oppose the obvious solutions. What’s really behind the rise of apocalyptic environmentalism? There are powerful financial interests. There are desires for status and power. But most of all there is a desire among supposedly secular people for transcendence. This spiritual impulse can be natural and healthy. But in preaching fear without love, and guilt without redemption, the new religion is failing to satisfy our deepest psychological and existential needs.

Climate Change Justice

Climate Change Justice PDF Author: Eric A. Posner
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400834406
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Book Description
A provocative contribution to the climate justice debate Climate change and justice are so closely associated that many people take it for granted that a global climate treaty should—indeed, must—directly address both issues together. But, in fact, this would be a serious mistake, one that, by dooming effective international limits on greenhouse gases, would actually make the world's poor and developing nations far worse off. This is the provocative and original argument of Climate Change Justice. Eric Posner and David Weisbach strongly favor both a climate change agreement and efforts to improve economic justice. But they make a powerful case that the best—and possibly only—way to get an effective climate treaty is to exclude measures designed to redistribute wealth or address historical wrongs against underdeveloped countries. In clear language, Climate Change Justice proposes four basic principles for designing the only kind of climate treaty that will work—a forward-looking agreement that requires every country to make greenhouse-gas reductions but still makes every country better off in its own view. This kind of treaty has the best chance of actually controlling climate change and improving the welfare of people around the world.

Defiant Earth

Defiant Earth PDF Author: Clive Hamilton
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509519785
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
Humans have become so powerful that we have disrupted the functioning of the Earth System as a whole, bringing on a new geological epoch – the Anthropocene – one in which the serene and clement conditions that allowed civilisation to flourish are disappearing and we quail before 'the wakened giant'. The emergence of a conscious creature capable of using technology to bring about a rupture in the Earth's geochronology is an event of monumental significance, on a par with the arrival of civilisation itself. What does it mean to have arrived at this point, where human history and Earth history collide? Some interpret the Anthropocene as no more than a development of what they already know, obscuring and deflating its profound significance. But the Anthropocene demands that we rethink everything. The modern belief in the free, reflexive being making its own future by taking control of its environment – even to the point of geoengineering – is now impossible because we have rendered the Earth more unpredictable and less controllable, a disobedient planet. At the same time, all attempts by progressives to cut humans down to size by attacking anthropocentrism come up against the insurmountable fact that human beings now possess enough power to change the Earth's course. It's too late to turn back the geological clock, and there is no going back to premodern ways of thinking. We must face the fact that humans are at the centre of the world, even if we must give the idea that we can control the planet. These truths call for a new kind of anthropocentrism, a philosophy by which we might use our power responsibly and find a way to live on a defiant Earth.

Environmental Apocalypse in Science and Art

Environmental Apocalypse in Science and Art PDF Author: Sergio Fava
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0415634016
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
Why are climate mitigation and adaptation failing? This book situates climate policy in the cultural history of future-prediction practices. Tracing relations between modelling, epistemology, politics, food security, religion, art and the apocalyptic, its case studies examine how different modes of representing nature and imagining futures are catalysts or obstacles for immediate action.

The Death of Grass

The Death of Grass PDF Author: John Christopher
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141192011
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
A thought experiment in future-shock survivalism' Robert MacFarlane 'Gripping ... of all science fiction's apocalypses, this is one of the most haunting' Financial Times WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ROBERT MACFARLANE A post-apocalyptic vision of the world pushed to the brink by famine, John Christopher's science fiction masterpiece The Death of Grass includes an introduction by Robert MacFarlane in Penguin Modern Classics. At first the virus wiping out grass and crops is of little concern to John Custance. It has decimated Asia, causing mass starvation and riots, but Europe is safe and a counter-virus is expected any day. Except, it turns out, the governments have been lying to their people. When the deadly disease hits Britain, society starts to descend into barbarism. As John and his family try to make it across country to the safety of his brother's farm in a hidden valley, their humanity is tested to its very limits. A chilling psychological thriller and one of the greatest post-apocalyptic novels ever written, The Death of Grass shows people struggling to hold on to their identities as the familiar world disintegrates - and the terrible price they must pay for surviving. John Christopher (1922-2012) was the pen name of Samuel Youd, a prolific writer of science fiction. His novels were popular during the 1950s and 1960s, most notably The Death Of Grass (1956), The World in Winter (1962), and Wrinkle in the Skin (1965), all works depicting ordinary people struggling in the midst of apocalyptic catastrophes. In 1966 he started writing science-fiction for adolescents; The Tripods trilogy, the Prince in Waiting trilogy (also known as the Sword of the Spirits trilogy) and The Lotus Caves are still widely read today. Ifyou enjoyed The Death of Grass, you might like John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.

Apocalyptic Visions in the Anthropocene and the Rise of Climate Fiction

Apocalyptic Visions in the Anthropocene and the Rise of Climate Fiction PDF Author: Kübra Baysal
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 152757363X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
With the increasing interest of pop culture and academia towards environmental issues, which has simultaneously given rise to fiction and artworks dealing with interdisciplinary issues, climate change is an undeniable reality of our time. In accordance with the severe environmental degradation and health crises today, including the COVID-19 pandemic, human beings are awakening to this reality through climate fiction (cli-fi), which depicts ways to deal with the anthropogenic transformations on Earth through apocalyptic worlds as displayed in works of literature, media and art. Appealing to a wide range of readers, from NGOs to students, this book fills a gap in the fields of literature, media and art, and sheds light on the inevitable interconnection of humankind with the nonhuman environment through effective descriptions of associable conditions in the works of climate fiction.

False Alarm

False Alarm PDF Author: Bjorn Lomborg
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 1541647483
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 347

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Book Description
An “essential” (Times UK) and “meticulously researched” (Forbes) book by “the skeptical environmentalist” argues that panic over climate change is causing more harm than good Hurricanes batter our coasts. Wildfires rage across the American West. Glaciers collapse in the Artic. Politicians, activists, and the media espouse a common message: climate change is destroying the planet, and we must take drastic action immediately to stop it. Children panic about their future, and adults wonder if it is even ethical to bring new life into the world. Enough, argues bestselling author Bjorn Lomborg. Climate change is real, but it's not the apocalyptic threat that we've been told it is. Projections of Earth's imminent demise are based on bad science and even worse economics. In panic, world leaders have committed to wildly expensive but largely ineffective policies that hamper growth and crowd out more pressing investments in human capital, from immunization to education. False Alarm will convince you that everything you think about climate change is wrong -- and points the way toward making the world a vastly better, if slightly warmer, place for us all.

Climate Leviathan

Climate Leviathan PDF Author: Joel Wainwright
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1786634317
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Book Description
**Winner of the 2019 Sussex International Theory Prize** Despite the science and the summits, leading capitalist states have not achieved anything close to an adequate level of carbon mitigation. There is now simply no way to prevent the planet breaching the threshold of two degrees Celsius set by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. What are the likely political and economic outcomes of this? Where is the overheating world heading? To further the struggle for climate justice, we need to have some idea how the existing global order is likely to adjust to a rapidly changing environment. Climate Leviathan provides a radical way of thinking about the intensifying challenges to the global order. Drawing on a wide range of political thought, Joel Wainwright and Geoff Mann argue that rapid climate change will transform the world's political economy and the fundamental political arrangements most people take for granted. The result will be a capitalist planetary sovereignty, a terrifying eventuality that makes the construction of viable, radical alternatives truly imperative.