Future of Denial

Future of Denial:The Ideologies of Climate Change

by Tad DeLay

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    304 pages / April 2024 / 9781839765438

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    April 2024 / 9781839765483

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Capitalism is an ecocidal engine constantly regenerating climate change denial

The age of denial is over, we are told. Yet emissions continue to rise while gimmicks, graft, and green- washing distract the public from the climate violence suffered by the vulnerable. This timely, interdisciplinary contribution to the environmental humanities draws on the latest climatology, the first shoots of an energy transition, critical theory, Earth’s paleoclimate history, and trends in border violence to answer the most pressing question of our age: Why do we continue to squander the short time we have left?

The symptoms suggest society’s inability to adjust is profound. Near Portland, militias incapable of accepting that the world is warming respond to a wildfire by hunting for imaginary left-wing arsonists. Europe erects nets in the Aegean Sea to capture migrants fleeing drought and war. An airline claims to be carbon neutral thanks to bogus cheap offsets. Drone strikes hit people living along the aridity line. Yes, Exxon knew as early as the 1970s, but the fundamental physics of carbon dioxide warming the Earth was already understood before the American Civil War.

Will capitalists ever voluntarily walk away from hundreds of trillions of dollars in fossil fuels unless they are forced to do so? And, if not, who will apply the necessary pressure?

Reviews

  • It is through denial that the climate crisis deepens, but we have hardly begun to get our heads around how it works. In this sweeping survey, Tad DeLay turns and twists the concept and uses it to shine light on a range of aspects of the crisis. It is a leap forward in the study of denial."

    Andreas Malm, author of How to Blow Up a Pipeline

  • The contradictions of daily life in the global North in the face of accelerating climate change have become normalized. Sure there are those who refuse to "believe" in climate change, but even people who recognize the magnitude of the problem have to manage the chasm between how contemporary capitalism works and the radical otherwise that is required. This requires a vast arsenal of denial that we rarely if ever talk about, and Tad DeLay is its generous but unflinching diagnostician. This book uncovers not only the scams, lies and misinformation that sustain the degradation of people and planet, but just as importantly the repressions and suppressions that have for many become essential to making it through the day. It is also an excellent guide to how we might move forward without them, but without giving in to doom-saying.

    Geoff Mann, author of In the Long Run We Are All Dead: Keynesianism, Political Economy, and Revolution

  • An impressive, beautifully written and unsparing book. DeLay's precise, controlled fury lends itself to mournful ironies and asperous satire as he brutally exposes the sources of denial and weighs the options for a future beyond denial. Not a word is wasted in this vital intervention.

    Richard Seymour, authour of The Twittering Machine