Recent wildfires, record heat waves, and flooding are reminders of the effects of climate change in our daily lives. As the number of natural disasters increases, many people (including this scholar) experience a generalized feeling of hopelessness, especially considering that discussions on how to prevent climate change have been happening since the 1970s with minimal results. Why hasn’t humanity made substantial progress in confronting climate change or generally making things better? Adrienne Buller's The Value of a Whale contributes to this discussion by calling attention to dominant—and ineffective—climate solutions.
The Value of a Whale tackles the following question: how are we so far from meeting the minimal limits of safety when it comes to environmental crises? Through seven chapters, Buller’s investigations reveal two categories of failures: 1) systems, ideas, and political-legal architectures that lead to inequality and ecological harm; and 2) false or maladaptive solutions that emerge from the failing systems, ideas, and political-legal architectures. Although the first category is discussed as the book's foundation, Buller's analysis focuses on a concept that falls into the second category: green capitalism.
Through detailed analyses of the designs and results of many “environmental” initiatives such as carbon pricing and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) funds, Buller shows that, more than being an inefficient approach to mitigating climate change, green capitalism actually distracts us from developing and adopting effective solutions while also wasting the limited time and resources we have. Through a deep and precise data-based discussion of capitalism and financial and social systems, Buller shows how environmental crises developed and why we still struggle to implement realistic solutions to deal with them. The themes discussed are complex, but Buller avoids jargon and keeps the book interesting for general audiences.
The book is transformative. It dismantles the idea that markets can solve society's problems. It is hard to believe that someone, after reading this book, would still consider markets the best way out of the current crisis. The Value of a Whale opens readers’ eyes to the futility of the most dominant market solutions to climate change and the illusions of green capitalism.
The Value of a Whale deserves the 2024 Eric Zencey Prize for Ecological Economics, and it deserves a place in the syllabi of introduction to economics classes and on the bookshelves of people who care about solving the climate crisis.
