The environment has long been the undisputed territory of the political Left, which casts international capitalism, consumerism, and the over-exploitation of natural resources as the principal threats to the planet, and sees top-down interventions as the most effective solution.
In
How to Think Seriously About the Planet, Roger Scruton rejects this view and offers a fresh approach to tackling the most important political problem of our time. The environmental movement, he contends, is philosophically confused and has unrealistic agendas. Its sights are directed at the
large-scale events and the confrontation between international politics and multinational business. But Scruton argues that no large-scale environmental project, however well-intentioned, will succeed if it is not rooted in small-scale practical reasoning. Seeing things on a large scale promotes
top-down solutions, managed by unaccountable bureaucracies that fail to assess local conditions and are rife with unintended consequences.
Scruton argues for the greater efficacy of local initiatives over global schemes, civil association over political activism, and small-scale
institutions of friendship over regulatory hyper-vigilance. And he suggests that conservatism is far better suited to solving environmental problems than either liberalism or socialism. Rather than entrusting the environment to unwieldy NGOs and international committees, we must assume personal
responsibility and foster local control. People must be empowered to take charge of their environment, to care for it as they would a home, and to involve themselves through the kind of local associations that have been the traditional goal of conservative politics.
Our common future is
by no means assured, but as Roger Scruton clearly demonstrates in this important book, there is a path that can ensure the future safety of our planet and our species.
Preface
1. Local Warming
2. Global Warming
3. The Search for Salvation
4. Radical Precaution and Reasonable Risk
5. Market Solutions and Homeostatis
6. The Moral Economy
7. Heimat and Habitat
8. Beauty, Piety, and Desecration
9. Getting Nowhere
10.
Begetting Somewhere
11. Modest Proposals
Appendix 1: Global Justice
Appendix 2: How Should We Live?
Bibliography
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Roger Scruton is a Visiting Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He has taught at the Universities of Cambridge, London, Oxford, Princeton, and Boston and has been a free-lance writer and commentator for the past 15 years. His many books include Beauty: A Very Short Introduction,
Death-Devoted Heart, and The Uses of Pessimism.
Making Sense - Margot Northey and Joan McKibbin
Atmospheric Justice - Steve Vanderheiden
A Perfect Moral Storm - Stephen M. Gardiner
