WEEK 10: Climate Destruction, World Order, and Common Preservation
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51 Terms
What is the main purpose of Week 10 in the course?
To apply the common preservation heuristic to the concrete, real-world problem of human-caused climate change, examining why solutions have failed and what structural transformations would be required.
What is the “gap” identified in climate change analysis?
The gap between the stable climate humanity adapted to and the increasingly unstable climate we are now facing due to GHG emissions.
Why is climate change described as a state of disequilibrium?
Because human activity has pushed the climate system away from stable feedback loops into escalating imbalance.
Why is this gap especially dangerous?
Because climate stability is a precondition for all human goals, making this a threat to collective survival.
What is the primary cause of climate change according to Week 10?
Greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels.
Why is climate change considered an unintended consequence?
Because no one intended to heat the planet; emissions arose from efforts to meet needs, survival, and wants.
How is climate change an example of alienation?
People collectively produce outcomes (GHGs) they do not want, yet continue producing them through normal activity.
Why does individual action fail to solve climate change?
Because uncoordinated individual efforts reproduce the same destructive system dynamics.
What is the core solution proposed to address climate change?
Coordinated collective action to halt fossil fuel burning and restore climate balance.
Why does solving climate change require “self-transformation of humanity”?
Because economic, political, and social systems are structurally dependent on fossil fuels.
Why does the course ask “Far-fetched? Possible?”
To emphasize that system-level transformation appears unrealistic only because current institutions limit imagination.
What are the three main steps of applying the common preservation heuristic to climate change?
Recognize the need for cooperation for survival
Form a collective actor (climate insurgency)
Use collective power to impose necessary changes
Why is forming a collective actor essential?
Because common interests cannot act on their own; they require organized agency.
What is meant by “compensation for error”?
Developing new capacities and feedback mechanisms to correct mistakes over time.
What is the primary reason climate change has not been solved in 30 years?
Narrow self-interest of states, corporations, and institutions.
Why have governments failed despite awareness of the threat?
Because they operate as self-serving institutions unable to cooperate, even for survival.
Why is official climate protection described as “talk climate protection → walk climate destruction”?
Because policies symbolically support climate action while allowing emissions to continue.
What core features of the current world order block climate protection?
Sovereign nation-states
Private property rights to burn fossil fuels
Market disorganization and externalities
Concentrated fossil fuel power
Why do nation-states undermine common preservation?
Because they prioritize national sovereignty and competition over global human interests.
How do nation-states authorize climate destruction?
By legally permitting GHG emissions within their borders.
Why does competition between states worsen climate change?
States seek power and wealth, incentivizing resource exploitation.
Why must the nation-state be modified rather than abolished?
Because it is historically contingent and adaptable, not fixed or eternal.
What existed before modern nation-states?
Overlapping authorities (monarchs, feudal lords, church, empire).
What did the Treaty of Westphalia establish?
Territorially bounded states asserting absolute sovereignty.
How did nationalism change the state?
By redefining sovereignty as the will of the people, creating national identity.
Why is nationalism both enabling and limiting?
It mobilizes collective identity but divides humanity into competing groups.
Why are property rights considered social constructions?
Because they are human-created institutions that have changed historically.
What does it mean that property is a “bundle of rights”?
Ownership includes rights to use, exclude, modify, destroy, and transfer property.
How do property systems create power and dependency?
Those who own property control resources others depend on.
Why are property rights a form of domination?
They allow owners to do things others strongly oppose, such as polluting.
How did capitalism transform property?
By privatizing land, eliminating commons, and granting owners the right to emit pollutants.
Why must property systems be transformed to solve climate change?
Because current rights legally permit climate destruction.
What is the basic function of markets in climate destruction?
They enable profit from extracting, selling, and burning fossil fuels.
Why do markets produce disorder?
They involve intentional actions without a common plan, leading to externalities.
What is externalization?
Shifting environmental and social costs onto others or the future.
How did neoliberalism worsen climate change?
By deregulating global markets, creating a race to the bottom.
What is financialization?
The shift from productive investment to speculative finance, increasing instability.
Why must climate protection counter market logic?
Because markets prioritize profit over collective survival.
Why is fossil fuel power uniquely dangerous?
Because it concentrates wealth, political influence, and dependency in a few actors.
Why is fossil fuel expansion described as “unplanned”?
Because it results from many individual decisions with global unintended effects.
How do fossil fuel companies maintain hegemony?
By shaping policy, securing dependence, and controlling energy systems.
What did the creation of the IPCC represent?
An attempt to ground climate action in shared scientific understanding.
Why did agreements like UNFCCC fail?
Because they imposed no binding restrictions on fossil fuel use.
Why were CFCs easier to phase out than fossil fuels?
Because substitutes existed and economic dependency was low.
What were “status-quo counter-movements”?
Industry-led efforts to block mandatory climate action.
Why did fossil fuel industries attack climate science?
To protect their property rights and profits.
Why did developed and developing countries conflict?
Over responsibility and who should bear the costs of transition.
What historical parallel is used to explain climate mobilization?
Nuclear disarmament movements.
Why do popular climate movements emerge?
Because governments lose credibility by failing to protect common survival.
What is the core conclusion of Week 10?
Climate change persists not due to lack of knowledge, but because existing world-order institutions block common preservation.
What kind of change is ultimately required?
Transformation of nation-states, property systems, markets, and power relations through collective action.