Automobility: Global Warming as Symptomatology

Gary Backhaus
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Gary Backhaus: Loyola College in Maryland, Department of Philosophy, 4501 N. Charles St., Baltimore, Maryland 21210-2699, USA

Sustainability, 2009, vol. 1, issue 2, 1-22

Abstract: The argument of this paper is that sustainability requires a new worldview-paradigm. It critically evaluates Gore’s liberal-based environmentalism in order to show how “shallow ecologies” are called into question by deeper ecologies. This analysis leads to the notion that global warming is better understood as a symptom indicative of the worldview that is the source for environmental crises. Heidegger’s ontological hermeneutics and its critique of modern technology show that the modern worldview involves an enframing (a totalizing technological ordering) of the natural. Enframing reveals entities as standing reserve (on demand energy suppliers). My thesis maintains that enframing is geographically expressed as automobility. Because of the energy needs used to maintain automobility, reaching the goal of sustainability requires rethinking the spatial organization of life as a function of stored energy technologies.

Keywords: Global warming; symptomatology; automobility; sustainability; enframing; standing reserve; unearthed; unrootedness; leveled; de-geographication; respectful humility; uprootedness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
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