When I began a doctoral program in political science in 1998, I chose something other than environmental politics for my professional specialization. Amid occasional bouts of regret, it took two decades for my research agenda to take a serious turn toward climate change. Other Generation X (and older) scholars can also attest that the physical forces of atmospheric destabilization move minds as well as matter.

Two recent books on the politics of climate change may be symptomatic of generational change. At first blush, they could hardly be more divergent in approach. While Climate Change as Political Catastrophe: Before Collapse, by Ross Mittiga, is an academic monograph, Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism, by Thea Riofrancos, is a trade book. But both works engage classic dilemmas of justice and necessity, and both are rooted in painstaking research across an astonishing range of knowledge domains.

Mittiga's book is a strong example of empirically embedded normative theory. The central argument (in Chapter 2) holds that climate change, by posing a credible threat of political catastrophe, presents reasons for downgrading considerations of fairness in policy-making. The imperative of avoiding catastrophe further entails (in Chapter 3) that some authoritarian policies or institutions may have stronger claims to legitima