Reason in a Dark Time

Why the Struggle against Climate Change Failed - and What It Means for Our Future

By: Dale Jamieson

Narrated by: Steven Menasche

From the 1992 Rio Earth Summit to the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Conference there was a concerted international effort to stop climate change. Yet greenhouse gas emissions increased, atmospheric concentrations grew, and global warming became an observable fact of life. In this book, philosopher Dale Jamieson explains what climate change is, why we have failed to stop it, and why it still matters what we do. Centered in philosophy, the volume also treats the scientific, historical, economic, and political dimensions of climate change. Our failure to prevent or even to respond significantly to climate change, Jamieson argues, reflects the impoverishment of our systems of practical reason, the paralysis of our politics, and the limits of our cognitive and affective capacities. The climate change that is underway is remaking the world in such a way that familiar comforts, places, and ways of life will disappear in years or decades rather than centuries. Climate change also threatens our sense of meaning, since it is difficult to believe that our individual actions matter. The challenges that climate change presents go beyond the resources of common sense morality - it can be hard to view such everyday acts as driving and flying as presenting moral problems. Yet there is much that we can do to slow climate change, to adapt to it and restore a sense of agency while living meaningful lives in a changing world.

Download the accompanying reference guide.©2014, Oxford University Press (P)2014 Audible Inc.

Boring

I love this topic. It's kind of my passion. I read a lot about it and I feel like I generally don't have trouble with more challenging material on this subject. Still, I found this book to be excruciatingly boring. Maybe philosophy isn't my jam, I don't know. The last two chapters were okay.

Jamison’s work is essential

Great to have this important environmental ethicist’s work available as an audiobook! Jamison gets to the heart of the problem. Narration was good and content clear. I hope more climate ethicists and philosophers books are available soon.

Important Subject Done Poorly

The author is pretentious. He thinks of himself as a philosopher, but gets bogged down in economics and science. He uses $10 dollar words unnecessarily. He is not persuasive. This is not a good book.. The reader overacts and makes mistakes.