COVID19 and Climate Change

For several years Geoff Mann has been thinking about the political-economic and geopolitical futures that might emerge in world subject to extreme climate change (especially in collaboration with Joel Wainwright). While the urgency of the climate challenge has not diminished, the coronavirus pandemic, and the wide range of responses on the part of various states and national economies, has obviously taken centre stage. Some are even calling it a “dress rehearsal” for a climate change — if, for example, global ecology were to pass some threshold or tipping point. I am not sure the parallels are so clear, but COVID-19 definitely provides a new lens, and new material, with which to take account of where we might be headed. This discussion will begin with an introduction to the ideas presented in Geoff's book,Climate Leviathan, with some more recent updated reflections, and then turn to the lessons the pandemic might (or might not) have to teach us about how to prepare for life an increasingly hot planet.