Overview

Humanity faces an ecological predicament, consisting of a cluster of concurrent, mutually reinforcing crises. They are causally intertwined and resistant to resolution in isolation. In addition to climate disruption, the cluster includes land-system change, loss of biodiversity and biosphere integrity, alteration of biogeochemical cycles, and decreased freshwater availability. Madison Powers argues for a targeted human rights approach to the resolution of our predicament. He assigns priority to a bundle of rights strategically important for counteracting ecologically unsustainable, economically predatory market practices. These practices exhaust natural resources or degrade the environmental conditions essential for a livable planet. Their harmful ecological effects result from or are exacerbated by the structure of the global political economy, especially institutions that influence the acquisition, control, and use of land, energy, and water resources. These institutions shape the economic decisions that have transformed every region of the globe and altered the planetary conditions that support life on Earth. A livable planet thus requires changes in humanity's relation to the rest of nature, which in turn, requires transformation of our economic relationships and the political and economic ideals underpinning them. Specifically, the balance of power between states and markets should be reversed by implementing an enforceable institutional bulwark against market practices that subvert the ecological conditions essential for the secure realization of human rights. These practices enable the powerful to hoard economic opportunities, crowd out sustainable alternatives, extract resources from vulnerable communities, shift environmental and economic burdens, dodge political and market accountability, and hijack public institutions for private purposes.

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9780197756003

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Reviews

The manuscript is extraordinary in its novelty of view, breadth of discussion, detailed scholarship, and ambition. I know of nothing like it, certainly not in philosophy, nothing that takes the Anthropocene itself as the focus of sustained book-length policy discussion... Moreover, it claims that politics and policies that put human rights first are the best, perhaps the only way, to halt political and economic movement towards environmental catastrophe. The centrality and necessity of a human rights approach is novel. * Darrel Moellendorf, Professor of International Political Theory and Professor of Philosophy at Goethe University, Frankfurt * The ecological package of issues that [Powers] lumps together is convincing and makes an important contribution. So many books today are written about one or other of the elements that he identifies, with only a token nod in the direction of the extent to which they are all interdependent. Taking the several 'crises' together provides a solid foundation for his argument that far-reaching and fundamental reforms are needed. * Philip G. Alston, John Norton Pomeroy Professor of Law, New York University School of Law. *

The manuscript is extraordinary in its novelty of view, breadth of discussion, detailed scholarship, and ambition. I know of nothing like it, certainly not in philosophy, nothing that takes the Anthropocene itself as the focus of sustained book-length policy discussion... Moreover, it claims that politics and policies that put human rights first are the best, perhaps the only way, to halt political and economic movement towards environmental catastrophe. The centrality and necessity of a human rights approach is novel. * Darrel Moellendorf, Professor of International Political Theory and Professor of Philosophy at Goethe University, Frankfurt * The ecological package of issues that [Powers] lumps together is convincing and makes an important contribution. So many books today are written about one or other of the elements that he identifies, with only a token nod in the direction of the extent to which they are all interdependent. Taking the several 'crises' together provides a solid foundation for his argument that far-reaching and fundamental reforms are needed. * Philip G. Alston, John Norton Pomeroy Professor of Law, New York University School of Law. * Powers offers a novel and bold approach to climate governance. Many want to score small victories first and then tackle more complex, entrenched issues later. Powers offers a compelling critique of this low hanging fruit approach on both ethical and political grounds. He argues that we must first address the most serious practices that violate safe operating margins and thereby pose the greatest risk of destabilizing planetary systems. His approach is grounded on the priority that should be given to socioeconomic and human rights and structural ecological rights. Powers deftly brings the notions of sustainability, resilience, and social justice together, and shows that the priority targets of climate governance should be those that are the most damaging and unjust. * Bruce Jennings, Vanderbilt University Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society *

Author Information

Madison Powers is Professor Emeritus, Georgetown University, and former Senior Research Scholar in the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, where he served as Director from 2000-2009. He is a Fellow of the Hastings Center, and recipient of a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Investigator Award. He is co-author of two books with Ruth Faden, Social Justice: The Moral Foundations of Public Health and Health Care Policy (OUP, 2006), and Structural Injustice: Power, Advantage, and Human Rights (OUP, 2019). Before his career as a philosopher, he practiced law, primarily in health and environmental law.

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