Even if Bill McKibben were to become dictator, future generations would suffer because of the carbon we had already emitted.

The erosion of agency has consequences for our politics. As a result of all this, the fundamental ethical challenge of the anthropocene is the recovery of agency, or alternatively to come to terms with its loss and to understand how to go on.

The Enlightenment is not a nightmare, nor is it something that comes easily to us. It is an aspiration - and a good one!

When it comes to climate change it's all the usual barriers: greed, mendacity, ignorance, short-sightedness and so on, manifest in the extreme power of corporations, the weakness of government, and the indifference of citizens.

In this era of globalization we are witnessing struggles within individual states about what their identity and interests consist in.

We live in a world in which everyone wants solutions. But we can't find solutions if we don't understand the problems, and we can't understand the problems without knowing how we got here.

The Enlightenment dream is a good one. The idea that people should rationally appreciate their place in nature, assess threats and possibilities, and regulate their behavior in response is inspiring.