Climate Change and the Challenge of Being Human

While the momentum to address Climate Change appears to have shifted, and an activist bent is clearly emerging, the moment could have come five decades earlier. Three key factors appear to have conspired in causing the delay: 1) a well-orchestrated campaign to deflect the danger associated with carbon emissions, 2) the rise and reign of neoliberalism throughout this period, and, 3) reinforcement of the idea that human-beings are exceptional. In this fifth edition of the Future Fluency Brief, we take a comparative look at two recent works: Michael Mann’s The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back our Planet, and Bill Gates’ How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need.