Future Ethics: Climate Change and Apocalyptic Imagination

by Stefan Skrimshire (Editor)

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781441139580
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	10/14/2010
Pages:	312
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Stefan Skrimshire is a postdoctoral research associate in philosophy of religion at The University of Manchester, UK.

Table of Contents

Foreword Alastair McIntosh vii

Acknowledgments xii

Contributors xiii

Introduction: How Should We Think about the Future? Stefan Skrimshire 1

Part I History

Chapter 1 A Short History of Environmental Apocalypse Frederick Buell 13

Chapter 2 Four Meanings of Climate Change Mike Hulme 37

Chapter 3 The Apocalyptic as Contemporary Dialectic: From Thanatos (Violence) to Eros (Transformation) Mark Levene 59

Part II Ethics

Chapter 4 Saved By Disaster? Abrupt Climate Change, Political Inertia and the Possibility of an Intergenerational Arms Race Stephen M. Gardiner 83

Chapter 5 Living in Uncertainty: Anthropogenic Global Warming and the Limits of 'Risk Thinking' Christopher Groves 107

Part III Action/Inaction

Chapter 6 Bringing Hope 'To Crisis': Crisis Thinking, Ethical Action and Social Change Sarah S. Amsler 129

Chapter 7 Empathy And Climate Change: Proposals for a Revolution of Human Relationships Roman Krznaric 153

Chapter 8 Are We Armed Only with Peer-Reviewed Science? The Scientization of Politics in the Radical Environmental Movement Andrew Bowman 173

Chapter 9 The Ultimate Paradigm Shift: Environmentalism as Antithesis to the Modern Paradigm of Progress Richard Mcneill Douglas 197

Part IV Religion

Chapter 10 Eternal Return of Apocalypse Stefan Skrimshire 219

Chapter 11 Beyond Humanity's End: An Exploration of a Dramatic versus Narrative Rhetoric and its Ethical Implications Celia Deane-Drummond 242

Chapter 12 Are We There Yet? Coming to the End of the Line - a Postnatural Enquiry Peter Manley Scott 260

Index 281

Editorial Reviews

"How should we think the future? This is the vital climate change question posed by this compelling collection of essays. Confronting the idea of apocalypse head on, contributors ask what imaginings are required to lever the changes we need. Does the idea of catastrophe free us to think anew, or freeze us into inaction? In the wake of Copenhagen, fresh thinking is needed - the kind of thinking you'll find in this book." --Andy Dobson, Keele University, UK

"Intellectual titillation" --Morning Star

"The climate revolution is being televised- not only in fantasy-disaster flicks like The Day After Tomorrow but on the morning weather report. The future is here, and it needs an ethics." --Harpers

From the Publisher

The climate revolution is being televised- not only in fantasy-disaster flicks like The Day After Tomorrow but on the morning weather report. The future is here, and it needs an ethics.

Harpers

Intellectual titillation

Morning Star

How should we think the future? This is the vital climate change question posed by this compelling collection of essays. Confronting the idea of apocalypse head on, contributors ask what imaginings are required to lever the changes we need. Does the idea of catastrophe free us to think anew, or freeze us into inaction? In the wake of Copenhagen, fresh thinking is needed - the kind of thinking you'll find in this book.

Andy Dobson