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Climate Ethics: Essential Readings
This collection gathers a set of seminal papers from the emerging area of ethics and climate change. Topics covered include human rights, international justice, intergenerational ethics, individual responsibility, climate economics, and the ethics of geoengineering. Climate Ethics is intended to serve as a source book for general reference, and for university courses that include a focus on the human dimensions of climate change. It should be of broad interest to all those concerned with global justice, environmental science and policy, and the future of humanity.
368 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 2010
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March 23, 2015
Climate Ethics: Essential Readings is a collection of stand-alone essays on ethical problems of climate change. The essay-model brings in many perspectives, making for a dynamic reading, but at the cost of significant repetition of the basic facts and ethical dilemmas. Therefore, I suggest reading only the following essays:
*Chp.1 Ethics and Global Climate Change - Stephen M. Gardiner
A succinct overview of why climate change poses a moral problem. It considers some of the most basic arguments given to deemphasize climate change, including the perils of how certain individuals (Bjorn Lomborg) have eschewed the ethical difficulties and uncertainties contained in integrated-assessment models.
*Chp.2 The Economics of Climate Change - Nicolas Stern
Nicolas Stern of the famed 2007 Stern report on climate change is a leading climate-economist. The piece includes an excellent discussion on the choice of social discount rates for integrated-assessment models, particularly contrasting his choice of a social discount rate with those of Nordhaus.
*Chp.4 A Perfect Moral Storm - Stephen Gardiner
A condensed version of Gardiner's full-length book on climate ethics of the same name. Climate change presents global, intergenerational, and theoretical problems. The combination of these problems poses a serious issue of moral corruption: "Its complexity may turn out to be *perfectly convenient* for us, the current generation, and indeed for each successor generation as it comes to occupy our position. For one thing, it provides each generation with the cover under which it can seem to be taking the issue seriously-by negotiating weak and largely substanceless global accords, for example, and then heralding them as great achievements- when really is is simply exploiting its temporal position. For another thing, all of this can occur without the exploitative generation actually having to acknowledge that this is what it is doing. By avoiding overtly selfish behavior, an earlier generation can take advantage of the future without the unpleasantness of admitting it - either to others, or perhaps more important, to itself." p.95
*Chp.10 One Atmosphere - Peter Singer
Peter Singer gives the most succinct answers to the well-attended question in the book of how emissions should be rationed. He presents several approaches to determining emissions limits: historic responsibility, equal per capita shares, aiding the worst off, and a pure utilitarian approach. These end up resulting in roughly the same outcome: the developed states ought to pay for the majority of climate mitigation and adaptation. Practically, using an equal per-capita emissions approach tied to projected 2050 populations is the only scheme that may be approved by developing countries in global agreements, and is more lenient towards the developed countries than other approaches.
*Chp.12 Greenhouse Development Rights - Paul Baer, et al.
Greenhouse Development Rights is a framework for emissions allocations, which considers both capacity and responsibility for past emissions in determining the allocation. A unique contribution is that it consider inequality within countries, recognizing that we may want to join a minimal emissions-level with responsibility, especially if we are to try to reach the now-difficult 2C target without seriously limiting the worlds poor.
*Chp.16 Is "Arming the Future" with Geoengineering Really the Lesser Evil? - Stephen Gardiner
Stephen Gardiner deconstructs the "Arming the Future" argument frequently used to support geoengineering research. Political practicality and moral considerations of geoengineering are fatally absent in support for geoengineering research, lending itself to the moral corruption problem. From this, Gardiner presents several challenges that need to be met when considering a viable geoengineering research agenda.
These choices reflect my preference for a quantitative, collectivist treatment of climate ethics instead of individualist, deontological/contractarian approaches. The latter approach is present in Part III of the book if that interests you.
Climate change is a massive collective action problem, dwarfing the prisoners dilemma. Absent from the book were how to address collective action problems of this scale, specifically how to deal with rogue state actors and their citizens (the developed countries) who continue underwhelming efforts to address the challenge. Also missing were specific adaptation challenges: droughts, disease, natural disasters, and the resulting refugees. Expected mitigation from delta areas and small, low-lying island states pose a new problem to international politics, and there was no consideration of what refuge duties the developed countries may have.
Overall, the essays are great material for a discussion on climate ethics, and help bring much-needed moral clarity to the policy-response debate.
*Chp.1 Ethics and Global Climate Change - Stephen M. Gardiner
A succinct overview of why climate change poses a moral problem. It considers some of the most basic arguments given to deemphasize climate change, including the perils of how certain individuals (Bjorn Lomborg) have eschewed the ethical difficulties and uncertainties contained in integrated-assessment models.
*Chp.2 The Economics of Climate Change - Nicolas Stern
Nicolas Stern of the famed 2007 Stern report on climate change is a leading climate-economist. The piece includes an excellent discussion on the choice of social discount rates for integrated-assessment models, particularly contrasting his choice of a social discount rate with those of Nordhaus.
*Chp.4 A Perfect Moral Storm - Stephen Gardiner
A condensed version of Gardiner's full-length book on climate ethics of the same name. Climate change presents global, intergenerational, and theoretical problems. The combination of these problems poses a serious issue of moral corruption: "Its complexity may turn out to be *perfectly convenient* for us, the current generation, and indeed for each successor generation as it comes to occupy our position. For one thing, it provides each generation with the cover under which it can seem to be taking the issue seriously-by negotiating weak and largely substanceless global accords, for example, and then heralding them as great achievements- when really is is simply exploiting its temporal position. For another thing, all of this can occur without the exploitative generation actually having to acknowledge that this is what it is doing. By avoiding overtly selfish behavior, an earlier generation can take advantage of the future without the unpleasantness of admitting it - either to others, or perhaps more important, to itself." p.95
*Chp.10 One Atmosphere - Peter Singer
Peter Singer gives the most succinct answers to the well-attended question in the book of how emissions should be rationed. He presents several approaches to determining emissions limits: historic responsibility, equal per capita shares, aiding the worst off, and a pure utilitarian approach. These end up resulting in roughly the same outcome: the developed states ought to pay for the majority of climate mitigation and adaptation. Practically, using an equal per-capita emissions approach tied to projected 2050 populations is the only scheme that may be approved by developing countries in global agreements, and is more lenient towards the developed countries than other approaches.
*Chp.12 Greenhouse Development Rights - Paul Baer, et al.
Greenhouse Development Rights is a framework for emissions allocations, which considers both capacity and responsibility for past emissions in determining the allocation. A unique contribution is that it consider inequality within countries, recognizing that we may want to join a minimal emissions-level with responsibility, especially if we are to try to reach the now-difficult 2C target without seriously limiting the worlds poor.
*Chp.16 Is "Arming the Future" with Geoengineering Really the Lesser Evil? - Stephen Gardiner
Stephen Gardiner deconstructs the "Arming the Future" argument frequently used to support geoengineering research. Political practicality and moral considerations of geoengineering are fatally absent in support for geoengineering research, lending itself to the moral corruption problem. From this, Gardiner presents several challenges that need to be met when considering a viable geoengineering research agenda.
These choices reflect my preference for a quantitative, collectivist treatment of climate ethics instead of individualist, deontological/contractarian approaches. The latter approach is present in Part III of the book if that interests you.
Climate change is a massive collective action problem, dwarfing the prisoners dilemma. Absent from the book were how to address collective action problems of this scale, specifically how to deal with rogue state actors and their citizens (the developed countries) who continue underwhelming efforts to address the challenge. Also missing were specific adaptation challenges: droughts, disease, natural disasters, and the resulting refugees. Expected mitigation from delta areas and small, low-lying island states pose a new problem to international politics, and there was no consideration of what refuge duties the developed countries may have.
Overall, the essays are great material for a discussion on climate ethics, and help bring much-needed moral clarity to the policy-response debate.
Displaying 1 of 1 review