A Historical Social Science of Modernity's Climate Catastrophe

2023 and 2024 are probably the warmest years humans have ever experienced. We are changing the Earth’s climate in ways that are dangerous for all living beings. Social scientists are responsible for understanding how humans organise their lives. But they have had relatively little to say about climate change. This is even though everything they study and teach will inevitably be negatively affected by climate change. This text is avowedly unorthodox, a tool for students and a concerned public It mixes fact, fiction and prediction to locate climate change at the centre of understanding future social change. A scenario is created where humans survive by ditching both their toxic identity politics and their unsustainable consumption economics. The inherent empathy of most people triumphs in a struggle to make a new kind of civilization.