Notes on Climate Leviathan

¿Pescarás tú al leviatán con un anzuelo
o sujetándole la lengua con una cuerda?
¿Le pondrías una soga en las narices?
¿Perforarías con un garfio su quijada?
¿Multiplicará ruegos él delante de ti?
¿Te hablará con palabras lisonjeras?
¿Hará un pacto contigo
para que lo tomes por esclavo para siempre?
¿Jugarás con él como con un pájaro?
¿Lo atarás para tus niñas?
¿Harán banquete con él los compañeros?
¿Lo repartirán entre los mercaderes?
¿Cortarás tú con cuchillo su piel,
o con arpón de pescadores su cabeza?
Pon tu mano sobre él:
recordarás luego la lucha y no volverás a hacerlo.
En cuanto a él, toda esperanza queda burlada,
porque aun a su sola vista la gente se desmaya.
Y nadie hay tan osado que lo despierte;
¿quién podrá permanecer delante de mí?
Porque ¿quién me ha dado a mí primero, para que yo restituya?
¡Todo lo que hay debajo del cielo es mío!

Let’s tackle this one, thesis by thesis! I’ll paraphrase the main theses of the book as qoutes, and preface them with CL.

You’ll also find stray notes at the end.

Main theses

CL: Climate change is not a minor issue in politics.

I tend to agree. Climate change is the direct consequence of using fossil fuels as the blood of Capitalism. It is, in fact, the root cause of the existence of Capitalism itself, it’s very beginning cause in the XIXth century, the primary input in our vouracious machine. Anything having to do with fossil fuels IS political, insofar as it is the basis of our economical structures, which sustent our liberal democracies.

CL: We live in the material realization of Walter Benjamin’s VIII thesis on hitory: “the state of emergency in which we live is the rule. […] it is our task to bring about the real state of emergency”. That is: the paradigm of security as the normal technique of government.

Agree, in several ways actually: mostly in the abstract sense of security.

CL: the climate crisis is not “unmanageable”. It’s being managed: extremely poorly, by fossil capitalism.

… And that’s the key because that means we can act. In this we agree.

CL: Most discussed authors (eg Klein) agree on the basis of climate change (scientifically) and it’s terrible consequences… and disagree on everything else

CL: Hannah Arendt identifies denationatization (in the context of WWI) as an entry point of totalitarism in Europe, as powerful bureaucratic despotic powers disappear and leave countless subregional new nations with mutual quarrels behind. This echos the potential status of the climate refugee in future polities.

I think this is a bit of a hit and miss remark, specially since the authors will claim later that we are in a centrifugue concentration of power (more on my problems with that later).

[TBD]

Stray Notes