How to Think about the Climate Crisis

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, how we got here, and how we can think about it anew by covering the relevant history, science, economics, politics, and for the first time, the philosophy underpinning it all. Introducing the reality of global warming and its increasingly dire consequences, he outlines the immediate obstructions to coping with the problem, and explains the background to them in a way that refers to the Confucians, the Yijing, the Laozi and Plato's Republic as well as Aristotle, Epicurus, Marcus Aurelius, and Nietzsche.

Drawing on the wisdom of the ancients in both the Chinese and Western traditions, Parkes proposes practical responses. He explains how a greater awareness of non-Western philosophies, such as the Confucian political philosophy advocated by China, could help us remove obstructions and work towards a greener future. If Western philosophical ideas and their instantiation in politics and modern technology got us into our current crisis, Parkes leaves us in no doubt as to why expanding our philosophical horizons will help get us out.