Publicerad: 2014-04-24
ISBN: 978-91-7519-289-5
ISSN: 1650-3686 (tryckt), 1650-3740 (online)
Climate change cannot be managed by experts and politicians alone. Consequently; climate ethics must take up the challenge of inviting public responsibility on this issue. New sociological research on climate denial by Kari Norgaard; however; suggests that most citizens of industrialized countries are ill-prepared to cope with the ethical significance of climate change. I draw upon Martin Heidegger to offer a new reading of climate denial that suggests viable responses to this problem. I argue that the implications of climate change are largely received as an “existential threat” to the extent that they endanger the integrity of everyday existence. In other words; the implications of climate change for everyday life unsettle what phenomenologists call the “lifeworld.” Should basic lifeworld assumptions; which cultures rely on to makes sense of the world and their purposes in it; come under serious question; anxieties surface that most people are profoundly motivated to avoid. Hence; the ethical obligations entailed by climate change are “denied” in the form of protecting lifeworld integrity for the sake of containing anxieties that would otherwise overwhelm people. Finally; I submit that existential approaches to climate denial can empower a confrontation with “climate anxiety” in ways that open up ethical reflection.
Brook; Isis. “Turning Up the Heat on Climate Change: Are Transition Towns an Answer?” Environmental Values 18:2 (2009); pp. 125-128.
Cohen; Stanley. States of Denial: Knowing About Atrocities and Suffering.Malden; Mass.: Blackwell Publishers; 2001.
Dreyfus; Hubert L. Being-in-the-World: A Commentary on Heidegger’s Being and Time; Division I.Cambridge; Mass.: The MIT Press; 1991.
Feygina; Irina; John T. Jost; and Rachel E. Goldsmith. “System Justification; the Denial of Global Warming; and the Possibility of ‘System-Sanctioned Change’.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 36:3 (2010); pp. 326-338.
Fritsche; Immo and Katrin Häfner. “The Malicious Effects of Existential Threat on Motivation to Protect the Natural Environment and the Role of Environmental Identity as Moderator.” Environment and Behavior 44:4 (2012); pp. 570-590.
Giddens; Anthony. Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age.Stanford; California: Stanford University Press; 1991.
Heidegger; Martin. Being and Time. Translated by John MacQuarrie and Edward Robinson. New York; NY: Harper and Row Publishers; 1962.
Hulme; Mike. Why We Disagree About Climate Change: Understanding Controversy; Inaction; and Opportunity. Cambridge; UK: Cambridge University Press; 2009.
Jamieson; Dale. “Ethics; Public Policy; and Global Warming.” (1992) Climate Ethics: Essential Readings; edited by Stephan M. Gardiner; Simon Caney; Dale Jamieson; and Henry Shue. New York: Oxford University Press; 2010; pp. 77-86.
Marcuse; Herbert. One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society. Boston Mass.: Beacon Press; 1964.
McKibben; Bill. “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math.” Rolling Stones Magazine: July 19; 2012; online at http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719 (accessed 2013-11-11).
Norgaard; Kari Marie. Living in Denial: Climate Change; Emotions; and Everyday Life. Cambridge; Mass. & London; England: The MIT Press; 2011.
Shellenberger; Michael and Ted Nordhaus. Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility. New York; NY: Houghton Mifflin Company; 2007.
Speth; James Gustave. The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism; the Environment; and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability. New Haven: Yale University Press; 2008.
Stern; Nicholas. “The Economics of Climate Change.” (2008) Climate Ethics: Essential Readings; edited by Stephan M. Gardiner; Simon Caney; Dale Jamieson; and Henry Shue. New York: Oxford University Press; 2010; pp. 39-76.
Thompson; Allen and Jeremy Bendik-Keymer. “Introduction: Adapting Humanity.” (2012) Ethical Adaptation to Climate Change: Human Virtues of the Future; edited by Allen Thompson and Jeremy Bendik-Keymer. Cambridge; Mass. & London; England: The MIT Press; 2012; pp. 1-23.
Williams; Terry Tempest. “What Love Looks Like.” Orion Magazine: January/February 2012 issue; online at www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/6598 (accessed 2013-11-11).
Zehner; Ozzie. Green Illusions: The Dirty Secrets of Clean Energy and the Future of Environmentalism. Lincoln & London: University of Nebraska Press; 2012.
