Parents for a Future: How loving our children can prevent climate collapse
Parents for a Future is a book authored by Rupert Read and published by UEA Publishing Project.
That our ecological future appears grave can no longer come as any surprise. And yet we have so far failed, collectively and individually, to begin the kind of action necessary to shift our path away from catastrophic climate collapse.
In this stark and startling little book, Rupert Read helps us to understand the direness of our predicament while showing us a metaphor and a method — a way of thinking — by which we might transform it. From the relatively uncontroversial starting point that we love our own children, we are introduced to a logic of care that iterates far into the future: in caring for our own children, we are committed to caring for the whole of human future; in caring for the whole of human future, we are committed to caring for the future of the natural world. Out of such thinking, hope emerges.
As Read demonstrates in this urgent call to action, accepting that we care for our own offspring commits us to a struggle on behalf of us all.
You can purchase your copy of Parents for a Future at parentsforafuture.org.
Praise for Parents for a Future
“Rupert Read is more than just a brilliant thinker. He is a determined and responsible campaigner for a better country and a better world. I’ve known him since the legendary Newbury bypass protests over a generation ago now. He has never abandoned his political commitments, or his commitment to humanity and the rest of the living world” – George Monbiot.
“In the absence of grandmothers and grand uncles, modernity is depriving us of intergenerational precautionary wisdom. Thankfully, Rupert Read is stepping in to fill in that role, with clarity… and courage” – Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
“There are not too many people on this planet, even among those most alarmed about global warming, who are actually living as though they believe that the climate is in genuine crisis and that every promise and hope we have ever extended for future human flourishing is in doubt as a result. Rupert Read is one of them. This book is his inspired, incisive, mobilizing endeavour to recruit more of us to the urgent cause” – David Wallace-Wells.
“Parents for A Future is a compelling, confronting and ultimately uplifting book by one of the most important radical thinkers of our time. With a scintillating combination of philosophical rigour, political urgency and moral vision, Rupert Read reveals why caring for our loved ones is a stepping stone to caring about a long-term future for both people and planet. A clear-sighted and necessary handbook for reinventing our ethical and political landscape at a time of global crisis” – Roman Krznaric, author of The Good Ancestor.
“An emergency is now, but for most people climate crisis is still a worry about the future, so no wonder we aren’t tackling it urgently enough. Rupert Read, philosopher and activist, shows how ordinary love for our children in the present can motivate the radical changes which might yet give us a chance of avoiding catastrophe. This is philosophy for once doing its proper job, helping us all think straight about things that matter vitally” – John Foster, author of After Sustainability.
