Graham Parkes

How to Think about the Climate Crisis (eBook, ePUB)

A Philosophical Guide to Saner Ways of Living

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

**Choice Outstanding Academic Title, 2021**

Coping with the climate crisis is the greatest challenge we face as a species. We know the main task is to reduce our emissions as rapidly as possible to minimise the harm to the world's population now and for generations to come. What on earth can philosophy offer us?

In this compelling account of a problem we think we know inside out, the philosopher Graham Parkes outlines the climatic predicament we are in and how we got here, and explains how we can think about it anew by considering the relevant history, science, economics, politics and, for the first time, the philosophies underpinning them. Introducing the reality of global warming and its increasingly dire consequences, he identifies the immediate obstructions to coping with the problem, outlines the libertarian ideology behind them and shows how they can be circumvented.

Drawing on the wisdom of the ancients in both the East-Asian and Western traditions (as embodied in such figures as Confucius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Dogen, Plato, Epicurus, Marcus Aurelius and Nietzsche), Parkes shows how a greater awareness of non-Western philosophies, and especially the Confucian political philosophy advocated by China, can help us deal effectively with climate change and thrive in a greener future. If some dominant Western philosophical ideas and their instantiation in politics and modern technology got us into our current crisis, Parkes demonstrates persuasively that expanding our philosophical horizons will surely help get us out.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Bloomsbury UK eBooks
• Seitenzahl: 288
• Erscheinungstermin: 26. November 2020
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781350158894
• Artikelnr.: 60348187

Autorenporträt

Graham Parkes is Professor Emeritus at the University of Hawai'i and Professorial Research Fellow in Philosophy at the University of Vienna, Austria. He has been teaching environmental philosophy and Asian and comparative thought for forty-five years, beginning at UC Santa Cruz, and later at universities in China, Japan, and Europe.

Inhaltsangabe

Preface Acknowledgements Introductions (Background and Book) Part One
Reality & Alternatives 1. The Reality of Global Heating 2. Specious
Promethean Solutions Part Two Covert Operations, Outrageous Obstructions
3. The Rise of the Libertarians 4. The Financial Clout of Fossil Fuels 5.
The Political Power of the Religious Right Part Three Finer Philosophies &
Fairer Politics 6. Libertarian Limitations, Religion's Contributions 7.
Political Philosophies, Greek and Chinese Part Four Lower Consumption,
Higher Fulfilment 8. Sage Advice from the Ancients 9. A Good Life with
Congenial Things Inconclusions (What and How?) Notes Select Bibliography
Suggestions for Further Reading Index