How to Think about the Climate Crisis: A Philosophical Guide to Saner Ways of Living

289 Pages·2021·2.333 MB·English

by  Graham Parkes

HOW TO THINK
ABOUT THE
CLIMATE CRISIS
i
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM BLOOMSBURY
A Short Philosophical Guide to the Fallacies of Love ,
Jos é A. D í ez and Andrea Iacona
An Ethical Guidebook to the Zombie Apocalypse , Bryan Hall
Environmental Ethics , Marion Hourdequin
Morality and Ethics at War , Deane-Peter Baker
Th e Myth of Luck , Steven D. Hales
Th e Tyranny of Opinion , Russell Blackford
ii
HOW TO THINK
ABOUT THE
CLIMATE CRISIS
A philosophical guide to saner
ways of living
Graham Parkes
iii
BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK
1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA

BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are
trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

First published in Great Britain 2021

Copyright © Graham Parkes, 2021

Graham Parkes has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act, 1988, to be identifi ed as Author of this work.

For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. xiv constitute an
extension of this copyright page.

Cover design by Louise Dugdale
Cover image: Gaia Rising over Punished Prometheus by Setsuko Aihara

A ll rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior
permission in writing from the publishers.

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for,
any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses
given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author
and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have
changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no
responsibility for any such changes.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Parkes, Graham, 1949– author.
Title: How to think about the climate crisis : a philosophical guide to saner ways
of living / Graham Parkes. D escription: London ; New York : Bloomsbury
Academic, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifi ers: LCCN 2020033556 (print) | LCCN 2020033557 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781350158863 (hardback) | ISBN 9781350158870 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781350158887 (ebook) | ISBN 9781350158894 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Climatic changes–Philosophy. | Philosophy, Comparative.
Classifi cation: LCC QC903 .P375 2021 (print) | LCC QC903 (ebook) |
DDC 363.738/74—dc23
LC record available at h ttps://lccn.loc.gov/2020033556
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020033557

ISBN: HB: 978-1-3501-5886-3
PB: 978-1-3501-5887-0
ePDF: 978-1-3501-5888-7
eBook: 978-1-3501-5889-4

Typeset by Refi neCatch Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk

To fi nd out more about our authors and books, visit w ww.bloomsbury.com
and sign up for our n ewsletters .
iv
To the students I’ve taught – from whom I’ve learned.
For the students I won’t have the opportunity to teach,
in the hope that they’ll learn some things that will help.

And in memory of Martin Schö nfeld (1963–2020), a dear
friend and treasured colleague, whose tragic death has
deprived us of someone who knew well how to think
about the climate crisis.
v
vi
Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgements xiv
Introductions (Background and Book) 1
Part One Reality & Alternatives 21
1 Th e Reality of Global Heating 22
2 Specious Promethean Solutions 40
Part Two Covert Operations, Outrageous Obstructions 53
3 Th e Rise of the Libertarians 54
4 Th e Financial Clout of Fossil Fuels 68
5 Th e Political Power of the Religious Right 83
Part Th ree Finer Philosophies & Fairer Politics 101
6 Libertarian Limitations, Religion’s Contributions 102
7 Political Philosophies, Greek and Chinese 121
Part Four Lower Consumption, Higher Fulfi lment 139
8 Sage Advice from the Ancients 140
9 A Good Life with Congenial Th ings 165
Inconclusions (What and How?) 187
vii
Notes 209
Select Bibliography 249
Suggestions for Further Reading 254
Index 262
CONTENTS
Preface
B
ecause of the radical transformation of the world that began
shortly aft er I fi nished writing this book, it needs a new preface.
On completing the manuscript at the end of 2019, part of a
project I’d been working on for a decade, I realized to my dismay that an
unusual conjuncture of circumstances had rendered it redundant. Let me
recount the relevant events.
Having followed developments in the environmental sciences for
over forty years, it became all too clear to me that reports of ecosystem
destruction, biodiversity loss and species extinction were becoming
steadily more dire. Th e evidence was overwhelming: by persisting in
consuming the natural world to death, we are eliminating the ‘natural
resource base’ on which our lives depend. 1 Th e enterprise was breath-
taking in its irrationality – almost impossible to imagine such collective
stupidity – but we were actually doing it.
I had also been following the climate sciences, and the message from
that quarter, too, had changed radically in import and urgency. Some of
the top experts in Earth System Science had identifi ed several ‘planetary
boundaries’ in the system, and ‘tipping points’ in the spheres of earth,
oceans and air, beyond which cascades of eff ects would push the climate
irrevocably into a very diff erent condition. Everything we know about the
interactions among these various systems suggests that we don’t know
whether we might not have pushed too far already. 2 And when positive
feedbacks kick in, this increases the chances of tripping over other tipping
points. Th en you get ‘runaway’ global heating, which makes the Earth
steadily less habitable – and quicker than you’d care to imagine.
Being aware of this dual threat, the best-informed commentators on
climate change were becoming more pessimistic – R equiem for a Species ,
Why the Struggle against Climate Change Failed , Learning to Die in the
Anthropocene , Out of the Wreckage , On Fire , Falter , and so forth – and
barely able to conceal their despair at the desperate nature of the situation.
Th e discrepancies between stated goals for reducing greenhouse gas
emissions (aft er the Paris Agreement of 2016) and what’s actually needed
if we’re to avoid climate catastrophe were huge.3 As this grim reality came
ix