Social Transformation for Climate Change
A New Framework for Democracy
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Taylor & Francis Ltd
Published:22nd Dec '23
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
This paperback is available in another edition too:
- Hardback£135.00(9781032465302)
This book argues that social transformation is both necessary and possible if democracies are to respond effectively to the climate crisis without social collapse.
Climate transformation and social transformation are intimately connected. Understanding how to address climate change requires a historical approach both to the climate and to our collective institutions of humanity. Drawing on the works of Karl Polanyi and Thomas Piketty, Nicholas Low traces the course of historic social transformations from Britain, Russia, and Australia to highlight key commonalities: social crisis, the widespread sense by those in power that ‘something has to change’, the shift in ideology, and the political champions that drove the change. Within its international scope, the book delves deeper into specific instances of inequality and poverty from Britain, the USA, Australia, and the Global South. It shows how these examples are connected with the current climate emergency. Finally, the author draws together all the evidence from past transformations to outline how a new social democratic transformation could generate a better future, creating the social solidarity necessary to cope with the climate crisis.
This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of climate change, environmental politics and policy, political ecology, environmental sociology, and environmental studies more broadly. Its argument is also highly relevant for political actors working towards social and economic transformation.
"A great book demonstrating the need for major social transformation in the future.
A must-read."
Thomas Piketty, Professor at L’École des Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris School of Economics, France, and Co-director of the World Inequality Lab and the World Inequality Database
"In Social Transformation for Climate Change, Nicholas Low throws down a double challenge, to recognize the climate emergency as the defining crisis of our age, and to take up the democratic transformation of society required in response. This far-sighted, deeply researched, and well-reasoned book is required reading for all those concerned with the future of the planet."
Robert Lake, Professor Emeritus of urban planning and policy development and a memberof the Graduate Faculties in the Department of Geography, Rutgers University, USA
"A spellbinding account of the ecological, social and democratic crisis of
hypercapitalism and how we might collectively transform it into a better place
for all."
David Hayward, Emeritus Professor of Public Policy and the Social Economy at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
“Nicholas Low has done something very special with this book. With innovative rigour he has examined climate change, its historical roots, and its political and economic dynamics, and has suggested the direction in which humans must collectively move in order to avert a catastrophe. No single book can provide the final word on that, but in indicating the direction he has given us a much clearer understanding of the way forward.”
Jim Falk, Honorary Professorial Fellow in the Faculty of Science at Melbourne University, Australia, and Emeritus Professor in the Faculty of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Wollongong, Australia. He chairs the International Advisory Committee for Regional Action on Climate Change – Japan
ISBN: 9781032465319
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 426g
214 pages