James VI and I united the crowns of England and Scotland. His books are fundamental sources of the principles which underlay the union. In particular, his Basilikon Doron was a best-seller in England and circulated widely on the Continent. Among the most important and influential British writings of their period, the king's works shed light on the political climate of Shakespeare's England and the intellectual background to the civil wars which afflicted Britain in the mid-seventeenth century. James' political philosophy (...) was a moderated absolutism, with an emphasis on the monarch's duty to rule according to law and the public good. Locke quoted his speech to parliament of 1610 approvingly, and Hobbes likewise praised 'our most wise king'. This edition is the first to draw on all the early texts of James' books, with an introduction setting them in their historical context. (shrink)

The paper’s aim is to retrace the history of climate change through its definition and the process of negotiation aroused from the creation of the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC). After a brief description of this institution, the basic principles beneath the whole system of environment protection and the struggle against climate change will be presented. The intention is to demonstrate how, despite the undeniable advancements of the latest decades, the international legislative framework, even (...) supported by the action and intervention of the European Union, is still not sufficient and leads to a diffused and latent disillusion among civil society. (shrink)

Despite recognizing many adverse impacts, the climate science literature has had little to say about the conditions under which climate change might threaten civilization. Discussions of the mechanisms whereby climate change might cause the collapse of current civilizations has mostly been the province of journalists, philosophers, and novelists. We propose that this situation should change. In this opinion piece, we call for treating the mechanisms and uncertainties associated with climate collapse as a critically important topic for (...) scientific inquiry. Doing so requires clarifying what "civilization collapse" means and explaining how it connects to topics addressed by climate scientists. [Open access] -/- . (shrink)

Many sociologists have drawn attention to the puzzling absence of a detailed discussion of religion in Elias’s investigation of the European civilizing process. Elias did not develop a sociology of religion, but he did not overlook the importance of beliefs in the ‘spirit world’ in the history of human societies. In his writings such convictions were described as fantasy images that could be contrasted with ‘reality-congruent’ knowledge claims. Elias placed fantasy–reality balances, whether religious or secular, at the centre of the (...) analysis of how societies have dealt with collective fears that arise in response to largely uncontrolled conditions. He located religious orientations within a broader framework of analysis regarding fantasy–reality balances in the first human groups and in current state-organized societies. Elias stressed how balances changed in ‘civilized’ societies with the rise of the natural sciences. But his writings emphasized the continuing influence of fantasy images in technologically sophisticated societies, particularly in the context of national and international power struggles. His analysis of how fantasy images acquired considerable influence under conditions of fear is important for studies of social responses to global challenges including climate change. Connections with Weber’s sociology of religion point the way to theoretically informed empirical research on balances between fantasy and reality-congruence in a tumultuous and unpredictable era. (shrink)

Activities protesting against major polluters who cause climate change may cause damage to private property in the process. This paper investigates the case for a more international general basis of moral justification for such protests. Specific reference is made to the Kingsnorth case, which involved a protest by Greenpeace against coal-powered electricity generation in the UK. An appeal is made to Rawlsian fairness arguments, traditionally employed to support the obligation of citizens to their national governments as opposed to their (...) international duties. The argument made here, however, is that there seem to be sufficient reasons for holding that a stable climate is one of the first truly global public goods that is indispensable to acceptable standards of living everywhere. This would suffice to justify international and intergenerational 'atmospheric' political obligations, which in turn may justify protests - even those causing some damage to private property - against the laws and policies that violate the fair terms of cooperation in providing a stable climate. The fairness argument aims also to provide a ground from which Green political theory could integrate accounts of radical forms of citizenship into appeals to state political authority. This leads to justifying acts of civil disobedience on the basis of novel understandings of 'atmospheric' citizenship obligations. (shrink)

James Hansen, the world’s leading climate scientist, argues that global climate destabilization could totally destroy the conditions for life on Earth, and further, that politicians are not taking effective action. Instead, they are using their power to cripple science. This situation is explained in this paper as the outcome of the successful alliance between a global class of predators and people who must be recognized as idiots taking over the institutions of government, research and education and transforming governments (...) into governments of occupation. The predators are either indifferent to the suffering they will cause, or have an agenda to use the effects of global warming to cull the world’s human population. In either case, their views are legitimated by social Darwinism. By revealing their true nature, this alliance has exposed a rift in the civilization of modernity, revealing the suppressed tradition and trajectory of the Radical Enlightenment. With its roots in the Renaissance, the Radical Enlightenment is opposed to reductionist materialism and committed to truth, liberty, justice and democracy. To revive the grand narrative of the Radical Enlightenment it will be necessary to reemplot this grand narrative as a project for creating an Ecological Civilization. This will be a civilization based on process metaphysics and a fusion of science and the humanities in human ecology. The goal projected by this narrative should be to save life on Earth from this alliance of predators and idiots. (shrink)

Some people have engaged in acts of civil disobedience to protest against the climate policies of their governments and corporations. This article argues that these disobedient actions are justified at present since governments fail to do all they reasonably can to respond to this pressing issue.

Creativity and civil courage are major dimensions of an intellectual's authority and contribute towards the enrichment of democracy. This book develops a sociological account of civil courage and creative behaviour in order to enhance our understanding of the nature of intellectuals' involvement in society. Barbara A. Misztal employs both theoretical-analytic and empirical components to develop a typology of intellectuals who have shown civil courage and examines the biographies of twelve Nobel Peace Prize laureates, including Elie Wiesel, Andrei Sakharov and Linus (...) C. Pauling, to illustrate acts of courage which have embodied the values of civil society. She advances our understanding of the nature of intellectuals' public involvement and their contribution to social well-being. In the current climate of fear and insecurity, as governments are forced to deal with issues of increasing complexity, this is a pioneering sociological book with a highly original approach. (shrink)

The materialistic philosophy which sees 'man' as pitted against his environment is rapidly breaking down as technological man becomes more and more able to oppose the largest systems. Every battle that he wins brings a threat of disaster. The unit of survival—either in ethics or in evolution—is not the organism or the species but the largest system or 'power' within which the creature lives. If the creature destroys its environment, it destroys itself.Man needs the earth in order to walk, the (...) sea to swim or sail, the air to fly. Of necessity he acts within the world and in order to be, he must in some measure adapt himself as one part of nature to other parts.In this paper, I argue that global climate change and... (shrink)

The environmental crisis is the collision of civilization with biospherical limits. Its sign is climate change, which is brought about by a cultural maladaptation, and which threatens to lead to scarcity, displacement, and violence. The solution will have to be a global transformation—a civil evolution—to a postcarbon and sustainable world order. China and Germany, I argue, are well positioned to achieve this new adaptation to living within limits, whereas the United States may have difficulties to respond adequately to the (...) new realities. Here I explore cultural and historical reasons for this Sino‐German convergence. (shrink)

The environmental crisis is the collision of civilization with biospherical limits. Its sign is climate change, which is brought about by a cultural maladaptation, and which threatens to lead to scarcity, displacement, and violence. The solution will have to be a global transformation—a civil evolution—to a postcarbon and sustainable world order. China and Germany, I argue, are well positioned to achieve this new adaptation to living within limits, whereas the United States may have difficulties to respond adequately to the (...) new realities. Here I explore cultural and historical reasons for this Sino-German convergence. (shrink)

Writing in 1978, on the eve of Thatcherism’s political triumph, the cultural theorist Stuart Hall (Hall et al., 2013, p. 193) claimed Britain was experiencing a ‘crisis of hegemony’; a political, e...

La 4e de couverture indique : "Dans cet ouvrage de référence consacré à une analyse approfondie du thème du consentement aux soins dans la pratique médicale, M.-F. Civil porte son regard de médecin et de philosophe sur les comportements de bon nombre de praticiens à l'heure actuelle plus ou moins soumis à la « mathématisation » de la médecine. Loin de se contenter d'un état des lieux complet de la question, il nous conduit pas à pas sur les chemins d'une (...) « éthique existentielle » tout à fait singulière, renvoyant à des situations pratiques de soins où délibérer avant d'agir et réfléchir à l'action déjà prise permet aux patients d'exprimer le sens donné à leur vécu dans le cadre de leur projet de vie immédiate ou future. Son approche très phénoménologique, aux côtés notamment de Heidegger et Husserl, ouvre la porte à un vaste chantier de réflexion pour tous ceux qui envisagent de se pencher sur la manière concrète d'être-au-monde en médecine comme souci pour soi et pour les autres. Ainsi ce livre interpelle les étudiants, les chercheurs, les professionnels de santé, mais également tous ceux qui ont été, ou seront, tôt ou tard, confrontés au problème du consentement.". (shrink)

How climate models came to gain and exercise epistemic authority has been a key concern of recent climate change historiography. Using newly released archival materials and recently conducted interviews with key actors, we reconstruct negotiations between UK climate scientists and policymakers which led to the opening of the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in 1990. We historicize earlier arguments about the unique institutional culture of the Hadley Centre, and link this culture to broader characteristics (...) of UK regulatory practice and environmental politics. A product of a particular time and place, the Hadley Centre was shaped not just by scientific ambition, but by a Conservative governmental preference for ‘sound science’ and high evidential standards in environmental policymaking. Civil servants sought a prediction programme which would appeal to such sensibilities, with transient and regional climate simulation techniques seemingly offering both scientific prestige and persuasive power. Beyond the national level, we also offer new insights into the early role of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and an evolving international political context in the shaping of scientific practices and institutions. (shrink)

The devastation arising from multiple factors originating in the Earth System has reached an unprecedented level in the last decades. So much so, that global, industrial civilization can be declared the cause of the shift of climatic and geological history, on Earth, in the age of Anthropocene. Industrial civilization is therefore threatened by consequences arising from its conditions. If civilization is to endure during the climate regime of Anthropocene it will need to transform into a form that allows it (...) to coexist harmoniously within the Earth System. The concept of ecological civilization tries to formulate the principles and imperatives of this transformation. Although it originated in the USA, only in China has it, so far, become part of the public, constitutional and political discourse. This chapter focuses on the philosophical roots of its Chinese version. It illuminates the different meanings associated with the concepts of culture and civilization in Western and Chinese thinking. Although the Chinese version of the concept of ecological civilization follows several Western concepts, it emphasizes traditional Chinese patterns of thought and ways of interpreting the world, especially Daoism. Contrary to the original version of Daoism’s emphasis on the principle of ecological democracy, the Chinese version exhibits authoritarian tendencies and this is reflected in Chinese environmental policies. Finally, the chapter focuses on risks, and inconsistencies, within the concept and with other Chinese policies and suggests ways in which China repeats approaches identifiable as European and North American green policies, not only, in industrialization but, also, in pursuit of green transformation. (shrink)

Many fear that climate change will lead to the collapse of civilization. I argue both that this is unlikely and that the fear is potentially harmful. Using examples from recent disasters I argue that climate change is more likely to intensify the existing social order—a truly terrifying prospect. The fear of civilizational collapse is part of the climate crisis; it makes us fear change and prevents us from imagining different social relations which is necessary if we are (...) to survive the coming disasters and prevent further escalation. Using affect theory, I claim that our visions of the future affect our ability to act in the present. Rather than imagining a terrifying societal breakdown, we can look at how communities have survived recent disasters to get an image of what we need to expand upon to prepare for the future. (shrink)

History reveals how civilisations can be decimated by changes in climate. More recently modern methods of warfare have exposed the vulnerability of the artefacts of civilisation. Bringing together a range of subjects - from science, energy and sustainability to aesthetics theory and civilization theory - this book uniquely deals with climate change and the ensuing catastrophes in relation to cultural factors, urbanism and architecture. It links the evolution of civilisation, with special emphasis on the dynamics of beauty as (...) displayed in architecture and urbanism, to climate change. It then considers both the historic and predicted impacts of climate change and the threat it poses to the continued viability of human civilisation when survival is the top priority. This book gives students, researchers and professionals in architecture and sustainable design as well as anyone interested in the threat of global warming to civilisation, new insights as to what could be lost if action is not taken at a global level. (shrink)

In this paper, we offer a childist reading of school strikes for climate in an overheated world. We argue that school strikes can be understood as offering a dynamic counterweight to formal education, by providing opportunities for children to self-educate, and for others, especially adults, to learn from them. We suggest that taking school strikes seriously as sites of political appearance—which highlight interdependencies and vulnerabilities in the face of crises in Anthropocene neoliberalism requires rethinking the boundaries of democratic participation (...) and education. In particular, we highlight that school strikes for climate serve as an invitation for adults to let children contribute to their own ongoing formation. A childist philosophical attitude that emphasises mutual teaching—i.e. the adult capacity to see and hear what children show and say—can expand through an engagement with, rather than against school strikes. Children’s political appearance on streets to influence political priorities from an intergenerational global justice point of view is a gift for adults and adultist structures. It is a passage to grasp deep interdependence and to assume appropriate responsibility. If ‘education’ is a beacon of hope in times of overheated despair, then the hope is in educational philosophies that have room for mutual teaching. The philosophical assumption that it is adults who must always, and necessarily, teach children to prepare them for a better future would have to be discarded. (shrink)

In The Revenge of Gaia, James Lovelock provides a memorable description of what the future might hold for us in a world severely blighted by climate change. In this scenario the human population has been pushed to the high Northern latitudes: Meanwhile in the hot arid world survivors gather for the journey to the new Arctic centres of civilization; I see them in the desert as the dawn breaks and the sun throws its piercing gaze across the horizon at (...) the camp. The cool fresh night air lingers for a while and then, like smoke, dissipates as the heat takes charge. Their camel wakes, blinks and slowly rises on her haunches. The few remaining members of the tribe mount. She belches, and sets off on the long .. (shrink)

Many fear that climate change will lead to the collapse of civilization. I argue both that this is unlikely and that the fear is potentially harmful. Using examples from recent disasters I argue that climate change is more likely to intensify the existing social order—a truly terrifying prospect. The fear of civilizational collapse is part of the climate crisis; it makes us fear change and prevents us from imagining different social relations which is necessary if we are (...) to survive the coming disasters and prevent further escalation. Using affect theory, I claim that our visions of the future affect our ability to act in the present. Rather than imagining a terrifying societal breakdown, we can look at how communities have survived recent disasters to get an image of what we need to expand upon to prepare for the future. (shrink)

Les analyses fondées sur l'environnement, qui font du terrain ou de la température des facteurs explicatifs de la diversité humaine, dominent les discours anthropologiques de l'Ancien Régime. Richard Spavin montre que ces théories climatiques révèlent des démarches contestataires à lire à côté des théories de la souveraineté, du constitutionnalisme et du républicanisme. Richard Spavin fonde son analyse sur trois auteurs qui ont une vision relativiste du déterminisme climatique. Si, pour Bodin, Montesquieu et Rousseau, les théories des climats expliquent les causes (...) géographiques derrière la diversité des sociétés, elles recèlent également une dimension métaphorique. Pour eux, les climats mettent en récit des visions du pouvoir: les limites du politique sont comparées aux obstacles géographiques; la finalité politique ne se trouve plus dans le corps du monarque mais dans le sol, auquel le monarque et son peuple appartiennent ensemble. L'auteur invite notamment à relire à nouveaux frais les dérangeants livres de L'Esprit des lois qui semblent justifier l'esclavage dans certaines régions éloignées du contexte européen. Les théories des climats révèlent ainsi une face cachée de la philosophie politique de l'Ancien Régime. Richard Spavin en réévalue le socle philosophique et en dévoile l'ironie qui demeurait jusque-là inaperçue. Il montre que les climats sont un outil rhétorique efficace pour penser le nouvel ordre moral de la modernité. (shrink)

Climate activists have recently engaged in widely publicized acts of politically motivated lawbreaking. This article identifies and critically analyzes two seemingly overlapping but in fact divergi...

It is commonplace today to hear climate change identified as the single most important challenge facing humanity. Consider the headlines from COP24, the United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Poland in December 2018. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres opened the proceedings by calling climate change “the most important issue we face” (PBS 2018). The Secretary-General’s remarks paraphrase the opening line of the U.N.’s climate change web page, which announces that “[c]limate Change is the defining issue of (...) our time and we are at a defining moment” (United Nations n.d.). Such statements about the singular significance of climate change—the most important, the defining issue—are often followed by proclamations about what hangs in the balance, and this was the case at COP24. There, the celebrated British naturalist Sir David Attenborough warned that “collapse of our civilizations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizons,” amounting to, in his words, “disaster of global scale, our greatest threat in thousands of years” (PBS 2018). (shrink)

An increasing number of environmentally knowledgeable observers and activists comprehend the situation faced by the emerging global civilization and its unsustainable systems, characterized by planet‐altering positive feedback loops arising from human activity. They perceive contemporary natural and cultural developments as the prelude to the imminent collapse of technological civilization and the cataclysmic end of the Anthropocene epoch via a forced passage through the population bottleneck of the impending extinction‐level event which only a remnant of the present biosphere is likely to (...) survive. Should this understanding be accurate, our own time could become the occasion for the greatest choice ever made on Earth: whether to continue things as they are until humanity becomes the chief cause and the chief victim of the now‐unfolding mass extinction; or to make the necessary transition to the awakening of Planet Earth. (shrink)

An increasing number of environmentally knowledgeable observers and activists comprehend the situation faced by the emerging global civilization and its unsustainable systems, characterized by planet‐altering positive feedback loops arising from human activity. They perceive contemporary natural and cultural developments as the prelude to the imminent collapse of technological civilization and the cataclysmic end of the Anthropocene epoch via a forced passage through the population bottleneck of the impending extinction‐level event which only a remnant of the present biosphere is likely to (...) survive. Should this understanding be accurate, our own time could become the occasion for the greatest choice ever made on Earth: whether to continue things as they are until humanity becomes the chief cause and the chief victim of the now‐unfolding mass extinction; or to make the necessary transition to the awakening of Planet Earth. (shrink)

From around the world, cities and regions, civil society networks and businesses, nongovernmental organizations and institutions for research and learning, and many others, are taking action on climate change. The role of these nonstate and substate actors is increasingly being recognized in the new facilitative climate regime. Political theory to date has been surprisingly silent about the scale and prospects of these actions for low-carbon, climate-resilient, and sustainable transformations. Idil Boran argues provocatively for the need for a (...) widened scope of vision, one that has a broader public life of climate action at its centre. While acknowledging the role of the state and the multilateral process, Boran maintains that social transformation is as deeply and more continuously influenced by the engagement of a wide range of actors below and above the state, whose actions are often locally anchored and inescapably interwoven across borders. Bringing concepts of the public sphere from political theory into contact with leading scholarship on transnational climate governance, Political Theory and Global Climate Action launches an exploration sensitive to changing patterns of practice, focused on diversity of actors, driven to explore historically contingent conditions of possibility, and responsive to questions of equity and justice in the context of transformations. The result is a repositioning of political thought on climate change, engaging political philosophers, scholars of politics and governance, and drivers of climate action worldwide at nonstate and substate levels interested in the social and political meaning of their engagement. (shrink)

Reference to responsibility is prominent in discussions of climate change of every kind. Certain dimensions of the issue call it forth. These include, above all, the planetary scale of the problem and the corresponding sense of endangerment, along with lack of clarity on what exactly needs to be done and who should do it. The question of planetary responsibility has been around for some time. The limits to growth debate of more than 40 years ago already indicated concern about (...) the ecological limits of industrial civilization (Meadows et al., 1972; Meadows et al., 2004). In this light, the article reviews and takes inspiration from key philosophical conceptualizations of global ecological responsibility before it goes on to add a necessary sociological approach that reveals the democratic, communicative mechanisms that might make it realizable. (shrink)

Confucius is conventionally regarded as the founder of secular humanism and as a philosopher concerned about humans and culture. I would add to this that Confucius should also be read as an environmental philosopher. One reason is the pedagogical dimension in Confucianism, which points to Confucius as an environmental educator ? not the least of which since much of environmental education relies on common sense and an enlightened collective self-interest. Another reason is an aspect I call ?ecological intelligence?, which is (...) a key feature of ancient Confucianism and a signpost for the civil evolution that the mitigation of climate change demands from global civilization today. (shrink)

Globalization -- Globalization and the environment -- Climate change and the crisis of philosophy -- Social conscience and global market -- Categories, environmental indicators, and the enlightenment market -- Environmentalism -- Pessimistic realism and optimistic total management -- Population statistics and modern governmentality -- Pragmatism -- Technological enframing -- Heidegger, the origin and the finitude of civilization -- Technology and the kultur of late modernity -- Embodied subjectivity and the critique of modernity.

Science took a wrong turn with the birth of its daughter, the technology, with whose guidance the civilization ushered in the Industrial Age in mid-18th century. From here a drama of science’s increasing dominance over civilization began. The science–civilization marriage has been quite inconvenient. However, the civilization, at this juncture, cannot divorce science. Its dependence on science and technology has increased to an extent that without it the world will come almost to standstill. Science and technology have not only changed (...) social, cultural and economic values but have also posed a challenge to the very sustainability of life. From the plunder of nature to the disruption of climate system of the planet, science could be held responsible for its lifeannihilating role. Science and technology have compelled us to transform our biosphere into a technosphere; and technosphere is not a safe place for the civilization to prosper and evolve to attain its climax. A civilization in its natural way always evolves through evolving happiness. Happiness, in fact, is the gist of civilization. Institutes, creativity, spirituality, democracy, freedom, knowledge and beauty are the major attributes of the civilization to create conditions for happiness. Happiness must flow from our thinking, every policy, every program, every project and every philosophy. As our economic development models based on the over-exploitation of nature and the capitalistic ideology are happiness-devouring, our contemporary civilization cannot bloom with happiness in such an environment. The small Himalayan nation Bhutan has shown the world how to gauze national progress through Gross National Happiness, rather than through conventional Gross National Product or Gross Domestic Product. The Skolimowskian philosophy, a new philosophy sprouting out like a beautiful lotus amidst the mud of analytical philosophy, envisions a civilization in the Third Millennium empowered enough by the values to reconstruct a new world, search new horizons of happiness and sustainability and design a new cosmology that could lead us to fertilize the universe. (shrink)

Offers readers an alternative way of conceptualising humanism in relation to global change, one that draws in particular from black studies as opposed to one located in the ontological fold of European humanism.

Technologies for mitigating and adapting to climate change are inherently political. Their development, diffusion and deployment will have uneven impacts within and across national borders. Bringing the governance of climate technologies under democratic control is imperative but impeded by the global scale of governance and its polycentric nature. This article draws on innovative theorising in the deliberative democracy tradition to map possibilities for global democratic governance of climate technologies. It is argued that this domain is not beyond (...) the reach of democracy. Civil society has a unique and expanded role to play in generating democratic legitimacy by fostering public deliberation; translating and transmitting concepts, ideas and messages; and promoting and facilitating deliberative accountability. (shrink)

Abstract:Since 31 October 2018, Extinction Rebellion has advocated in numerous examples of civil disobedience across the UK in an attempt to call for further action to address climate change. Following this example, similar activism has also been seen across Europe and North America. Such activism falls within the context of climate justice (the framing of climate change as an ethical and political issue); given the disproportionate impacts that climate change has on the most vulnerable people in (...) society, e.g., low-income communities, women, and future generations. What is noticeable about Extinction Rebellion is its ability to place climate change on the social agenda, a task that has proven difficult in the age of denialism, skepticism, false-balance media reporting, and far-right politics. With reference to recent examples of civil disobedience and protests in 2019, this paper evaluates how climate justice movements, specifically Extinction Rebellion, change meanings of urban landscapes into becoming more contested places and disrupt the consciousness of everyday routines toward sustainability. This disruption and contested nature is brought about through changing the sociocultural dynamics of urban landscapes during, and after, such protests. The meanings of urban landscapes thus change from being viewed as purely sites of materialist consumption to sites of initial resistance against business-as-usual approaches to climate change leading to changes in policy. Through substantial public engagement with the narrative of climate justice, civil disobedience protests, and urban art, it is clear that urban areas “held” for a number of successive days have started to be perceived differently. This article concludes with implications for subsequent spatial disruption and civil disobedience advocating for stronger climate policy. (shrink)

Whereas mainstream theories of environmental art and sustainable development consider art as a domain suitable for the application of environmentally friendly procedures, such as the circular economy, trash management and digitization, this research article focuses on the internal development of the autopoetic and self-referential art machine, which generates an art-specific sustainability. The circular environmental economy coexists with the circular art economy, which implies changes in the aesthetics and poetics of the artwork; it deploys upcycling to use art trash in creating (...) a new, higher value object. Art-specific sustainability contributes to the power and complexity of the art machine with new conceptual interventions and devices. These devices allow art to resist threats from other fields and to redefine itself. As sustainable development agendas of international organizations take into account the social, political, and economic initiatives that promote ethics, inclusion, and tolerance, this article discusses the contributions of contemporary environmental art to expanded concepts of the political and science. In particular, art activism, in cooperation with civil society, can be an important driver in areas that parliamentary politics overlooks. (shrink)

Deep Ecology, the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (VHEMT), and Anti-Civilization Primitivism have frequently been labeled as radical environmental ideologies, owing to their relationship with activities conducted by environmental extremists. Nonetheless, given the serious concerns faced by climate change and biodiversity loss, it is critical to engage with a broad range of perspectives and techniques. Such participation allows us to have access to a greater range of perspectives and a more diverse pool of knowledge, boosting our capacity for creative problem-solving. (...) The purpose of this essay is to reconsider the underlying concepts and principles that drive these theories, as well as to assess their relevance in tackling modern environmental issues. We think that Deep Ecology, the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (VHEMT), and Anti-Civilization Primitivism should be called "unconventional" or "distinctive" rather than "radical," because they primarily focus on the ontological perspective but do not urge extreme acts. Meanwhile, their distinctiveness helps increase public awareness about environmental issues and promote reflection on and rethinking of the ontological link between mankind and the natural world. (shrink)

This chapter examines the rapidly developing global institutional frameworks for corporate sustainability occurring in response to imminent climate change. Corporations need to engage fully and responsibly in the urgent tasks of adaptation and amelioration required to remedy the damage caused by their earlier externalization of the costs of emissions and other pollution and reach for the objective of eliminating future carbon emissions. Guiding and facilitating this immense paradigm shift in corporate sustainability is a vast framework of international and civil (...) institutions focusing on different elements of the transformation process. The resulting widening scope of corporate directors’ duties in this more dangerous context is considered. Finally, the remarkable burgeoning of international institutions and agencies advising and monitoring corporations on climate change, carbon disclosure, responsible investment, and integrated reporting are examined. Collectively, this huge and multifaceted effort by both business and civil society, by all the agencies and initiatives discussed, represents a great advance in the campaign for corporate environmental, social, and governance responsibility. The ideals manifested are often exemplary, and whatever weaknesses and limitations revealed in the complex challenges these initiatives face, in aggregate, the initiatives do represent a significant institutional development in the cause of corporate responsibility. (shrink)

Despite recognition of the gender dimensions of climate change, there is little attention to racism in climate justice perspectives. In response, this article advocates developing an ecologically informed intersectional approach designed to disclose the ways racism contributes to the construction of illegible lives in the domain of climate policies and practices. Differential impacts of climate change, while an important dimension, is ultimately inadequate to understanding and responding to both climate justice and environmental racism. What is (...) required is a rich understanding of the histories and lineages of the deep incorporation of racism and environmental exploitation. To catalyze such an approach to climate justice, this article develops an analysis of three instances of the intermingling of racism and environmental exploitation: climate adaptation practices in Lagos, Nigeria; the enmeshment of race and coal mining in the post–Civil War United States; and the infusing of precarity and rainforest destruction in Brazil. (shrink)

Who is Daisaku Ikeda? At one level, he is the leader of a religious movement--Soka Gakkai--which began in Japan, where it still has its headquarters, but which now claims 12 million adherents around the world. At another level, he is a globetrotting figure whose formal conversations with diverse writers, thinkers and diplomats--including Arnold Toynbee, Joseph Rotblat and Mikhail Gorbachev--have garnered him an international profile, as well as academic recognition. Perhaps above all else, Daisaku Ikeda is viewed as a campaigner for (...) peace. And it is Ikeda's specific contribution to peacebuilding, notably through the central emphasis he has placed on the significance of dialogue, that this book explores: the first to do so in a concerted way. Olivier Urbain shows that while Soka Gakkai (the "value society") may stem from the medieval principles of Nichiren Buddhism, under Ikeda's leadership it has taken these classic wisdoms and transformed them. Now essentially classless and secularised, as well as adaptable and sensitive to modern challenges like resource shortages and climate change, this, argues the author, is a pragmatic approach to peace which has proved both popular and eminently transportable. (shrink)

In this creative exploration of climate change and the big questions confronting our high-energy civilization, Adam Briggle connects the history of philosophy with current events to shed light on the Anthropocene. Briggle offers a framework to help us understand the many perspectives and policies on climate change. He does so through the idea that energy is a paradox: changing sameness. From this perennial philosophical mystery, he argues that a high-energy civilization is bound to create more and more paradoxes. (...) These paradoxes run like fissures through our orthodox picture of energy as the capacity to do work and control fate. Climate change is the accumulation of these fissures and the question is whether we can sustain technoscientific control and economic growth. It may be that our world is about change radically, imploring us to start thinking heterodox thoughts. (shrink)

Rarely in the short history of liberal-democratic government has a primer on basic liberal-democratic values and institutions been more needed than now. Popular discontent, even anger, with democratic governments has grown steadily over the past twenty years. And not since the 1930s have citizens and their elected officials been so baffled about their respective roles in the maintenance of both democratic governments and liberal economies. This book attempts to address this growing need. Especially written as a primer for courses in (...) Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE), it has introductory chapters on all three main disciplines. It also has chapters on the rule of law and on three important public-policy areas: Corruption, Climate, and Civil Society. Individual topics discussed include free and fair elections, populism, responsible government, republican and Westminster systems of government, regulated free markets, the Great Recession of 2008, globalization, greenwashing, identity politics, academic freedom, utilitarianism, social contract theory, positive and negative liberty, and the good life. Historically informed, The Ethics and Economics of Liberal Democracies: Foundations for PPE is sure to be of interest to students who are interested in public-policy work, as well as those who are interested in both the theory and practice of democratic government. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss three objections against climate activism often voiced in the public, namely that their practices of civil disobedience are ultimately insincere, illegal, and ineffective. The main part of my paper focuses on this last point. This is because this objection points us to a deeper conceptual problem of political protest: if one of the conditions for the success of civil disobedience is that political demands must have been first voiced via democratic channels of opinion-formation, then (...) why should we assume that a re-articulation of these demands in the course of civil disobedience leads to a different result? To answer this question, I propose a phenomenological approach to civil disobedience. Drawing on the protest practices of activist group Act Up, I argue that climate activism can escape the charge of ineffectiveness if it resorts to what I call the “aesthetic rationality of phenomenological demonstration.”. (shrink)

Although intellectuals have been a part of the cultural landscape, it is in post-conflict societies, such as those found in Kosovo and Bosnia, that there has arisen a need for an intellectual who is more than simply a social critic, an educator, a man of action, and a compassionate individual. Enter the hyperintellectual. As this essay will make clear, it is the hyperintellectual, who through a reciprocating critique and defense of both the nationalist enterprise and strong interventionism of the International (...) Community, as well as being a man of action and compassionate and empathic insider, strives to create a climate of understanding and to enlarge the moral space so as to reduce the divisiveness between opposing parties. In this way the hyperintellectual becomes a catalyst for the creation of a democratic culture within the civil societies of Kosovo and Bosnia. (shrink)

This paper analyses the attitude of the contemporary philosophy to the problems associated with increasingly radical diagnoses concerning anthropogenic climate changes that may lead the human civilization on Earth to a global catastrophe. One can identify three approaches to this issue in contemporary philosophy: involvement in the breakthrough taking place; evaluation of the change process from an axiological perspective or ignoring the evolving phenomena on the grounds that it is not possible to define them meaningfully from the perspective of (...) theoretical orientations that currently dominate the contemporary philosophy. (shrink)