Abstract
The challenge to humanity posed by climate change is on a different scale to that of mere “crisis”. Global warming may be in the form of physical feedback from the rise in anthropogenic greenhouse gases, however, the larger impediment to effective reforms is embedded within the systems of governance. The adoption of a Foucauldian perspective demonstrates that governmentality’s target of the “population”, and its reliance on “political economy”, means that humanity (both present and future) will always be privileged over the environment. Because governmentality constitutes individuals, as well as institutions, and because there is an inertia to all practices of (self-governance), there appears to be no way forward with respect to saving the environment for its own sake.