Ethical Dimensions of Global Warming

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Ethical Dimensions of Global Warming
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• Eight ethical issues Buenos Aires
  Declaration on Human Dimensions of
  Climate Change
• 10th Conference, Parties to the United
  Nations Framework Convention on Climate
  Change

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• 1. Responsibility for damages
• Who is liable for preparing for and responding to
  consequences of climate change?
• Who is responsible for paying for unavoided
  damages?

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• Those most likely to be most harmed are likely to
  be the least at fault.
• Those most likely to be most harmed are likely to
  have the least power to hold those at fault
  responsible.

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• 2. Atmospheric targetsWhat ethical principles
  guide the choice of policy objectives?
• baseline natural atmosphere
• minumum safety
• maximum safety
• tradeoff between safety and cost

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• 3. Allocating GHG emissions reductionsWhat
  principles guide who reduces and how much?
• size of ecological footprint
• per capita per emitter
• percentage per nation state
• developed nations before developing nations

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• 4. Scientific uncertaintyWhat ethical
  principles apply in the face of scientific
  uncertainties?
• consensus
• degree of uncertainty, degree of risk
• voluntary versus involuntary risks
• lag time
• reversibility

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• 5. Cost to national economies
• Does economic cost justify delaying or minimizing
  climate change action?
• burden of proof

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• 6. Independent responsibility
• Ought one nation to act whether or not other
  nations act appropriately or on concert?
• wasted effort, sacrifice

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• 7. Potential new technologies
• Minimize action now hoping for new technologies
  in the future?
• compare nuclear waste

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• 8. Procedural fairness
• How do we assure fair representation in
  decision-making?
• stockholders, stakeholders
• democratic
• polluting a common good
• powerful, powerless

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• 9. Wildlife in jeopardy
• polar bears - threatened species USFW
• ringed seals
• bearded seals
• walruses
• narwhals
• bowheads
• belugas

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• Global warming "Too hot to handle?
  politically
• technologically
• ethically

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• Upsetting the climate upsets everything
• air, water, soils,
• forests, fauna and flora,
• ocean currents, shorelines,
• agriculture,
• property values,
• international relations

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• Global warming already threatens British national
  security more than global terrorists.
  - John T. Houghton

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• a perfect moral storm - Stephen
  Gardiner

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• unprecedented convergence of complexities
• natural and technological uncertainties
• global and local interactions
• difficult choices scientifically
• ethically, politically, socially
• differing cross-cultural perspectives

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• intergenerational issues
• distributional issues
• concerns about merit, justice, benevolence
• voluntary and involuntary risk
• a long lag time
• local goods cumulate into global bads.

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• denial
• procrastination
• self-deception
• hypocrisy
• free-riding
• cheating corruption
• individual and national self-interest at
  odds with collective global interests
• tragedy of the commons - taken at the pitch

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• fragmented agency
• differential contribution
• differential powers to act
• powerless
• senseless sacrifice
• institutional, corporate, political
  structures force frameworks of
  environmentally disruptive behavior on
  individuals

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• non-linear or cascading shifts
• Our power to make changes exceeds our power to
  predict the results,
• exceeds our power to control even those adverse
  results we may foresee.

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• Pleistocene appetites?

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• hope?
• human nature and our capacities to face an
  unprecedented crisis

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• over-fishing agreements
• whaling
• Law of the Sea
• Convention on Trade in Endangered Species
• Montreal Protocol
• But difficult to get into immediate focus

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• Piecemeal solutions?
• Major lifestyle changes?

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• At international levels
• enlightened national interest
• At national, state, local levels
• enforcing community interest

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• Rock Ethics InstituteEthical Dimensions of
  Global Climate Changehttp//rockethics.psu.edu/cl
  imate

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• Northcott, Michael S.A Moral Climate The Ethics
  of Global Warming.London Darton, Longmans and
  Todd2007

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• Gardiner, Stephen M.,A Perfect Moral Storm
  Climate Change, Intergenerational Ethics and the
  Problem of Moral Corruption,Environmental
  Values 15(2006)397-413. shorter summary
  article

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• Gardiner, Stephen M.,Ethics and Global Climate
  Change,Ethics 114(2004)555-600. major
  review article

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• Jamieson Dale,Climate Change and Global
  Environmental Justice.Pages 287-307 in P.
  Edwards and C. Miller, eds.,Changing the
  Atmosphere Expert Knowledge and Global
  Environmental Governance.Cambridge, MA MIT
  Press, 2001

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• Holden, Barry, ed., The Ethical Dimensions of
  Climate Change.Basingstoke, UK Macmillan, 1996.

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