Eleven Antitheses on Cities and States: Challenging the Mindscape of Chronology and Chorography in Anthropogenic Climate Change

Taylor, Peter, O'Brien, Geoff and O'Keefe, Phil (2016) Eleven Antitheses on Cities and States: Challenging the Mindscape of Chronology and Chorography in Anthropogenic Climate Change. ACME: International E-Journal for Critical Geographies, 15 (2). pp. 393-417. ISSN 1492-9732

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Abstract

Our basic argument is that we should be thinking in trans-modern ways when considering how to react to anthropogenic climate change. Showing that mainstream approaches to climate change theory and policymaking are overtly modern, we identify this as a mindscape inherently constrained by its particular chronology and chorography. Our contribution to necessary trans-modern thinking is a presentation of eleven basic and widely accepted theses on modern chronology and chorography that we contest through antitheses, which we argue are more suited to engaging with anthropogenic climate change. These support a consumption argument for urban demand being the crucial generator of climate for 8,000 years in direct contradiction to the production argument that greenhouse gases are the crucial generator of climate change for 200 years. The modern policymaking focus on curbing carbon emissions is thus fundamentally flawed - merely feeding energy for continuing an accelerating global consumption in a different way that is only marginally more climate-friendly. Reflecting on the antitheses, we conclude by discussing the difficulties of translating trans-modern ideas into political action.

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