Climate Change and Freedom

• Main Author: Mustafa, Artan
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för geovetenskaper 2011
• Subjects: Sustainable Development; Climate; Discourse; Democracy; Community; Population; Freedom; Individual; Human Rights; Economy; Planning; Authoritarianism; Reform; Revolution
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-163167

This paper examines the relation between climate change discourse and freedom which is held both as a self-evident value and a vital attribute for modern democracy. I argue that the discourse refutes individual freedom. It does so both through the goals and ends it promotes as well as the solutions it puts forward to achieve them, in other words through means, in the areas of economy, rights and political organization which reduce choices and diminish space of action for individuals. It opens the path to authoritarian regimes and the like by disempowering people in the name of natural order. This and other anomalies within the discourse make it the opposite of what it pretends to be - a revolutionary one; at least, unless it solves the question of freedom that resembles human nature.