Environmental Change and the World's Futures

The futures discussed in this book primarily arise from awareness of the potentially disruptive impact of climate change and ecological instability on human societies. This book’s framework embraces an appreciation of difference and non-holism, as it is unlikely that one solution to the many disruptive futures perceived throughout the world can be found. Indeed any such ‘one solution’ may increase the disruptive effects found in local situations. Each chapter invites reflection on diverse ways of comprehending global warming and other manifestations of major environmental change, as well as on the forms, and shapers, of agency that influence people’s understanding and response. In order to encourage the appreciation of the different future worlds either imagined and emergent in the present, the scope of the chapters extends beyond the usual geopolitical focus on the North Atlantic world, to encompass Nepal, islands in the Pacific, Sweden, coastal Scotland and remote, regional and urban Australia.