Why Climate Breakdown Matters (Why Philosophy Matters)

"Climate change and the destruction of the earth is the most urgent issue of our time. We are hurtling towards the end of civilisation as we know it. With an unflinching honest approach, Rupert Read asks us to face up to the fate of the planet. This is a book for anyone who wants their philosophy to deal with reality and their climate concern to be more than a displacement activity. As people come together to mourn the loss of the planet, we have the opportunity to create a grounded, hopeful response. This meaningful hopefulness looks to the new communities created around climate activism. Together, our collective mourning enables us to become human in ways previously unknown. Why Climate Breakdown Matters is a practical guide on how to be a radical, responsible climate activist."-- Provided by publisher Cover 1 Praise 2 Halftitle page 4 Series page 5 Title page 6 Copyright page 7 Contents 8 Preface 9 Prologue: The Attention-shift from Climate to Corona – and Back Again? 12 Introduction: On Climate, Ecological and Societal Breakdown 16 A place to start 16 Times when we almost destroyed the world 17 What this chapter introduces to you 18 Why does this book matter? 19 Climate is only the canary in the coalmine: On the need for eco-logical thinking 22 How did we get to this pretty pass? 25 On ‘soft’ denialism – and adaptation 26 The will to face the truth confronting us 31 On – and beyond – scientism and technophilia 31 What is in this book 35 1 Just How Much do you Care About the Future of Humanity?1 40 Our most fundamental care 40 How could the future matter as much as the present? 42 Our loving care iterates down the generations 44 Protecting our children collectively 46 Objections 47 An obstacle to ‘enoughism’: human health as, paradoxically, a ‘limit’ to limits to growth19 49 Looking forward . . . 53 2 Is Climate Breakdown a White Swan? 56 The spectre haunting our world 56 Climate science is to geo-engineering as genetics is to GM food 60 Does ‘climate-attribution science’ remove the need for the precautionary principle? 62 Human-triggered climate breakdown is a white swan 63 Climate denial: Our common failure? 64 Facing up to climate reality collectively 65 3 Is Th is Civilization Finished?1 68 The elephants in the room, charging towards us 68 The failure of the Paris Agreement 70 On those who deny planetary boundaries – on the ‘Left ’ as well as the ‘Right’11 76 Civilization and ‘civilization’ 82 Three possible futures 83 Towards a ‘successor civilization’ 86 4 The Great Gift of Community that (Climate) Disasters Can Give Us1 90 Disasters and their discontents, from Hobbes to the Anthropocene 90 Disaster as gift ? 93 Disaster experience, and Disaster Studies 94 Anti-Hobbes 99 A potential objection: am I ignoring those already living everyday ‘disaster’? 104 Concluding remarks: The wake-up call(s) 106 5 How Climate Grief May Yet be the Making of Us 110 The personal is philosophical 110 A philosophy of grief 110 Grief beyond liberal individualism 113 Grief is living with a rip in the fabric of the lived world 115 Climate grief as living with an ongoing rip in the fabric of our shared world 118 The coming vast crisis of mental ill-health 118 In this crisis, we need love – and (that means) grief 120 6 Can We Understand Cetacean Society? Can We Change Ourselves? 124 Individuals or in-dividual? 124 The enduring relevance of Peter Winch 126 Understanding a cetacean society 130 The cultures of social whales and dolphins 131 From a distance, of the right kind 133 An anthropomorphic rhetoric? 135 Being ‘internally related’ to ‘others’25 136 Human society as non-understandable 138 The right to believe in ourselves 140 7 How to Live in Truth Today 144 No guarantees 144 Seven ways to do what we need to 146 Vulnerability – and vision 164 Are there any precedents for what we need to do? The case of the Byzantine Empire 166 Why does climate breakdown matter? 168 We are the light in the tunnel 168 The whales might inherit the Earth 169 The politics of paradox 173 Notes 174 Bibliography 208 Index 226 "Climate change and the destruction of the earth is the most urgent issue of our time. We are hurtling towards the end of civilization as we know it. With an unflinching honest approach, Rupert Read asks us to face up to the fate of the planet. This is a book for anyone who wants their philosophy to deal with reality and their climate concern to be more than a displacement activity. As people come together to mourn the loss of the planet, we have the opportunity to create a grounded, hopeful response. This meaningful hopefulness looks to the new communities created around climate activism. Together, our collective mourning enables us to become human in ways previously unknown. Why Climate Breakdown Matters is a practical guide on how to be a radical, responsible climate activist."-- Provided by publisher