Right now, it is fair to say that the face-to-face with global warming and climate change holistically is a major subject of debate, as elucidated in this week’s readings. The debate arena is undoubtedly heated with different viewpoints.
In the Clapp and Dauvergne piece for instance, liberal, scientific, social and economic interpretations of the global environmental situation are meticulously highlighted and have been respectively assigned classifications. However, the authors of “Paths to a Green World” insisted on pointing out how some bioenvironmentalists, social greens, institutionalists and market liberals could be ambivalent between these “typologies” at times. Interestingly, that ambivalence is perceived among humans of all walks of life, serving as a testament of the complexity of our species and its relationships to the Earth.
Indeed, in “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math”, Bill McKibben attempts to raise awareness around three alarming figures that genuinely concern the scientific community that timelessly alerts policy-makers, law-makers, politicians, economists and corporations (to cite a few), with little success over time.
Charles C. Mann tends to focus on the evolution of Homo sapiens from its apparition 200,000 years ago, to emphasize his fascinating adaptability, what he calls “behavioral plasticity”. He communicates the history of our species, offering an acute comparative study with other species’ “pathway” on the planet, to ultimately conclude that we humans will most likely, and quite simply and similarly to other creatures before us, will go extinct (implicitly pointing out that the environmental situation is only an effect of our evolution, merely a cause).
The Darren McCauley and Raphael Heffron passage is centered around the “just transition”, an initiative pushed forward to incentivize people to shift to green jobs to ensure a smoother transition from a majoritarian fossil-fuel concentrated labor onto a climate-conscious workforce. In effect, the reading introduces a mitigation plan.
This week’s readings present a vast array of information and ideas. Each reading tackles a specific aspect of the discussion and aims at conveying direct messages that contribute critically to the debate. Overall, they are an introduction to a heavy, global, multi-faceted and convoluted situation.
The New Wind 
Nihal, great job in analyzing this week’s readings and summarizing the key points that fall under the universal theme for environmental degradation. Is there a particular approach that you agree with that should be taken to address the growing environmental challenges?
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