NDPR Ross Mittiga Climate Change as Political Catastrophe: Before Collapse

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Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

2025.11.2 View this Review Online View Other NDPR Reviews

Ross Mittiga, Climate Change as Political Catastrophe: Before Collapse, Oxford University Press, 2024, 160pp., $105.00 (hbk) ISBN 9780192868879.

Reviewed by Matthias Brinkmann, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

The core argument of this book is simple and challenging. First, if one cares about core political values such as justice, legitimacy, or the rule of law, then one should attempt to avoid political catastrophe, which is the “loss of the conditions that make justice and political stability possible” (2). Political catastrophe, in turn, is “characterized foremost by a state of extreme material scarcity, in which one can only meet one’s basic needs by denying another (or others) the ability to do the same” (28). Second, climate change increases the risk of political catastrophe, both on a global and a...