Facing Up to Climate Reality: Honesty, Disaster and Hope, edited by John Foster

What people are saying about the book

“It is easy to interpret these fascinating essays as leaning towards the gloomier terrain occupied by the ‘Dark Mountain’. But whilst collectively the authors dispense with techno-utopian approaches to mitigation, their development of transformative adaptation provides a more informed response to the challenges we face. Such realism is timely in a world still fixated on fossil fuels and on an emission trajectory toward a four (or more) degrees future. From the ashes of the old hope, Facing Up to Climate Reality opens up space for a new and potentially more fruitful dialogue. Whilst the authors clearly recognise our profound crisis, they suggest that we may yet navigate our way through it, and in so doing could deliver improvements in some key aspects of our quality of life. I can only hope that their measured optimism helps catalyse widespread and meaningful action.”

— Professor Kevin Anderson, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research

“Readers of this fascinating book are brought closer to the truth that world temperatures will rise this century to levels only experienced on the planet many millions of years ago, long before homo sapiens; and that catastrophe is therefore almost-inevitably impending.”

— Mayer Hillman, father of carbon rationing and author of How We Can Save the Planet

“This important new collection brings the trademark radicalism of Green House to the climate crisis. The authors set out an array of bold and hopeful ideas, consider how facing up to climate disasters can kindle new green shoots of community, and explore the psychology of climate communication. The book both pursues climate honesty rigorously and offers hope for the future.”

— Caroline Lucas MP, author of Honourable Friends? Parliament and the Fight for Change

CONTENTS

Introduction: Looking for Hope between Disaster and Catastrophe
Brian Heatley, Rupert Read and John Foster

Part I: Politics

Chapter 1: Could Capitalism Survive the Transition to a Post-Growth Economy?
Richard McNeill Douglas
Chapter 2: Facing up to Climate Reality: International Relations as (Un)usual
Peter Newell
Chapter 3: Making the Best of Climate Disasters: On the Need for a Localised and Localising Response
Rupert Read and Kristen Steele

Part II: Systems

Chapter 4: Linking Cities and the Climate: Is Urbanisation Inevitable?
Jonathan Essex
Chapter 5: Dealing with Extreme Weather
Anne Chapman
Chapter 6: Geoengineering as a Response to the Climate Crisis:  Right Road or Disastrous Diversion?
Helena Paul and Rupert Read

Part III: Framings

Chapter 7: What the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages in Europe Can Tell Us about Global Climate Change
Brian Heatley
Chapter 8: Facing Up to Ecological Crisis: A Psychosocial Perspective from Climate Psychology
Nadine Andrews and Paul Hoggett
Chapter 9: Where Can We Find Hope?
John Foster

Coda – Where Next? 
John Foster on behalf of the Green House Collective