Reason in a Dark Time_ Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed -- and What It Means for Our Future - Dale Jamieson (2014).epub

From the 1992 Rio Earth Summit to the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Conference there was a concerted international effort to stop climate change. Yet greenhouse gas emissions increased, atmospheric concentrations grew, and global warming became an observable fact of life.

In this book, philosopher Dale Jamieson explains what climate change is, why we have failed to stop it, and why it still matters what we do. Centered in philosophy, the volume also treats the scientific, historical, economic, and political dimensions of climate change. Our failure to prevent or even to respond significantly to climate change, Jamieson argues, reflects the impoverishment of our systems of practical reason, the paralysis of our politics, and the limits of our cognitive and affective capacities. The climate change that is underway is remaking the world in such a way that familiar comforts, places, and ways of life will disappear in years or decades rather than centuries.

Climate change also threatens our sense of meaning, since it is difficult to believe that our individual actions matter. The challenges that climate change presents go beyond the resources of common sense morality -- it can be hard to view such everyday acts as driving and flying as presenting moral problems. Yet there is much that we can do to slow climate change, to adapt to it and restore a sense of agency while living meaningful lives in a changing world.

From Booklist
If one listens to popularity-hungry politicians and optimistic environmentalists, there is still ample hope for humanity to halt global warming in its tracks. Yet a growing number of atmospheric scientists are saying it’s already too late and the real debate now is over how the earth’s denizens can adapt. Jamieson, an environmental studies and philosophy professor at New York University, falls squarely in the latter camp, pointing out that, despite a last-ditch, internationally attended Copenhagen Climate Conference in 2009, worldwide greenhouse-gas emissions have only increased. Since, in his view, catastrophic ecological damage is a foregone conclusion, Jamieson here narrows the issues down to moral and economic concerns. One of his key arguments involves getting us all to acknowledge both our personal responsibility in creating this global crisis and our collective ability to still make a difference. Although not intended as a rallying cry for arresting climate change, Jamieson’s work is nonetheless an invaluable contribution to the dialogue about how to minimize the inevitable social and environmental devastation that looms large in our future. --Carl Hays
Review

"An invaluable contribution to the dialogue about how to minimize the inevitable social and environmental devastation that looms large in our future."
-- Booklist


"This book is a must read by all who wish to bring reason to the challenges [of climate change] we are going to face very soon, whether we want to or not..." --Green Energy Times


"Jamieson provides a wide-ranging account, looking at the lack of political incentives to act and at the influence of organised climate denial...Jamieson concludes with some observations about things we can definitely do for the better right away (abandon coal), and with shrewd reflections on living with the knowledge that we flunked the climate test." --Times Higher Education


"Part requiem for our failed hopes and part vision for our uncertain future, this remarkably far-ranging work by the philosopher who has thought longest and hardest about climate change could inspire fruitfully radical reassessment of our attitudes toward the most far-reaching challenge of our lifetimes. The climate is changing -- can we?"
--Henry Shue, Centre for International Studies, University of Oxford


"A highly informative, wise, and thought-provoking discussion of some of the greatest problems that humanity faces, and of some possible solutions."
--Derek Parfit, All Souls College, Oxford


"Dale Jamieson is a philosopher and a realist. He was been working on climate change for a quarter of a century, alongside both scientists and policy makers. He argues that we are heading down a dangerous road and will likely have to face a much more difficult world. But he also argues that there is so much we can do individually and collectively to make a difference, and warns that the best must not be the enemy of the good. This is a very thoughtful and valuable book and should be read by all those who would wish to bring reason to a defining challenge of our century."
--Professor Lord Nicholas Stern