Climate Change Solutions: Beyond the Capital-Climate Contradiction

by Diana Stuart, Ryan Gunderson, Brian Petersen

Climate Change Solutions represents an application of critical theory to examine proposed solutions to climate change. Drawing from Marx’s negative conception of ideology, the authors illustrate how ideology continues to conceal the capital-climate contradiction or the fundamental incompatibility between growth-dependent capitalism and effectively and justly mitigating climate change. Dominant solutions to climate change that offer minor changes to the current system fail to address this contradiction. However, alternatives like degrowth involve a shift in priorities and power relations and can offer new systemic arrangements that confront and move beyond the capital-climate contradiction. While there are clear barriers to a systemic transition that prioritizes social and ecological well-being, such a transition is possible and desirable.

208 pages, Hardcover

Published July 7, 2020

About the author

Dee Stuart and Jane Toombs wrote in collaboration as Diana Stuart.

Reviews

[Mason Wyss · Rating 5 out of 5]

Riding the fine line between hopeful and realistic given the immense constraints, Climate Change Solutions gives a thorough, thoughtful analysis of the climate crisis and the possibilities for human civilization to weather the storm. Applying the theories of the Frankfurt School to the climate crisis is an analysis which is novel to me, and of incredible importance given the mountains of propaganda generated by conservative think tanks and oil industry PR. I think their prescriptions of work time reduction, participatory democracy, and socializing energy production are reasonable and necessary for an adequate response to the crisis. The authors admit that the most likely scenario is the crisis deepening to the point of dystopia, but remain hopeful, and I find that hope which remains honest about our chances to be maybe not refreshing but at least commendable. I’m excited to fight for a better world with them and the rest of the socialist movement.

[Becca]

(Read for my environmental sociology class)