Conference title:
Climate Change: Against Despair? Abstract: To be announced. |
Prof. Catriona McKinnon (University of Reading, UK)
(go to Prof. McKinnon's page >>) Catriona McKinnon is Professor of Political Theory, Director of the Centre for Climate and Justice, and Director of the Leverhulme programme in Climate Justice, at the University of Reading. She has published three monographs - Liberalism and the Defence of Political Constructivism, Toleration: A Critical Introduction, and Climate Change and Future Justice - and has edited eight books on topics ranging from citizenship, toleration, basic income, climate ethics and governance, and including the textbook Issues in Political Theory for OUP (now going into its fourth edition). Her most recent published papers include ‘Endangering Humanity: An International Crime?’, Canadian Journal of Philosophy (2017), ‘Should We Tolerate Climate Denial?’, Midwest Studies in Philosophy (2016), and ‘Climate Justice in a Carbon Budget’, Climatic Change (2016). At present, she is completing a monograph defending the idea of a new international criminal offence ('postericide') that proscribes conduct fit to bring about the extinction of humanity, and she is writing two papers on the ethics of geoengineering. After that she will write an introductory book on climate justice and ethics for Polity Press. |
Conference title:
Three Interpretations of the Anthropocene Abstract: In this talk I discuss three interpretations of Anthropocene. The first takes the Anthropocene as full of promise of the Promethean liberation of humanity from toil, constraint, and even alienation through the progressive remaking of the natural environment to suit human ends. The second interpretation takes the Anthropocene as destroyer of natural value, the destruction of which is regrettable. The idea that the Anthropocene signals “the end of nature” fits within this kind of interpretation. The final interpretation takes the Anthropocene as exacerbating social inequalities, creating winners and losers through technological advance and the perturbation of fundamental planetary systems. Although these interpretations differ in emphasis, several central claims in each are not necessarily incompatible. The interpretations are not then wholly mutually exclusive. The final portion of the talk discusses the activity of prospective interpretation, its constraints, powers, and influence on attitudes of hope and anxiety. |
Prof. Darrel Moellendorf (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt)
(go to Prof. Moellendorf's page >>) Darrel Moellendorf is a Professor of Professor of International Political Theory and Professor of Philosophy at Johann Wolfgang Universität Frankfurt am Main. He is the author of Cosmopolitan Justice (2002), Global Inequality Matters (2009), and The Moral Challenge of Dangerous Climate Change: Values, Poverty, and Policy (2014). He co-edited (with Christopher J. Roederer) Jurisprudence (2004), (with Gillian Brock) Current Debates in Global Justice (2005), (with Thomas Pogge) Global Justice: Seminal Essays (2008) and (with Heather Widdows) The Routledge Handbook of Global Ethics (2014). He has published articles in journals such as Climatic Change, Ethics, Ethics and International Affairs, Journal of Political Philosophy, Social Philosophy and Policy, Social Theory and Practice and The Monist, and various other journals. His paper “Treaty Norms and Climate Change Mitigation,” was the most frequently downloaded paper in 2009 at Ethics and International Affairs. He has been a Member of the School of Social Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton) and a Senior Fellow at Justitia Amplificata at Goethe Unviersität, Frankfurt and the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften. His work has been supported by the National Endowment for Humanities, the Friends of the Institute for Advanced Studies, and the Deutsche Akademische Austausch Dienst. And he has been the feature of interviews about justice and climate change for major German newspapers such as Die Zeit, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and Frankfurter Rundschau. Before working at Goethe Universität he held positions at San Diego State University, University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg), Cal Poly Pomona, and Riverside Community College. |
