Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores the issue of culpability for climate change, commonly described as a product of human activity. It examines the production of climate change and its corporate and political denial or confusing complication intended to mislead the public. The book also examines the tendency of social elites in the existing world economic system to treat the environment as a limitless resource and dumping ground for the by-products of manufacture and use, including CO₂, other greenhouse gases, and black carbon. It focuses on the ideology and election politics of climate change denial. The book examines the socioeconomic roots and strategies of the quintessential expression of the social inequalities exposed by climate change. It reviews the arguments of climate change deniers, assesses the ways social elites impose many of the uncalculated costs of climate change on poor and working people.