Neoliberal (Mis)Management of Earth-Time and the Ethics of Climate Justice

Abstract

In this chapter I will argue that present day forms of economic accounting and management are changing the public and private representation of costs and benefits of consumption and production activities, including those which impact on climate change and energy use. I These foster a culture focused on near-term quantitative targets instead of attending to the intrinsic goods of production and service activities. The resultant short-termist mentality has notable impacts on the ecological sustainability of public and private investments. In this study of faith-based climate activism I show that individuals and communities who commit to ecologically sustainable activities do so primarily not from an accounting frame of near term risks and benefits. Instead they act because of their knowledge of the impacts of climate change on already existing persons, including farmers in developing countries, or climate risks for their own children and grandchildren. This relational frame for responding to environmental risks arguably has more cultural power in fostering sustainability than the narrowly quantitative cost benefit frame fostered by economic neoliberalism.