What's Left of Philosophy
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87 | The Politics of Left-Wing Climate Realism w/ Dr. Ajay Singh Chaudhary
🕑 Added 2024-04-17 10:00:09 +0000 UTCIn this episode, we are joined by Ajay Chaudhary to discuss his book The Exhausted of the Earth: Politics in a Burning World and the political, economic, and affective sites of exhaustion reproduced through climate degradation. We examine the expanding colonial relations of what Chaudhary calls the “extractive circuit” between the both the Global South and Global North as well as widening segments of the working classes in the Global North. We dispel fantasies of both the hope that climate change will automatically unify a coherent politics for a just transition and the fear of a human apocalypse. Given this, what would a left-wing climate realism look like as opposed to burgeoning forms of right-wing climate realism that aims to extract and protect as much wealth as possible for a vanishingly small minority? Much of our conversation concerns the role of temporality in our politics and the imperative not to wait for the future to solve our climate crises. Turns out waiting for Greta Thunberg to solve all our problems is a poor strategy!
leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil
thebrooklyninstitute.com | @materialist_jew
References:
Ajay Singh Chaudhary, “We’re Not in This Together,” The Baffler (2020) https://thebaffler.com/salvos/were-not-in-this-together-chaudhary
Ajay Singh Chaudhary, The Exhausted of the Earth: Politics in a Burning World (London: Repeater Books, 2024).
Music:
“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com
“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN
Comments
Neil C
Resilience is capitalism's bumper sticker
Philip M
Holy hell some actual climate politics real talk? I must be tripping.
