An ongoing crisis in Australian agriculture resulting from climate crises including drought, decreasing irrigation water, more recent catastrophic flooding, and an uncertain policy environment is reshaping gender relations in the intimate sphere of the farm family. Drawing on research conducted in the Murray-Darling Basin area of Australia we ask the question: Does extreme hardship/climate crises change highly inequitable gender relations in agriculture? As farm income declines, Australian farm women are more likely to be working off farm for (...) critical family income while men continue to work on farm often in circumstances of damaged landscapes, rising debt, and limited production. This paper examines the way gender relations are being renegotiated in a time of significant climate crisis. Our research suggests that climate crises have indeed led to changes in gender relations and that some changes are unexpected. Whereas one would logically assume that women’s enhanced economic contribution would increase their power in gender negotiations, we argue that this does not necessarily occur because their contribution is viewed as a farm survival strategy. Men are committed to prioritizing the farm and view women’s income generating work as critical to this purpose and yet, paradoxically, long for a return to traditional farm roles. We find that women are actively resisting traditional gender relations by reshaping a role for themselves beyond the farm—in the process moving physically and mentally away from a farm family ideology, questioning gender inequalities, and by extension their relationships. (shrink)

Psychoanalysis engages with the difficult subjects in life, but it has been slow to address climate change. Climate Crisis, Psychoanalysis, and Radical Ethics draws on the latest scientific evidence to set out the likely effects of climate change on politics, economics and society more generally, including impacts on psychoanalysts. Despite a tendency to avoid the warnings, times of crisis summon clinicians to emerge from comfortable consulting rooms. Daily engaged with human suffering, they now face the (...) inextricably bound together crises of global warming and massive social injustices. After considering historical and emotional causes of climate unconsciousness and of compulsive consumerism, this book argues that only a radical ethics of responsibility to be "my other s keeper" will truly wake us up to climate change and bring psychoanalysts to actively take on responsibilities, such as demanding change from governments, living more simply, flying less, and caring for the earth and its inhabitants everywhere. Linking climate justice to radical ethics by way of psychoanalysis, Donna Orange explores many relevant aspects of psychoanalytic expertise, referring to work on trauma, mourning, and the transformation of trouble into purpose. Orange makes practical suggestions for action in the psychoanalytic and psychotherapeutic communities: reducing air travel, consolidating organizations and conferences, better use of internet communication and education. This book includes both philosophical considerations of egoism as problematic, together with work on shame and envy as motivating compulsive and conspicuous consumption. The interweaving of climate emergency and massive social injustice presents psychoanalysts and organized psychoanalysis with a radical ethical demand and an extraordinary opportunity for leadership. Climate Crisis, Psychoanalysis, and Radical Ethics will provide accessible and thought-provoking reading for psychoanalysts and psychotherapists, as well as philosophers, environmental studies scholars and students studying across these fields. ". (shrink)

It is commonly assumed that we currently face a climate crisis insofar as the climatological effects of excessive carbon emissions risk destabilizing advanced civilization and jeopardize cherished modern institutions. The threat posed by climate change is treated as unprecedented, demanding urgent action to avert apocalyptic conditions that will limit or even erase the future of all humankind. In this essay, we argue that this framework—the default climate crisis motif—perpetuates a discursive infrastructure that commits its proponents, (...) if unwittingly, to logics that ultimately reinforce the dynamics driving climate change and its attending injustices. By centering Indigenous feminist environmental discourses, which privilege the role of richly interweaving networks of responsibilities composing extended more-than-human kinship arrangements, we contend that climate crisis is instead primarily a manifestation of devastating multidimensional relational disruptions of Indigenous lands and lives. More pointedly, it is a rebound effect of centuries of accumulating colonial injustices against responsible lifeways that are critical for socioecological adaptability and responsiveness. Framing climate crisis as relational crisis hereby creates discursive space for much needed transformational Indigenous feminist visions for justly and effectively addressing climate change. (shrink)

What does it entail to study the climate crisis from – or consistently with – a critical realist perspective? The paper addresses this question in three steps. First, it considers the boundaries of critical realism in relation to climate crisis research. In this context it identifies climate science as a field that in important respects resonates implicitly with critical realism. Conversely, a book by human ecologist Andreas Malm is introduced as an example of a work (...) that, while sympathetic to critical realism, in key respects contradicts core features of it. Second, to illustrate what an analysis of the crisis informed by critical realism can look like, the paper brings into focus the main causes of the climate crisis – including the capitalist growth imperative, neoliberalism, and consumer culture. Finally, the status quo project, the green growth project and the degrowth project are identified as fundamentally different ways of approaching the climate crisis. (shrink)

One of the central problems in the current discussion about the climate crisis is the fact that we (in the broadest sense of the term) do not act according to the knowledge available. That is, the sciences are more or less unanimous in their claim that we need to change our ways of living drastically, and yet we do very little to change. Given that there’s no shortage of scientific evidence, the central issue is not necessarily knowledge, but (...) how we relate to what we already know. But how do such changes in how we relate to what we know come about? How can a radical shift in our way of living come about? Facts don’t seem to do it. In light of this stand-still it is easy to resort to either anger or resignation. One suggestion is that arts, and movies in particular, may help us change our attitudes to what we know. In this article, I show how that what is required is not a mere change in attitude, but that we learn to reconfigure the concepts we live by, and that many films about the climate crisis often may conceal the climate crisis for us and prevent us from engaging imaginatively with the prospect of a radically changed way of living. Not all movies that are, in an objective sense “about” the climate crisis, allows for transformative experience where we learn to conceptualize our world differently. (shrink)

This book explores how the history of philosophy can orient us to the new reality brought on by the climate crisis. If we understand the climate crisis as a deeply existential one, it can help to examine the way past philosophers responded to similar crises in their times. This book explores five past crises, each involving a unique form of collective trauma. These events-war, occupation, exile, scientific revolution and political revolution-inspired the philosophers to remake the whole (...) world in thought, to construct a metaphysics. Williston distills a key intellectual innovation from each metaphysical system: - That political power must be constrained by knowledge of the climate system - That ethical and political reasoning must be informed by care or love of the ecological whole - That we must enhance the design of the technosphere - That we must conceive the Earth as an internally complex system - And that we must grant rights to anyone or anything-ultimately the Earth system itself-whose vital interests are threatened by the effects of climate change. Philosophy and the Climate Crisis will be of great interest to students and scholars of climate change, environmental philosophy and ethics and the environmental humanities. (shrink)

ABSTRACT What is “critical” about critical theory? I claim that, to be “critical enough”, critical theory’s future depends on being able to handle today’s planetary climate crisis, which presupposes a philosophy of nature. Here, I argue that Axel Honneth’s vision of critical theory represents a nature denial and is thus unable to criticize humans’ instrumentalization as well as capitalism’s exploitation of nature. However, I recover what I take to be a missed opportunity of what I term as the (...) early Honneth’s original ecological insight, which I reconstruct precisely as a philosophy of nature. Consequently, I identify what I describe as an ecological sensibility in Honneth. This refers to a bodily capability through which humans sensuously can resonate, communicate, and interact – and through that morally engage – with nature in its entire complexity. Furthermore, by virtue of this ecological sensibility, humans can recognize nature’s inherent moral value as a sensuously affected party. Then, the early Honneth’s original insight is recovered as a critical political ecology, which is needed facing today’s climate crisis. (shrink)

Responding to the unique challenge posed by the climate crisis, several recent commentators have invoked the concept of basic needs. Whilst that concept proves useful in meeting many of the distinctive practical and normative problems posed by climate change, those commentators largely neglect the politics surrounding our needs. This article responds by distinguishing three notionally sequential political moments – the politics behind needs, in specifying needs, and following needs – showing how each of these problematizes any attempt (...) to determine the normative importance of needs outside of the political. I finish by considering the implications for needs-based approaches to the climate crisis. (shrink)

An inquiry into how to build the political force to make a global Green New Deal a reality.

As awareness of global warming has spread during the past couple of decades and developed into the realization that humanity faces an existential threat, a number of more or less Kantian liberal or cosmopolitan moral and political theorists have attempted to address questions of justice raised by the climate crisis. David Held was among the most prolific and influential of them. Here I discuss Held's cosmopolitan perspective on climate governance and consider its bearing on certain recent proposals (...) for new institutions, including in particular a proposal offered by John Broome and Duncan Foley for establishing a World Climate Bank. I argue that such a WCB may be endorsable from Held's perspective, depending how the initial proposal may get further developed. Held's approach to politics is similar to Kant's in certain significant respects, including the role of hope. Both approaches are valuable and important in relation to the climate crisis. (shrink)

Climate change and loss of biodiversity are advancing rapidly, making a transition to a more sustainable society one of the most pressing tasks facing humanity. This special section shines a spotlight on how emotions shape and are shaped by the climate and biodiversity crises, and how they intersect with pro-environmental behavior. To this end, leading sustainability scholars and policy makers articulate what they believe are the most important questions that emotion research should answer to support a sustainable societal (...) transition. Here, we first provide an overview of the articles in the special section, which include a wide range of topics including global analyses of distress related to climate change and biodiversity loss, case studies on emotional experiences toward locally specific instances of climate change consequences and adaptation or mitigation efforts, discussions of the motivational functions of emotions and their potential to drive pro-environmental action, and reflections on how we can make affective science more salient to policy makers in the sustainability domain. In the second part, we summarize the emerging overarching themes that point to promising research objectives and questions for affective sustainability science. Finally, we discuss how the study of sustainability can also be beneficial for the affective sciences. Our hope is that this special section will put sustainability on the research agenda of emotion researchers and stimulate more research in affective sustainability science. (shrink)

Businesses and business scholars interested in tackling climate change can benefit by engaging with the innovative but nascent movement of climate assemblies. I articulate three promising ways they can meaningfully engage with this movement.

How should we conceptualize direct action against climate change? Although direct action is an increasingly significant tactic by the global climate movement, we lack understanding how direct action contributes to the systemic change necessary for addressing the crisis. Drawing upon critical theories of climate change as a crisis in the social reproduction of the metabolic relations between humans and nature in capitalism, I conceptualize direct action as attempts to intervene directly in the organization of the (...) social metabolism, towards reorganizing these relations in a more socially just and ecologically sustainable manner. My framework thus expands and clarifies the scope and potential of direct action as a means of confronting the capitalist climate crisis, as evidenced by Greta Thunberg’s school strike for climate. (shrink)

This essay examines the complex relationship between Christianity and the climate crisis. It first looks at theological convictions found in statements made by church leaders meant to advance Christian engagement. It then examines the now legendary acerbic attacks made by historian Lynn White in the late 1960s, criticizing these same theological convictions for actually disabling environmental engagement. Centrally, it then turns to the progressive, eco-theology of Sallie McFague who, while echoing White’s concerns, offers more recent and thorough criticisms (...) of tradition-based Christian theology, focusing especially on its propagating an outdated anthropology and earth-fleeing spiritualities. Finally, the essay focuses on the tragic immediacy of the climate catastrophe, suggesting that a North American culture of optimism and consumerism is causing millions to respond with indifference and denial, and that an activist-oriented pessimism may be a more mature and constructive response to the dire situation we now face. (shrink)

This article substantiates the common intuition that it is wrong to contribute to dangerous climate change for no significant reason. To advance this claim, I first propose a basic principle that one has the moral obligation to act in accordance with the weight of moral reasons. I further claim that there are significant moral reasons for individuals not to emit greenhouse gases, as many other climate ethicists have already argued. Then, I assert that there are often no significant (...) moral (or excusing) reasons to emit greenhouse gases. In any such trivial-cost – but not necessarily trivial-impact – cases, the individual then has an obligation to refrain. Finally, I apply the moral weighing principle to everyday situations of emitting and establish two surprisingly substantial implications: the relevance of virtues to the interpersonal assessment of environmentally harmful actions and the extensive individual ethical obligations that exist short of moral purity. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The aim of this critical discourse analysis is to examine how the agenda and actions of the global protest movement ‘Youth for Climate’ are understood and constructed in Swedish mainstream press and to highlight how the journalistic recontextualization contributes to empowering and disempowering the critical voices and their demands. The article problematizes the journalistic ideal of objectivity in the case of the climate crisis and adds to discussions about the role of media and journalism in the (...) political dynamics surrounding various responses and solutions to the crisis. It suggests that journalism’s objectivity claim hampers the journalistic coverage – what stories can be told and how. This suggestion is based on findings that show how journalism neutralizes conflict and social critique by emptying it of its political content and incorporating it into consensus discourses as well as by focusing on a moral pseudo-struggle that allows journalism to cover conflict without acknowledging real political controversies. It is argued here that journalism contributes to disempowering the climate protests by means of evasive, transformative and emptying discursive strategies. (shrink)

Can agents be duty-bound towards ends that are infeasible? Some scholars have endorsed a “feasibility constraint” on justice and answered that we cannot be duty-bound to bring about the infeasible. In this paper, I question whether the feasibility constraint on justice should still be endorsed and whether we are duty-bound to pursue some aims regardless of this constraint. I ask: Can an ethical agent be duty-bound to work towards bringing about a state of affairs that is desirable but infeasible? I (...) consider the climate crisis: climate justice may require us to work towards ends that may be infeasible, such as maintaining global climate warming below 1.5°C or mitigating climate change in a way that treats all people affected fairly. I argue that we may be duty-bound or obliged to work towards some desirable goals when faced with the infeasible and conclude that we should reject feasibility constraints on climate justice. (shrink)

Climate concepts are crucial to understand the effects of human activity on the climate system scientifically, and to formulate and pursue policies to mitigate and adapt to these effects. Yet, scientists, policymakers, and activists often use different terms such as “global warming,” “climate change,” “climate crisis,” or “climate emergency.” This advanced review investigates which climate concept is most suitable when we pursue mitigation and adaptation goals in a scientifically informed manner. It first discusses (...) how survey experiments and social science reviews on climate frames draw normative recommendations about which terms to use for public climate communication. It is suggested that such normative claims can be refined by including the scientific alongside lay uses of a climate concept, and by using explicit assessment conditions to evaluate how suitable a concept is for formulating mitigation and adaptation goals. Drawing on philosophical theories of conceptual change in science and conceptual engineering, a novel framework with two assessment conditions is introduced and then applied to “global warming,” “climate change,” “climate emergency,” and “climate crisis.” The assessment suggests that currently, “climate crisis” is most suitable to formulate and pursue climate mitigation and adaptation goals. Using this concept promotes the epistemic goals of climate science to a high degree, bridges scientific, political, and activist discourse, and fosters for democratic participation when articulating climate policies. (shrink)

This review essay looks at Andrew Brei’s edited volume, Ecology, ethics and hope, Candis Callison’s How climate change comes to matter: The communal life of facts, Randall Curren and Ellen Metzger’s Living well now and in the future: Why sustainability matters, Willis Jenkins’ The future of ethics: Sustainability, social justice, and religious creativity, and Byron Williston’s The Anthropocene project: Virtue in the age of climate change. These recent works highlight various normative approaches for engaging with what is often (...) referred to as the Anthropocene. Drawing on virtue ethics, pragmatism, and concepts such as intergenerational justice, they seek to address some of the defining moral challenges of our time: how we should respond to this unprecedented era of anthropogenic climate and environmental change, and what ethical resources we can draw on to guide our response. On a larger level, they reveal how the climate crisis is testing the limits of our current moral systems and helping to drive greater ethical innovation and adaptation in the process. (shrink)

In recent years, aging coal power plants, lack of maintenance, and issues of poor governance have resulted in a high frequency of rolling scheduled blackouts, throughout South Africa. This has led to greater urgency being placed on switching to renewable energy sources, which South Africa has great potential for. Despite this, and the current reality of the global climate crisis, South Africa continues to rely heavily on coal, not only as an energy source at home, but also as (...) a key part of the country’s export economy. This paper utilises a corpus-assisted, ecolinguistically-informed critical discourse analysis framework to investigate the ways in which members of the South African national government construct the use of coal and other fossil fuels in light of a global climate crisis. The data for this paper consists of a variety of public-facing texts from the South African national government on the topic of climate change. Our analysis revealed that despite a stated commitment to prioritising renewable energy by the government, its implicit messaging normalises the continued use of fossil fuels and minimises their serious negative impacts. (shrink)

We know that law is a major enabler of the human activities that cause climate change, biodiversity destruction, and related ecosocial crises. We also turn to the law to regulate, mitigate, and attempt to transform these unsustainable human activities and systems. Yet, these regulatory regimes are often “recaptured” or “overridden” in turn by the very anthropogenic processes causing the crises. The resulting vicious cycles constitute the global trilemma of the twenty-first century that is rapidly rendering the living earth uninhabitable (...) for humans, in radically unequal ways, and for thousands of other species. Integral, non-violent, sustainable democratic constitutionalism is one modest, experimental, trial-and-error response to this trilemma. (shrink)

As Vuzamazulu Credo Mutwa, a South African sangoma, gave his message to the world, he urged human beings to awaken the mother mind within them. He pleaded with human beings to let go of the warrior mind and start thinking like mothers and grandmothers. This article aimed to elaborate on Credo’s short and mystical message. The article interprets the warrior mind to be the masculine mind, while the mother mind is perceived as representing the feminine mind. Ego works well with (...) the warrior or masculine mind, and is not so compatible with the feminine mind. The argument is that ego and the climate crisis are inextricably linked, and that diminishing the ego will leave the Earth and its inhabitants with a high chance of survival. Furthermore, it is illustrated how colonialism and institutions like religion exacerbate egoism in the world. The ego is defined, its growth origins traced, and its effects on the Earth highlighted. Finally, the article concludes by suggesting how to diminish ego and awaken the mother mind within every one of us. Secondary data analysis method is used throughout the article. Contribution: This article applies existing and timeless ideas to figure out solutions to the climate crisis. It also analyses gender issues through the lenses of analytical psychology. Different disciplines are applied to explore the concept of the ‘mother mind’. It is unique in that it places the burden on the individual, stressing that the solutions are found within an individual. (shrink)

The emerging global climate crisis threatens human health in unprecedented ways, yet global health concerns have not been sufficiently considered within international climate change efforts. A more collaborative pathway could advance efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change while protecting public health and social justice.

기후 위기는 사람들의 집단적인 행동이 모였을 때 사회나 자연에 해악을 끼치는 것이 분명한 집단적 해악 사례이다. 이것이 철학적으로 흥미 있는 문제인 것은 집단적으로는 해악이지만 그 해악을 막기 위해서 개인이 특정한 행동을 하거나 혹은 하지 않는다고 해도 바뀌는 것이 없는 것처럼 보이기 때문이다. 그런데도 개인이 집단적 해악을 막기 위해서 어떤 행동을 해야 하는 것이 또는 하지 말아야 하는 것이 의무일까? 집단적 해악 상황에서 개인의 행동이 차이를 만들지 않는다면 개인의 행동은 잘못이 아니라는 문제 제기를 ‘사소함의 문제’라고 부른다. 이 논문은 기후 위기에 한정해서 (...) 사소함의 문제를 검토하려고 한다. 먼저 2절에서는 사소함의 문제가 왜 주장되는지 구체적으로 들어보고, 그 문제를 이해할 때 주의할 점을 몇 가지 지적하겠다. 3절과 4절에서는 환경주의자들이 사소함의 문제를 비판하는 논증을 살펴보고 그것들이 모두 성공하지 못함을 주장하겠다. 3절은 개인의 행동이 기후 위기의 원인이 된다는 주장을, 4절은 설령 그 주장이 틀렸다고 하더라도 기후 위기를 막기 위한 행동을 하지 않는 개인의 행동은 잘못이라는 주장을 검토할 것이다. 나는 결론적으로 기후 위기는 정부가 법률을 제정하거나 정책을 시행해서 막을 수 있지, 개인의 행동을 요구해서 막을 수 있는 것은 아니라고 주장할 것이다. 결국 기후 위기의 심각성을 인식하고 정부 또는 국제 사회가 움직이도록 요구하면서, 다른 한편으로는 자가용을 몰고 냉방기나 일회용품을 사용한다고 해도 윤리적으로 모순된 행동이 아님을 보일 것이다. 그렇게 행동해도 윤리적 가책을 느낄 필요가 없다. (shrink)

The connections between structural violence and the climate crisis have received scant attention in the literature, despite their significant implications. Structural violence is deeply entrenched in our social, cultural, and economic systems, to the extent ordinary individuals, engaged in legal and routine activities, can become indirect participants in harming others. The climate crisis is not only an expression of structural violence but also deepens structural violence, creating a vicious cycle through multi-directional and self-reinforcing linkages. To address (...) violent outcomes and resolve the climate crisis, we need to shift power relations at the heart of our social and cultural arrangements. Taking a structural lens has the power to radically change how we tackle the problem of climate change. Rather than focusing solely on state-level goals and ambitions, this lens highlights the moral gravity of the climate crisis, pressing for urgent action to address the violence exerted among ourselves as human beings and to the environment on which we depend. (shrink)

I have recently published a book to which I gave the title: Is Bad Philosophy Responsible for the Climate Crisis? But this proved to be too inflammatory for Palgrave Macmillan, and they changed it to the anodyne The Philosophy of Inquiry and Global Problems: The Intellectual Revolution Needed to Create a Better World. In the book I argue that academic philosophy has a certain responsibility for the failure of humanity to put a stop to the climate and (...) nature crises, in failing even to notice that a bad philosophy of inquiry dominates academic inquiry – one that prevents universities from engaging actively with the public domain to ensure action is taken to prevent the climate and nature crises from developing, or intensifying. The Philosophy of Inquiry and Global Problems spells out what has gone wrong that has reduced academic philosophy to its present pitiful state, and what needs to be done to restore philosophy so that it becomes again a discipline with profoundly fruitful intellectual and humanitarian implications. This Opinion Piece is the Preface to the published book. (shrink)

An increasing number of academic papers, newspaper articles, and other media representations from all over the world recently bring climate change’s impact on mental health into focus. Commonly summarized under the terms of climate or ecological emotions, these reports talk about distress, anxiety, trauma, grief, or depression in relation to environmental decline and anticipated climate crisis. While the majority of psychology and mental health literature thus far presents preliminary conceptual analysis and calls for empirical research, some (...) explanations of ecological emotions are already offered. They mainly draw from psychoanalysis and depth existential and humanistic psychology, as well as social psychology and address the relationship between ecological emotions and individual engagement in climate action. While these studies suggest building on individual resilience if concerned by ecological emotions, we argue that this only addresses their acute symptoms and not the social causes. Based upon our literature research, we show that in an individualistic society such as the liberal ones, feelings of individual responsibility are fostered, and this also applies to climate activism. (shrink)

This paper sketches an emotion-aware model of environmental ethics education. The proposal draws on insights from feminists scholars, moral sentimentalism, as well as work in the pedagogy of discomfort traditions. It identifies and defends four core elements of climate change ethic, noting how they shed new light on the aims and challenges of environmental ethics education.

Truths, facts and opinions on the climate issue are often met with psychological or social defense, both publicly and privately. Based on selected psychological and philosophical theories as well as data material, this book shows how defense comes about, how it works, and how, on the other hand, the necessary recognition can succeed on various levels. It is only through recognition that constructive discourse becomes possible. This book offers all the basics to be able to theoretically and practically solve (...) communication conflicts between defense and recognition in the climate crisis. (shrink)

In 2019, in the Urgenda case, the Dutch Supreme Court ruled that the Dutch state had to increasingly reduce its carbon emissions to fulfill its human rights obligations under international law to its citizens. Many saw the ruling as a promising historical precedent for international climate change litigation. Notwithstanding the importance of demanding climate action by state actors, this chapter argues that the reframing of the climate crisis as an international human rights issue has at least (...) two important limitations. First, reference to anthropocentric human rights leads to the prioritizing of human over nonhuman life. Second, as posthuman and postcolonial theory shows, the anthropocentrism of human rights is conceptually and historically grounded on a hierarchical logic defining the ‘human’ in teleological terms, externalizing this human’s ‘Others’. The universal ‘human’ of human rights and the notion of a universal anthropos in ‘Anthropocene’ mask exclusions and related inequalities in power, responsibility and vulnerability characterizing the climate crisis. This chapter proposes that a critical analysis of the genealogy of international human rights shows that pursuing a human rights strategy in responding to climate change limits a more critical re-evaluation of what human threatened human and nonhuman life. (shrink)

Climate change is the greatest existential threat that human beings face in the 21st century, but unfortunately, we aren't doing very much about it. Graham Parkes' How to Think about the Climate Crisis: A Philosophical Guide to Saner Ways of Living offers a succinct summary of the causes of global heating--scientific, economic, and philosophical--along with practical solutions to help us avoid the first major tipping point, which is quickly approaching in 2030. Parkes draws from both ancient Greek (...) and traditional Chinese philosophy to develop an alternative worldview that can serve as a conceptual resource for reforming our laws, policies, and ways of life.Parkes' introduction provides... (shrink)

The world is in a state of crisis. Global problems that threaten our future include: the climate crisis; the destruction of natural habitats, catastrophic loss of wild life, and mass extinction of species; lethal modern war; the spread of modern armaments; the menace of nuclear weapons; pollution of earth, sea and air; rapid rise in the human population; increasing antibiotic resistance; the degradation of democratic politics, brought about in part by the internet. It is not just that (...) universities around the world have failed to help humanity solve these global problems; even worse, they have made the genesis of these problems possible. Modern science and technology, developed in universities, have made possible modern industry and agriculture, modern hygiene and medicine, modern power production and travel, modern armaments, which in turn make possible much that is good, all the great benefits of the modern world, but also all the global crises that now threaten our future. What has gone wrong? The fault lies with the whole conception of inquiry built into universities around the world. The basic idea is to help promote human welfare by, in the first instance, acquiring scientific knowledge and technological know-how. First, knowledge is to be acquired; once acquired, it can be applied to help solve social problems, and promote human welfare. But this basic idea is an intellectual disaster. Judged from the standpoint of promoting human welfare, it is profoundly and damagingly irrational, in a structural way. As a result of being restricted to the tasks of acquiring and applying knowledge, universities are prevented from doing what they most need to do to help humanity solve global problems, namely, engage actively with the public to promote action designed to solve global problems. We need urgently to bring about a revolution in universities around the world, wherever possible, so that their central task becomes to help humanity learn how to solve the climate crisis and other problems of living, local and global, so that we may make progress towards a good, civilized world. Almost every branch and aspect of the university needs to change. (shrink)

Editors’ Introduction: Radical Philosophy and Politics Amid the Climate Crisis and the Coronavirus Pandemic for Radical Philosophy Review.

Since our earliest hominid ancestors, humans have found nature beautiful, feeling a sense of the numinous in its presence. However, evolutionary biology has been unsuccessful in providing a satisfactory explanation for this phenomenon in terms of natural selection pressures. Firstly, the article takes a walk down anthropological memory lane, tracing the origins of why humans find nature beautiful, giving rise to religious and non-religious sensations. Secondly, the article explores why traditional natural selection mechanisms do not support a bio-aesthetic model that (...) attempts to reduce beauty to physiological utilitarian value. Thirdly, the article offers an alternative explanation relying on the ecotheology of Jonathan Edwards, framing the love of a communicative God who creates nature’s ‘secondary beauty’ to mirror God’s own ‘primary beauty’. As humans encounter beauty in nature, they are receiving the outpouring of grace to support human thriving by the divine action of the Holy Spirit. Finally, the article offers a Christological ecospirituality drawing on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, who loved nature and its innate wisdom. Through his spiritual practices of prayer and teaching, whether at the seaside, in gardens or on the mountainside, he offers a renewed human love affair with nature and a deep contemplation of its beauty that revives the soul. A recovered love of nature, and our birthright interconnection with all creatures, open a new conversation in the present climate catastrophe that holds hope for the flourishing of humans, all its creatures and our ecological home. Contribution: This article offers a hopeful conversation in the current climate catastrophe that implores humans to recover their ancient love of, and interdependence with, the beauty of the natural world. This is viewed as communication of God’s grace in a Christology of Nature towards the flourishing of humans, the earth and all its creatures. (shrink)

This paper provides an in-depth analysis of the impact of AI technologies on the climate crisis beyond their mere resource consumption. To critically examine this impact, I introduce the concept of AI futurism. With this term I capture the ideology behind AI, and argue that this ideology is inherently connected to the climate crisis. This is because AI futurism construes a socio-material environment overly fixated on AI and technological progress, to the extent that it loses sight (...) of the existential threats ahead. In that way, the perceived significance of the planetary reality is softened, and the unsustainable paths charted by the AI industry remain opaque. To make this argument the paper unfolds in two main sections. (1) It delves into the ideology of AI futurism and its discursive impact on the societal perception of the climate crisis. (2) It employs a materialist perspective to elucidate the tangible effects of the AI industry on the climate crisis, and to show what is going on behind the façade of AI futurism. Adding to a critical theory of AI and the climate crisis, this paper starts a realistic conversation about the challenges posed by the intersection of these transformations. (shrink)

Climate change is a complex and multifaceted issue that requires effective communication to foster public understanding and prompt action. The inherent intricacies of climate science, coupled with...

At the heart of the ongoing climate crisis is the impact of anthropogenic activity on the oceans and the seas of the planet. The complexity and the scale of planetary changes, though, often feel elusive, or even unintelligible. This article aims to discuss the need to address the particularities and agency of the ocean, specifically exploring the role of art in empowering people to realize their bonds to the planet’s oceans and seas. After discussing the problematics of the (...) long-established separation of land from sea, just like of culture from nature, the article presents theoretical positions that oppose these constructed binaries and approach oceans and seas as living bodies and at the same time as a medium. Four different artistic works are analysed with the goal to draw conclusions on how to live and be with the ocean, acknowledging its fluidity, diversity and complexity. (shrink)

The paper offers a normative analysis of the new Loss & Damage Fund supporting vulnerable countries grappling with climate change-related harms. This fund is primarily financed by affluent nations, often identified as historical polluters. However, the perspective of relational egalitarianism highlights persistent structural injustices in the background of the fund. Addressing them necessitates conceptualizing the fund not merely as an act of cooperative solidarity but as compensation for the consequences of historical and ongoing structural injustices. Properly conceived, the fund (...) manages adverse climate effects and simultaneously tackles their underlying root causes, including the unjust distribution of advantages and power. (shrink)

Although the harmful effects of climate change on human rights are well-recognized, the legal response to the climate crisis has been inadequate. This is particularly problematic as the crisis disproportionately affects vulnerable groups, which is exacerbated by a lack of effective remedies in contesting the adverse effects of climate change. The article argues that vulnerability theory offers a persuasive framing for rethinking what kind of remedies can be considered effective in the context of the (...) class='Hi'>climate crisis. A vulnerability theory approach shows how vulnerability increased by the climate crisis is universal but differentially distributed. Effective remedies are an essential part of responding to this vulnerability. The article suggests that characteristics of an effective remedy include the ability to contest breaches of positive obligations, speediness, the ability to contest future harms, the ability to contest breaches of extraterritorial obligations, bindingness, and equality of standing. (shrink)

Climate change is a product of the entire social and economic system within which we exist, in a word, capitalism.

This paper critically interrogates the anti-fat beliefs that are employed in environmental bioethics, particularly in response to climate change. Fat bodies have been associated with climate change because they are presumed to consume more resources and produce more greenhouse gas emissions. In this paper, we argue that such interpretations employ mistaken assumptions to justify placing disproportionate blame on already oppressed individuals, reinforcing weight stigma, which increases the vulnerability of fat people to a range of harms and disproportionately affects (...) communities of color. For these reasons, conceiving fat bodies as harmful to the environment is both misguided and unjust. (shrink)

A few decades ago, ecofeminist historical efforts provided decisive revelations and analyses of the historical entanglements and parallel oppressions of women and nature: a women/nature nexus. Ecofeminism are experiencing a resurgence, with fresh voices in new contexts, and addressing a wide range of concerns. It is encouraging that the relevance of the intersections of gender/nature and feminism and ecology is being reconsidered in new ways. This chapter addresses the topics of ecofeminism, climate change and related theological considerations. After an (...) introduction to ecofeminisms and their debates, the discussion moves to ecofeminism and climate justice, ecological rights, planetary frameworks and the need for inspiring visions, especially in a -COVID era. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.