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Extinction Rebellion: I’m an academic embracing direct action to stop climate change
Not heard of the “Extinction Rebellion” before? Then you heard it here first. Because soon, everyone is going to have heard of it. The Extinction Rebellion is a non-violent direct action movement challenging inaction over dangerous climate change and the mass extinction of species which, ultimately, threatens our own species. Saturday November 17 2018 is “Rebellion Day” – when people opposed to what they see as a government of “climate criminals” aim to gather together enough protesters to close down parts of the capital – by shutting down fossil-powered road traffic at key pinch-points in London. I’m a Reader in Philosophy at the University of East Anglia and I have…
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After the IPCC report, #climatereality
Climate-nemesis is near-certain. But “near-certain” is not yet “inevitable”. On the contrary, it is still uncertain. By making it sound inevitable, we run the risk of fomenting inaction at the worst possible time. We need to prepare for what is near-certain. But if we give up trying to stop it then it will become inevitable. We need to try to stop it: roll on the eXtinction Rebellion. The (exciting, but mainly terrifying) 1.5degrees report from the IPCC made (some of) the headlines; and now the media have mostly moved on. The mega-story of potential #climatebreakdown, the long emergency that threatens to take us, the news-story that should be on our…
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The Domain of the Dump: A Story of Stuff
I had a chastening experience the other day. I went to my local municipal dump (aka ‘the recycling centre’), to recycle (or, as it turned out: to dump…) some old carpets that had been covering ground where no growth was occurring, at my allotment. What chastened me was something that I, perhaps like you, somewhere deep down knew was true, but had managed to make myself forget. Namely: how much of our rubbish is still just that. Stuff that cannot be recycled, but is simply destined to be stockpiled, burned, or landfilled. Almost everything that you can see here is stuff that is quite literally being dumped. It is not…
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Ideas for a Radical Green Manifesto
Introduction: the big picture Green politics starts from the realities we now find ourselves in. Human beings are changing the planet in fundamental ways – altering the atmosphere and climate, reducing biodiversity and trashing ecosystems. This is the Anthropocene, and human impacts are going beyond the boundaries that have maintained the planet in a relatively stable state. At the centre of human pressures on the planet are two forms of growth – economic growth and population growth. Both are powerful and complex forces. Economic growth has lifted billions of people out of poverty and poor health conditions, but at the same time it is having devastating effects on the natural…
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Why I had to tell my students that I fear for them
Welcome to University! Welcome to perhaps the most amazing opportunity of your lives. Welcome to the astonishing gift that is three years in which to think and learn, three years of the life of the mind. Though I have to tell you… I don’t envy you. And the reason I don’t envy you is because, as I look around the room, with very few exceptions, most of you are significantly younger than me. And I think there is a very real possibility that the later part of the lives of most of you in this room is going to be grim or non-existent. I’m sorry to have to say it.…
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Guardians of Britain's future generations?
Last week in Parliament the new ‘Green House’ thinktank launched with a report I’ve authored on how to restructure our democratic institutions to take account of those who are not here yet: future people. The 30 page report prepared with the assistance of the new ‘Alliance for future generations’ umbrella-group of NGOs is called Guardians of the Future. The starting point of my thinking on all this is this question: ‘Democracy’ means ‘government by the people’, but who are ‘the people’? I insist, following Burke, that society exists over time and decisions taken today can have significant consequences for people yet to be born. My report argues therefore that the…
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Our responsibility to the future: justice or love?
How ought we to think of our relationship to – our responsibility for – future people? Is this question (a question pressing all the harder in the wake of the recent failure to adequately safeguard those future people, at Copenhagen) essentially a question of justice? The rallying cry at Copenhagen was, “What we do we want? Climate justice! When do we want it? Now!” But what if it’s not enough to call for justice? Let me explain… Future generations – future people – are collectively our children. We give birth to them. They are even more powerless than the newest new-born baby. They cannot entreat, nor even scream, let alone…
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The last refuge of prejudice
It is no longer socially-acceptable to exhibit prejudice against ethnic minority people on grounds of their ethnicity, women on grounds of their gender, or working-class people on grounds of their class. The last bastions of discrimination are being overcome: such as prejudice against gay and lesbian people, and against disabled people. But is there one crucial bastion of discrimination still strongly in place? Take this kind of remark, which I sometimes hear on the doorstep while I’m out talking to my constituents: “I just don’t care about what happens after I’m dead and gone.” We might dismiss this as the attitude just of some old curmudgeon, and think that it…
