Reason in a Dark Time

Reviews / Votes

[I]t's the first book to be fully honest about climate change, it's the one book on the subject that stands a chance of not depressing you. It may even change your life. * Jonathan Franzen, The Guardian * Jamieson's book is a compelling, sophisticated, and highly learned contribution to climate scholarship written for an interdisciplinary and more general audience. In style, it is characteristically clear, well organized, and incisive yet suffused with a warm, humane sensibility and good humor. It is not afraid to make suggestive comments and signal broad programmatic change. In content, the book contains magisterial overviews of the history of the climate problem, climate economics, and obstacles to action. * Ethics * A book that does justice to the full tragedy and weird comedy of climate change is Reason in a Dark Time, by the philosopher Dale Jamieson. Ordinarily, I avoid books on the subject, but a friend recommended it to me last summer, and I was intrigued by its subtitle, "Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed-And What It Means for Our Future"; by the word "failed" in particular, the past tense of it. I started reading and couldn't stop...I'd expected to be depressed by Reason in a Dark Time but I wasn't. Part of what's mesmerizing about climate change is its vastness across both space and time. Jamieson, by elucidating our past failures and casting doubt on whether we'll ever do any better, situates it within a humanely scaled context. * Jonathan Franzen, The New Yorker * He has a gift for translating complexities into simple, often arresting terms, and is able to make even familiar material seem fresh ...The result is a book that is uncommonly accessible to nonspecialists, and will resonate even among those working in the trenches of climate policy, for whom works of pure philosophy often seem somewhat beside the point ... This is sound advice not only for economists but for anyone writing about climate change. Reason in a Dark Time succeeds so well because Jamieson, with very few exceptions, practices what he preaches. * Ethics and International Affairs * An invaluable contribution to the dialogue about how to minimize the inevitable social and environmental devastation that looms large in our future. * Booklist * Jamieson's ethical approach deserves serious consideration, especially since it manages to take our relationship with nature seriously while avoiding the debate about whether the value in nature is intrinsic or instrumental ... wide-ranging and ambitious ... * Ewan Kingston, Journal of Applied Philosophy * This book is a must read by all who wish to bring reason to the challenges [of climate change] we are going to face very soon, whether we want to or not... * Green Energy Times * Jamieson provides a wide-ranging account, looking at the lack of political incentives to act and at the influence of organised climate denial ... Jamieson concludes with some observations about things we can definitely do for the better right away (abandon coal), and with shrewd reflections on living with the knowledge that we flunked the climate test. * Times Higher Education * Part requiem for our failed hopes and part vision for our uncertain future, this remarkably far-ranging work by the philosopher who has thought longest and hardest about climate change could inspire fruitfully radical reassessment of our attitudes toward the most far-reaching challenge of our lifetimes. The climate is changing -- can we? * Henry Shue, Centre for International Studies, University of Oxford * A highly informative, wise, and thought-provoking discussion of some of the greatest problems that humanity faces, and of some possible solutions. * Derek Parfit, All Souls College, Oxford * Dale Jamieson is a philosopher and a realist. He was been working on climate change for a quarter of a century, alongside both scientists and policy makers. He argues that we are heading down a dangerous road and will likely have to face a much more difficult world. But he also argues that there is so much we can do individually and collectively to make a difference, and warns that the best must not be the enemy of the good. This is a very thoughtful and valuable book and should be read by all those who would wish to bring reason to a defining challenge of our century. * Professor Lord Nicholas Stern * No one but Dale Jamieson could write an eminently readable book about climate change that ranges over the full sweep of the problem from the historical to the ethical, the scientific to the political. By placing this vexing issue into the broader context of the human condition, Jamieson guides the reader's mood from pessimism to optimism, and finally realism about our prospects. * Michael Oppenheimer, Albert G. Milbank Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs, Princeton University *