Affluence and freedom: An environmental history of political ideas
Petra Gümplová
Abstract
Affluence and Freedom by Pierre Charbonnier is an ambitious book aiming to provide a broad and systematic reflection on modern political thought from an environmental perspective. In particular, it is the 'radical singularity' (p. 241) of the climate crisis which determines the book's content and methodology. The alreadythere consequences-the biodiversity extinction, the collapse of other ecosystems, the weather extremes and related human crises of displacement, drought, and flooding-explode, as Charbonnier puts it, 'all strata of modern political reflexivity,' forcing us to redefine our categories of political thought. Climate change is a product of the economic, technological, and political development of the past two centuries. It is a 'historic present' and a 'heritage to bear' (p. 241) resulting from our very own modernity its far-reaching human impact on the natural world it brought about.