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Foresight or Discounting Danger?

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The Fossil-Fuelled Climate Crisis

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Abstract

First, suggestions to enhance foresight based on the previous analysis are presented: understand the science, communicate it in ways non-scientists can understand, make the fossil-fuelled threat concrete, create an app for carbon pollution, promote inclusion, and equal opportunity, focus on social practices not just discourse, promote timeliness, combat the fallacy that a carbon tax is a job killer, and value nature’s services. Then other proposed solutions are evaluated: divestment, lawsuits, reducing consumption, moral suasion, offsetting, population restraint by educating girls, improving governance, transcending capitalism, and social democracy. After weighing the strengths and weaknesses of each solution, this book concludes that although none is perfect in a complex diverse world, they can make differential contributions specified in the book to mitigate the fossil-fuelled climate crisis. The priority given to foresight versus discounting danger will determine its outcome and the creeping threat to the sustainability of the beneficial habitat for humanity.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada

    Raymond Murphy

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  1. Raymond Murphy
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Correspondence to Raymond Murphy .

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Murphy, R. (2021). Foresight or Discounting Danger?. In: The Fossil-Fuelled Climate Crisis. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53325-0_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53325-0_11

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-53324-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-53325-0

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