A végidők. Klímaváltozás és világtörténelem
The End Times: Climate Change and World History

Summary/Abstract: Global climate change threatens with the obliteration of humanity as a species. The factual possibility of perishing not by weapons of our making, but rather by the hand of the planet that refuses to tolerate us any longer, so to speak, necessitates opening up new perspectives in the philosophy of history. In my paper I argue that a proper understanding of the significance of the challenge of climate change as well as an adequate answer to it is possible only if we radically reinterpret world history and its relationship to natural history. I critically examine two inadequate approaches: the first is a progressivist view of history that underpins an optimist stance towards climate change, claiming that the mere exercise of our rational powers guarantees that its challenge will be overcome; the other is what I call an apocalyptic view characteristic of many social ecologist and eco-Marxist theories, which acknowledge that climate change may cause massive crises, but, in an apocalyptic vein, they insist that these crises are the potential moments of deliverance after which society will be radically reorganized and an era of harmony and prosperity will ensue. Instead of these untenable approaches I propose a view based on the consideration that human history is an essentially temporary, finite moment within natural history; human existence is characterized by a fundamental fragility and vulnerability, not only on the individual, but also on the world historical level. Global climate change highlights this fact, and should prompt us to reconsider our views on world history as well as on ourselves in light of what I call an ethics of fragility.

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