Ethics for the Coming Storm Climate Change and Jewish Thought

How can we come to understand our existence on this earth, surrounded by air and light and water, while living in a place we deliberately and carelessly abuse, where resources are becoming scarce, and where the well-being and basic health of our neighbors is threatened? In Ethics for the Coming Storm, Laurie Zoloth argues that our debates about environmental issues have largely been driven by the language of economics and political power, and have become both deeply divisive and symbolic, turning our differing truth claims and moral appeals into signs of identity. This discourse has utterly failed to change the human behavior or political and economic structures necessary to face global warming head on. So Zoloth turns to another language, found in the texts and traditions of Jewish thought--the language of Scripture, the Talmud, and philosophy of Judaism--which, she contends, offers a different kind of argument for such a change. In fact, Zoloth claims, the traditions, histories, and texts of Jewish thought address precisely the sort of existential crisis that we now face, and thus deepen and enrich our public discourse about what to do, and who to be.

This book uses a careful attention to rabbinic and philosophical sources in Jewish thought to provide a novel framework through which we can reassess the choices we make that affect our climate, our environment, and our social structures.

Laurie Zoloth holds the Margaret E. Burton Professor of Religion and Ethics Chair at the University of Chicago. She is the past president of the American Academy of Religion and of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities. She is the recipient of numerous awards for her teaching and research in bioethics and has served on international ethics advisory boards for NASA, the NIH, HHMI, and the CDC. She is the author of nine books and over 200 articles.

Introduction: Lightning from a Distant Storm

Chapter 1. The Coming Storm: An Introduction to our Situation

Chapter 2. The Promises of Exile: Diaspora as Ontology

Chapter 3. Making a Place: Lisbon and the Narrative of Disaster

Chapter 4. Risky Hospitality: Ordinal Ethics and the Duties of Abundance

Chapter 5. At the Last Well on Earth: Climate Change as a Feminist Issue

Chapter 6. Strangers on the Train: Moral Luck and Problem of Responsibility

Chapter 7. Bad Guys: Amalek and the Production of Doubt

Chapter 8. You Must Interrupt Your Life

Chapter 9. Conclusion