Climate Crisis and Climate Realism

Toronto — 29 October 2015.

Mass migration, civil war, banditry, imperial military adventures – all these are current responses to the climate crisis. These and other impending dislocations from climate change intersect with the already-existing crises of poverty and violence in “catastrophic convergence” that demands immediate action and longer-term social change. What is the relation between the reformist project of short-term emissions redactions and a longer-term struggle to create a sustainable political economy?

Christian Parenti, journalist and professor at New York University, discusses these and other questions in a public lecture that draws from his current research into economic and environmental history and upon his book Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence which involved years of travel and reportage in conflict zone and climate frontlines around the world.

Christian Parenti has a PhD in sociology from the London School of Economics and is a professor in the Global Liberal Studies Program at New York University. His latest book, Tropic of Chaos, explores how climate change is already causing violence as it interacts with the legacies of economic neoliberalism and cold-war militarism.

This event was co-sponsored by Centre for Social Justice, Socialist Project, Chair in Comparative Political Economy at York, Rising Tide Toronto.