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Image: NASA Space Observatory

Reading List August 18, 2019

Highway to Hell

A reading list for our time of climate crisis.

July was officially the hottest month on Earth since records began. So, it’s no surprise that scientists are arguing that we have slipped out of the Holocene—the epoch that encompasses the last ten thousand years—and entered a new era: the Anthropocene, where humanity is the main force shaping the planet and nature can no longer be regarded as “natural.”

Today’s reading list wades deep into debates about how we should respond to such a time, asking questions like: Would  climate engineering actually work? What would a green economy look like? Are divestment campaigns worth the effort? And how can we reconcile the emissions that coal produces with its promise of cheap and abundant energy for development?

But first, a trio of essays interrogate the very idea of the Anthropocene itself—including a brand new piece from Geoff Mann, co-author of Climate Leviathan. In “It Was Not Supposed to End This Way,” Mann reveals how the relationship between liberalism and the Anthropocene is one of dialectical doom: while it is frequently picked up by “liberal modes of sense making“ he writes, “the Anthropocene actually can’t fit the narrative because it is proof that the end of liberalism is near.

Geoff Mann
The Anthropocene challenges liberalism’s vision of permanent progress. So why has it become another technocratic tool of liberal bureaucracy?
Jedediah Britton-Purdy

It is impossible to divorce nature from human influence. Can that influence be democratic?

Dayton Martindale

A new book on climate change deploys an old theme, pitting man against nature. This is not only wrong; it stands in the way of a just future.

Robert Pollin

1.2% of the GDP. That's all it would take to green the economy.

Ashley Dawson

Global capitalism is no longer simply characterized by uneven development, it is characterized by uneven disaster.

David G. Victor, Richard K. Morse
Coal sits at the center of the most inconvenient truth about global-warming policy.
Troy Vettese
Beneath the jargon, a new UN report serves up a revolutionary response to climate change.
Benjamin Franta

How fossil-fuel divestment can be an effective strategy for environmental change.

Meghan O’Gieblyn

From the Great Lakes to the Flint River, we have devastated our waters through negligence, lethargy, and good intentions.

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To make change, movements need to build endurance—the capacity to keep people showing up despite their differences.

Mie Inouye
Poetry

most days, during some mid-day hour, / I close my eyes and say the Sh’ma. / But it’s always the wrong time of day, / and it’s the only prayer I know

Matthew Lippman
Andrew Ross

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