How to Think Seriously About the Planet book pdf download

Author: Roger Scruton

About the Author: Roger Scruton who has died of lung cancer aged 75, was a philosopher and a controversial public intellectual. Active in the fields of aesthetics, art, music, political philosophy and architecture, both inside and outside the academic world, he dedicated himself to nurturing beauty, “re-enchanting the world” and giving intellectual rigour to conservatism. He wrote more than 50 books, including perceptive works on Spinoza, Kant, Wittgenstein and the history of philosophy, and four novels, as well as columns on wine, hunting and current affairs, and was a talented pianist and composer. A member of the traditionalist-conservative Salisbury Group, he helped found the Salisbury Review, which he edited from 1982 to 2001. This quarterly, which was circulated in the Soviet bloc, often in samizdat form, was criticised in Britain for having retrograde attitudes. In 1984 it defended Ray Honeyford, the Bradford headteacher who had disputed the value of multicultural education. Consequent hostility from colleagues prompted Scruton to abandon in 1992 his professorship in aesthetics at what is now Birkbeck, University of London, where he had started as a lecturer in 1971. Though he felt this had scuppered his academic career, in the event it freed him for activities and adventures on a wider stage.

How to Think Seriously About the Planet book pdf download By Roger Scruton

The environment has long been the undisputed territory of the political Left, which casts international capitalism, consumerism, and the over-exploitation of natural resources as the principle threats to the planet, and sees top-down interventions as the most effective solution. In How to Think Seriously About the Planet, Roger Scruton rejects this view and offers a fresh approach to tackling the most important political problem of our time. The environmental movement, he contends, is philosophically confused and has unrealistic agendas. Its sights are directed at the largescale events and the confrontation between international politics and multinational business. But Scruton argues that no large-scale environmental project, however well-intentioned, will succeed if it is not rooted in small-scale practical reasoning. Seeing things on a large scale promotes top-down solutions, managed by unaccountable bureaucracies that fail to assess local conditions and are rife with unintended consequences. Scruton argues for the greater efficacy of local initiatives over global schemes, civil association over political activism, and small-scale institutions of friendship over regulatory hyper-vigilance. And he suggests that conservatism is far better suited to solving environmental problems than either liberalism or socialism. Rather than entrusting the environment to unwieldy NGOs and international committees, we must assume personal responsibility and foster local control. People must be empowered to take charge of their environment, to care for it as they would a home, and to involve themselves through the kind of local associations that have been the traditional goal of conservative politics. Our common future is by no means assured, but as Roger Scruton clearly demonstrates in this important book, there is a path that can ensure the future safety of our planet and our species.

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