Climate Leviathan

The Political Challenge of Global Warming
Convened by Fred Murphy and Steve Knight

How will anthropogenic climate disruption transform alter the world’s basic political arrangements? In their new book Climate Leviathan, Geoff Mann and Joel Wainwright warn that global warming will push capitalist elites toward an authoritarian imposition of “planetary sovereignty” to confront the crisis. In this four-week reading group we will examine their argument and the alternative they present: “a global, grassroots, and broad-based network … driven by a desire for a deeper form of democracy, one that provides communities with real control over those resources that are most critical to collective survival—the health of the water, air, and soil.”

FRED MURPHY has co-led several MEP study groups on Marxism, science, nature, and ecosocialism. He studied and taught historical sociology at the New School for Social Research. STEVE KNIGHT has participated in and co-led MEP study groups on ecosocialism since 2015. His review of Shock of the Anthropocene is forthcoming in the journal Marx & Philosophy.