Red Emma’s

Capitalism is an ecocidal engine constantly regenerating climate change denial. 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?

Tad DeLay is a philosopher, religion scholar, and interdisciplinary critical theorist. His books include AGAINST: WHAT DOES THE WHITE EVANGELICAL WANT?, THE CYNIC & THE FOOL, and GOD IS UNCONSCIOUS. He is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy in Baltimore.

Meg Berkobien, a Red Emma's worker-owner, is an educator, organizer, & translator interested in mobilizing communities around arts and the environment.