Climate Change Solutions represents an application of critical theory to examine proposed solutions to climate change. Drawing from Marx’s negative conception of ideology, the authors illustrate how ideology continues to conceal the capital-climate contradiction or the fundamental incompatibility between growth-dependent capitalism and effectively and justly mitigating climate change. Dominant solutions to climate change that offer minor changes to the current system fail to address this contradiction. However, alternatives like degrowth involve a shift in priorities and power relations and can offer new systemic arrangements that confront and move beyond the capital-climate contradiction. While there are clear barriers to a systemic transition that prioritizes social and ecological well-being, such a transition is possible and desirable.

As scientists call for widespread climate action, there has been an alarming rise in climate doomism, the belief that it is too late to do anything about climate change. Many people who struggle to imagine the solutions and social order that would be needed to support more sustainable outcomes instead look away and do nothing, immobilized by defeatist thinking. Yet every fraction of a degree of warming avoided means saving lives and livelihoods in the future.

Drawing from climate science, sociology, psychology, and philosophy, Rejecting Climate Doomism outlines the reasons to instead choose action grounded in active hope. It examines how global warming could be effectively limited through specific policy proposals. Despite the many obstacles to achieving some of the policies discussed in this book, they are still possible and worth pursuing. By outlining a positive vision of the far-reaching changes that can be used to minimize warming, the book encourages readers to advocate for the social and economic changes necessary to forge the best path for people and the planet.