Riders in the Storm: Ethics in an Age of Climate Change

by Brian G. Henning

Overview

With the increase of natural disasters, droughts, and superstorms, it's clear that climate change isn't coming--it's here. The ecological crisis of climate change--and how we handle it--is the challenge of this century. Though policy changes or technological advances may help, they're not enough. We are in need of new ways of thinking and acting; new ways of understanding our relationship to the world.



Riders in the Storm assesses the challenges of climate change through an interdisciplinary study, examining the basic scientific, political, economic, and moral dimensions through a framework of philosophical ethics.



Equipped with colorful graphics and images, suggestions for further research and reading, and dialogue prompts, this text is a straightforward and engaging introduction to climate change.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781599822181
Publisher:	Anselm Academic
Publication date:	01/28/2015
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	216
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Brian G. Henning has a doctorate in philosophy from Fordham University. He is currently a professor of philosophy and environmental studies at Gonzaga University.

Table of Contents

Contents


Abbreviations


Preface


Chapter 1: Climate Change Isn't Coming--It's Already Here


On Thin Ice


The Difference between Climate and Weather


Rolling the Climate Dice


Our Holocene Home


Welcome to the Anthropocene


Future Projections and Impacts





Chapter 2: Understanding the Science of Climate Change


What Science Is (and Isn't)


The Basics of Climate Science


What If We Are Wrong?





Chapter 3: The Political Response to a Changing Climate: The Market-Based Approach


The International Political Process: Rio, Kyoto, and Beyond


Kyoto and Its US Critics


Outsourcing Morality to Economics?





Chapter 4: The Sustainability Paradigm


What Is Ethics?


The Rise of the Sustainability Paradigm


Beyond Sustainability


Developing an Environmental Ethic





Chapter 5: Ecological Stewardship and the Great Work


From Despot to Steward


The Great Work and the Ecozoic Era


Voluntary Simplicity





Chapter 6: Moral Idealism, Hypocrisy, and Pursuit of the Great Work


Be Realistic


Hypocrisy and the Pursuit of Moral Ideals





Appendix: Eating Animals on a Warming Planet: A Case Study


Meat Production's Role in Climate Change


Three Scenarios for Reducing the Climate Impact of Livestock





Glossary





Index

Editorial Reviews

"The century's task - a task set for us by that implacable master physics - is to make ourselves smaller. This book is an eloquent reflection on that beautiful chore."


Bill McKibben


Middlebury College





In Riders in the Storm: Ethics in an Age of Climate Change, Brian Henning shows that we are called to rethink everything in view of the catastrophe we face so as to engage together in the great work to which Thomas Berry has been calling us. Central to honorable pursuit of this work is personal morality, and this morality must shape our lives to the needs of our times. Like every truly wise morality, what it calls for is not miserable sacrifice but joyful, responsible life. Much that he describes is familiar to long-time participants in the environmental movement.


--John Cobb Jr.


Claremont School of Theology





We are now in the first century in the thirty-five million centuries of life on Earth in which one species can jeopardize the planet's future. In Riders in the Storm: Ethics in an Age of Climate Change, Brian Henning is right that the identity of the twenty-first century will increasingly be defined by long-festering ecological crises, made worse by political and market failures. Here is a basic introduction, full scale across science, politics, and economics, seeing climate change as both ethical failure and opportunity. His analysis is well researched and documented, well presented, and quite readable. Riders in the Storm joins the most forceful voices in this keystone concern on the global agenda.


--Holmes Rolston III


University Distinguished Professor and Professor of Philosophy


Colorado State University

From the Publisher