hunterowens reviewed CLIMATE LEVIATHAN by Geoff Mann
the political philosoophy of climate change
3 stars
classic verso book, 3/5. why do I keep reading these
224 pages
English language
Published April 5, 2018 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.
4 stars
(5 reviews)
How climate change will affect our political theory--for better and worse
Despite the science and the summits, leading capitalist states have not achieved anything close to an adequate level of carbon mitigation. There is now simply no way to prevent the planet breaching the threshold of two degrees Celsius set by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Malte reviewed CLIMATE LEVIATHAN by Geoff Mann
Review of 'CLIMATE LEVIATHAN' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
I hate to give this book a bad rating, because the subject is so important. But I would really not recommend anyone read this book, unless you're a total fanatic, or think everyday about the mass extinction period we live through, global warming or climate change or whatever you want to call it.
I'm also not quite sure why it was so dulling to read. The last chapters in academic books like these are often boring at best, sometimes stupid, as soon as they start asking themselves "What Should We Do About This?". They start mentioning all kinds of activism, you get the feeling they're never part of themselves. (Andreas Malm is one exception to this rule).
The task of the book is basically to join political theory plus climate science. Or: To join Agamben and Schmitt's theory of sovereignty as the power to decide the state of exception plus …
I hate to give this book a bad rating, because the subject is so important. But I would really not recommend anyone read this book, unless you're a total fanatic, or think everyday about the mass extinction period we live through, global warming or climate change or whatever you want to call it.
I'm also not quite sure why it was so dulling to read. The last chapters in academic books like these are often boring at best, sometimes stupid, as soon as they start asking themselves "What Should We Do About This?". They start mentioning all kinds of activism, you get the feeling they're never part of themselves. (Andreas Malm is one exception to this rule).
The task of the book is basically to join political theory plus climate science. Or: To join Agamben and Schmitt's theory of sovereignty as the power to decide the state of exception plus what we know about likely scenarios for our dying planet.
The elites who can call the states of exception these days, will do everything they can to consolidate their status, as climate changes increasingly unsettles what we took for granted as the stable background to politics. Their likely attempt will be to create a planetary sovereign, to decide on the exception to other political norms - in the name of "saving life on Earth". The COP-conferences are such an attempt - failed so far, but it's an embryo for a world state, to trump all other concerns.
I might return later to give a better summary of the book. It has good points. It's not written by poets and it's not written with passion. You get the feeling that they re-used many dry academic papers in the book's chapters. There is something to learn from it, but I wish someone would do the work of synthesizing or pilfering the book for it's points, so people don't have to go through this stuff all the way ...
