Liberalism and the Challenge of Climate Change

Christopher Shaw is Head of Research at Climate Outreach, and also holds the positions of Research Associate in the School of Global Studies, University of Sussex, and Director of DeSmog. Dr Shaw has worked in the field of climate change communication for over 15 years.

"In Liberalism and the Challenge of Climate Change, Chris Shaw effectively, provocatively but accessibly, demolishes the cosy consensus that political and economic liberalism is capable of responding to the existential threat of climate change. With their emphasis on individualism, protecting the freedoms of capital, the primary of western scientific thought and faith in technological fixes, dominant liberal ideologies are having to confront their own crises and contradictions. This book expertly surveys and critiques these belief systems and imaginaries before exploring some of their contenders. It will be of interest to a range of students, scholars and practitioners working on climate change."Peter Newell, University of Sussex and Research Director of the Rapid Transition Alliance"Chris Shaw's essential and urgent book addresses the failure and fundamental inadequacy of current attempts to address the climate crisis. With disquieting clarity, he demonstrates how even well-intentioned participants in projects for preserving a livable planet are trapped within conceptual frameworks or paradigms that a priori prevent the emergence of meaningful strategies for averting catastrophe."Jonathan Crary, Meyer Schapiro Professor of Modern Art and Theory, Columbia University, New York "Words fail us when confronted with the challenges posed by climate change. Deeds fail us as well. As Chris Shaw demonstrates in this book, we are trapped in an ideological network spun by liberalism. This makes us blind to alternative and more radical ways of approaching climate change from a less individualistic and more communitarian perspective. This book should be read by anybody interested in understanding the climate change impasse in which the world finds itself. Understanding it is a precondition to moving beyond it." Brigitte Nerlich, Emeritus Professor of Science, Language and Society, University of Nottingham"Chris Shaw is steeped in the sociology and politics of climate change. In this book he argues elegantly and powerfully across a range of areas that climate change is intertwined with liberalism and that this blocks any solution to the climate crisis." Luke Martell, Author of Alternative Societies: For a Pluralist Socialism

• Acknowledgments PrefaceIntroductionFive liberal climate guardrailsThe liberal language of climate changeDefinitions of liberalismGeographical focusWhy liberalism’s time is up on climate changeThe structure of this bookConclusionChapter 1. The struggles of climate liberalism1.1 Sublimating paradox1.2 The best of all possible worlds, the worst of all possible worlds1.3 Freedom from, or freedom to?1.4 Anarchy and order1.5 Openness to new ideas vs the reproduction of liberalism 1.6 The five liberal climate guardrails 1.7 ConclusionChapter 2: Climate change is not a challenge to individualism. 2.1 A visit to the circus2.2 Creating the climate individual2.3 The search for individual free will2.4 Hegemonic climate communication2.5 ConclusionChapter 3. The liberal construction of climate change is universally relevant. 3.1 Guardrail 2: The liberal construction of climate change is universally relevant. 3.2 Institutional norms and the liberal imperialism of climate change3.3 The communication of liberal institutional norms in climate discourses3.4 Climate targets and the communication of liberal norms3.5 The denial of uncertainty and the denial of climate justice3.6 Local experiences of a global phenomenon3.7 ConclusionChapter 4: Climate change is not an historical phenomenon. 4.1 Removing history from the climate debate4.2 De-historicising the transformation4.3 Removing the working class from the transformation4.4 Intellectuals and the de-historicising of climate change4.5 Living with the past4.6 ConclusionChapter 5. Guardrail 4: Climate change will be solved through technological innovation. 5.1 Substituting technology for progress5.2 Science against democracy5.3 Selling technological responses to climate change5.4 ConclusionChapter 6: Climate Guardrail 5: Sustainable lifestyles will emerge from the appropriate cultural cues and leadership. 6.1: Stories, myths and other fairy tales6.2 Can new stories create new worlds?6.3 Culture as control6.4 Creating orderly transitions through stories6.5 Eden 2.0: Climate Change and the Search for a 21st Century Myth. 6.6 What We Think About When We Try Not to Think about Global Warming: Toward a New Psychology of Climate Action. 6.7 ConclusionChapter 7: Maybe tomorrow7.1 Interview methodology 7.2 Results from the interview analysis7.2.1 Freely choosing a future of fewer freedoms7.2.2 The individual’s role in creating the conditions for a system of fossil fuel free exploitation7.2.3. Searching for mushrooms7.2.4 Keep your head down whilst waiting for the change to come7.2.5. Substituting politics with science and technology 7.2.6 Talking climate7.2.7 So much to do, such little time7.2.8 Waiting for politicians7.2.9 What’s the problem? 7.2.10 It’s not just the climate7.3 ConclusionChapter 8: Conclusion: What future?8.1 Is there a there there?8.2 The limits of the individual in a world of limits8.3 You shall have no other gods but science8.4 We can’t do this on our own8.5 A peasant prospectIndex