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Description:
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Climate Capitalism is a pragmatic response to a messy problem. To rewire our economy in time to head off disaster, the left and right need to throw out a bunch of comfortable assumptions. The idea that we're going to jettison capitalism itself is as absurd as it sounds. We need high finance. And market forces. Yet both must be tamed. Unbridled market forces make for great toys and factories but will take us straight off the climate cliff. Not everything can be valued in money or commerce. Some things have worth that can't be contained in a spreadsheet: the human spirit, our place in the world, values and ethics, our planet itself.
The current intellectual trend claims all of human activity can be captured in value-free quantitative analysis. That view is false. We can't speak to the climate issue without the deep, reflective language of moral philosophy. Intergenerational justice is not measured by what economists call the "discount rate." The value of nature -- the Amazonian rainforest, biodiversity, healthy watersheds -- is not captured by estimating their monetary value. Our deeper qualitative concerns must bend (not bend to) the forces of commerce to be effective. Commerce is the tool, human values the force -- not vice versa.
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