Migration and Climate Change

4Norms and Diversity in Climate Change

4.1. Climate change and normativity

4.1.1. Normativity and resilience

Contemporary climate change can be placed in the series of major axial transformations provided by Jaspers-Lambert. The great forms of human culture provide “mastery and accomplishment”, but this “for better or for worse from a normative point of view” ([LAM 14], p.27). Among these great transformations, some are corrections to earlier conceptions. Thus, one of the previous major transitions was the appearance of sacrificial societies, then another axial transition, that of religions of the Book, introduced moderation into sacrifice, the Angel stopping the stabbing of Abraham, for example. In the same way, the Industrial Revolution and contemporary climate change have followed on logically from each other. Before the Industrial Revolution, the use of coal was only sporadic, most often when a period of extreme cold necessitated recourse to exceptional means, such as burning coal itself. The massive use of fossil fuels was one of the main characteristics of the Industrial Revolution, and this is challenged by contemporary climate change due to the disruption of the climate resulting from the overabundant emissions from greenhouse gases.

Are these major cultural transitions associated with improvements in resilience? Nothing could be less certain. The nature of the consequences being suffered is changing: the current climate and natural events are being replaced by the ...