Carbon Metrics: Global abstractions and ecological epistemicide

The environmental crisis is real, urgent, and of global reach and significance. Climate change is framed as the largest threat. But this threat is seen almost exclusively as a problem of too much CO2 emissions. Is climate change more important and more urgent than the loss of biodiversity, the degradation of arable soils, or the depletion of fresh water? Can any of these phenomena even be considered in isolation from each other?

This paper argues that the way we describe and frame a problem very much predetermines the kinds of solutions and answers we seek, e.g. carbon-centric mode creates and even destroys knowledge at the same time. The authors of this essay invite the readers to take a step back and brush climate policy against the nap.

With an introductory preface by Wolfgang Sachs.