Environment as Meta-capability: Why a Dignified Human Life Requires a Stable Climate System

Holland, Breena

doi:10.7551/mitpress/9780262017534.003.0008

Cited by 21 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…These functionings are basic to human activity: living to a full life, engaging in meaningful social interaction, engaging in productive and fulfilling employment, political participation. We might add to this list the importance of having a place to call home (Holland, 2012;Schlossberg, 2012). Of course, insofar as we operate within a Senian framework, all of these are subject to and dependent on the negotiations of what a community takes to be necessary for the achievement of a good life.…”

Section: Capabilities and Ideals Of The Good Lifementioning

confidence: 98%

Sourcing Stability in a Time of Climate Change

Shockley¹,

Light²

2014

Environmental Values

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Anthropogenic climate change poses a direct and imminent threat to the stability of modern society. Recent reports of the probable consequences of climate change paint a grim picture; they describe a world environmentally much less stable than the world to which we have become accustomed. As we begin to adapt to our changing climate, we will need to identify new sources for the stability necessary for a flourishing society. I suggest that this stability should come from the ideals of the good life we seek to promote when we focus on capabilities, on the substantial freedoms humans need to flourish. These ideals serve as a stable foundation for well-being in a time of great environmental and social instability; they should serve as guides for our policies, practices and institutions. I conclude by appealing to capabilities as a means of integrating well-being into our adaptation strategies, and show how doing so may well provide a way of formulating a powerful moral justification for adaptation strategies appropriate for both the developed and the developing world.

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Section: Capabilities and Ideals Of The Good Lifementioning

confidence: 98%

Sourcing Stability in a Time of Climate Change

Shockley¹,

Light²

2014

Environmental Values

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“…This suggests a need to not only measure vulnerability but also to account for its uneven production, which leads to important questions regarding political and economic inequality (Malm and Esmailian, 2013). In similar fashion, Holland (2008Holland ( , 2012 has developed the 'capabilities approach' of Martha Nussbaum, which attempts to define the minimum requirements for ''a life in which the basic conditions of human flourishing are available'' (Holland, 2012: 152). Intrinsic to the ability to attain this, suggests Holland, is a healthy and sustainable ecosystem.…”

Section: Vulnerabilitymentioning

confidence: 98%

A social justice framing of climate change discourse and policy: Adaptation, resilience and vulnerability in a Jamaican agricultural landscape

2016

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“…As a matter of principle, people should have the right to remain living where they choose to, and so this suggests that a right to adaptation in place is as important as a right to migration (135,153). Capabilities, rights, and freedoms, such as the capacity for reason enhanced by education, the capacity to work that is enabled by health care and the right to work, and rights to social security and suffrage, are also essential determinants of adaptive capacity, as they enable people to respond in ways that suit their needs and values (154)(155)(156). For example, when their freedom of mobility is restricted pastoralists fare less well during droughts (157).…”

Section: Freedom Choice and Demographic Futuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mobile Worlds: Choice at the Intersection of Demographic and Environmental Change

Barnett

Adger

2018

Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour.

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Research on environmental change has often focused on changes in population as a significant driver of unsustainability and environmental degradation. Demographic pessimism and limited engagement with demographic realities underpin many arguments concerning limits to growth, environmental refugees, and environment-related conflicts. Re-engagement between demographic and environmental sciences has led to greater understanding of the interactions between the size, composition, and distribution of populations and exposure to environmental risks and contributions to environmental burdens. We review the results of this renewed and far more nuanced research frontier, focusing in particular on the way demographic trends affect exposure, sensitivity, and adaptation to environmental change. New research has explained how migration systems interact with environmental challenges in individual decisions and in globally aggregate flows. Here we integrate analysis on demographic and environmental risks that often share a root cause in limited social freedoms and opportunities. We argue for a capabilities approach to promoting sustainable solutions for a more mobile world.

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Environment as Meta-capability: Why a Dignified Human Life Requires a Stable Climate System

Cited by 21 publications

References 16 publications

Sourcing Stability in a Time of Climate Change

Sourcing Stability in a Time of Climate Change

A social justice framing of climate change discourse and policy: Adaptation, resilience and vulnerability in a Jamaican agricultural landscape

Mobile Worlds: Choice at the Intersection of Demographic and Environmental Change

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