The Politics of Actually Existing Unsustainability: Human Flourishing in a Climate-Changed, Carbon-Constrained World

摘要

This book articulates a much needed and novel theoretical position in the field of environmental political theory. Drawing on research as diverse as addiction psychology and social-ecological systems models, Barry argues for a normative political theory that clears the ground for a practical rethinking of the terms of environmental politics in a 'climate-changed' and 'carbon-constrained world'. The wager in this book is that, contrary to ecological apocalypsism or blind technological and economic optimism, ecological pressures may make the transition to more sustainable ways of living 'inevitable', but that there are normative ways to make this transition 'desirable' (p. 277). To this end, the book is separated into three primary foci: the development of a theory of human flourishing which accounts for human vulnerability and socio-ecological resilience; the critique and supplanting of orthodox economic ideologies of growth with an expanded green conception of the economy; and the articulation of an agonistic green republicanism as the appropriate political form for addressing environmental unsustainability.