CLIMATE REPARATIONS
with Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò 

For its June event, the maat Climate Collective has invited Georgetown University Philosophy Professor Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò to discuss his research concerns related to climate reparations. How might we consider, and work towards, the emergence of reparatory futures in the aftermath of colonialism and trans-Atlantic slavery, even as we struggle simultaneously with the inequalities and disproportionate impacts of contemporary climate breakdown? How might carbon removal, more than a mere neoliberal technofix, function as a means of repairing the past harms of environmental violence, or as a mode of restoring relationships in new fair and equitable worlds? The Climate Collective will discuss these and other pressing subjects related to the contemporary climate emergency.

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò’s work draws on the Black radical tradition, contemporary philosophy of language, contemporary social science, German transcendental philosophy, materialist thought, and histories of activism and activist thinkers. He is currently writing a book entitled Reconsidering Reparations that puts forward a “constructive” philosophical argument for reparations, one that emphasizes self-determination rooted in historically informed perspectives on distributive and environmental justice. He also writes public philosophy, including articles exploring the intersections between climate justice and colonialism.