The actions of the average participant in Milgram’s experimental system (1963) in continuing to administer electric shocks to the subject may seem incomprehensible as regards the reasons for this obedient behaviour, given the moral reasons which conversely would justify disobedience. Milgram invokes the “climate of authority” among other explanatory factors for this behavior and I propose to investigate this line of thought. An affective atmosphere or mood recruits and favors the manifestation of a specific network of beliefs and desires. The (...) formation of beliefs, via the formation of conscious or unconscious judgments, may have generated this affective climate in the first place. These beliefs in turn cause actions (conduct), along with the desires also recruited by the affective climate. Beliefs also cause specific mental states to occur (emotions and judgments in particular) which explains why the latter are congruent with the affective climate. Obedient behavior therefore follows specific reasons stemming from the beliefs that are recruited and prompted to manifest themselves by the “climate of authority”. The decision to disobey can then be explained by a change in affective climate, following the formation of new beliefs that are not part of the specific obedience network. The formation of these beliefs in the face of new contextual elements like the subject expressing pain generates a new affective climate. The initial climate of complete obedience, of “submission to authority", becomes a tense climate engendered by the formation of opposing beliefs. Enough of these beliefs that are opposed to obedient behavior are recruited and driven to manifest themselves by the affective climate, leading to disobedience. The aim of this article is to make the dynamics of obedience and disobedience in this experimental protocol more intelligible, and perhaps also in the institutions it mimics by taking into account the affective climate as suggested by Milgram. (shrink)

Dans de nombreux domaines, la transparence s’est imposée comme un élément incontournable. Qu’en est-il de son application à la science, et plus particulièrement à l’expertise scientifique en tant que contexte paradigmatique des relations entre science et société ? En analysant le cas des controverses publiques sur le réchauffement climatique d’origine anthropique, cet article veut souligner les difficultés de mise en œuvre de la transparence pour formuler une éthique de l’expertise et proposer des pistes pour y remédier.

Une dizaine de thèses contre la liquidation sommaire des « religions » opérée par les descendants de Feuerbach aident à réinterpréter l’Anthropocène comme étant un Sécularocène. Et si le Ciel qui menace désormais de brûler notre planète était celui-là même que nous avons cru pouvoir enterrer trop insolemment? Et si le rapport actuel de la République à l’islam illustrait dramatiquement cette insolence?

Outre les constats sur la crise du gouvernement représentatif insistant sur la défiance des citoyens, la crise climatique est perçue comme révélant l’impuissance de cette forme politique basée sur l’élection. Des voix s’élèvent dans le champ académique, militant et politique, en faveur de l’utilisation de mini-publics tirés au sort pour résoudre divers enjeux politiques, en particulier le changement climatique. Si les assemblées citoyennes sur le climat se sont récemment multipliées, il convient d’examiner leur précurseur : l’assemblée citoyenne irlandaise (ACI). (...) Ce dispositif délibératif a certes proposé la légalisation de l’avortement en 2017, approuvée par référendum, mais il a également traité du climat. Grâce à une longue étude de terrain, on analyse les délibérations de l’ACI sur le climat, et notamment la tension entre pouvoir des citoyens participants et contrôle par les organisateurs et experts. Puis, on comparera le cas irlandais à la Convention Citoyenne pour le Climat française, qui a également fait l’objet d’une étude de terrain intégrale. (shrink)

Biofuel development not only condemns the poorest of the poor to famine, it also deprives peasant communities of their property rights - think of the 10 million acres of land robbed by Columbian paramilitaries for conversion into oil palm estates. Biofuel development takes place at the expense of biodiversity, it finishes off the last of the pristine rainforests, as in Indonesia where the ecosystems catering for orang-outangs are disapearing. And it also savages the floral resources within the European Union. And (...) yet, only two years ago, biofuels were hailed as the miracle solution to dwindling petroleum reserves and to the problem of global warming, with the European Union adding one ambitious biofuel initiative to the next! The near-unanimous change of heart we have been witnessing over the past months is surely a first victory, but we should definitely not slacken in our efforts. (shrink)

L’étude de l’évolution du climat passe nécessairement par des simulations numériques. Leur utilisation a été remise en cause en raison des incertitudes qui affectent leurs résultats. Cet article présente les différentes composantes des simulations numériques utilisées en climatologie et en propose une analyse épistémologique. La conclusion en est que ces simulations numériques procèdent des exigences scientifiques plus généralement à l’œuvre dans la science contemporaine.In order to study the evolution of global climate, computer simulation is required. The use of computer (...) simulation has been criticized since the results are uncertain. In this paper, I present the various components of the simulations used in climate studies and I analyze those components from an epistemological point of view. I conclude in showing that these simulations obey the scientific requirements usually governing contemporary science. (shrink)

Drawing its strength from the UN Charter and UDHR, human rights ethics is a beacon of hope and a promise that requires continuous reaffirmation during these turbulent times. These two documents, with their unwavering faith in ‘fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small,’ have shaped our understanding of human rights as global and universal ethics. However, this faith is now being severely (...) tested by four countercurrents: extremism, exclusionism, selectivism, and populism. These countercurrents pose significant and urgent human rights threats that activists, academics, and policymakers must confront by reasserting the basic core values of the UN Charter and UDHR. (shrink)

Dans un monde qui a commencé à prendre feu, la stratégie à adopter se pose à présent comme une question vitale. Il n'y a plus le droit à l'erreur, chaque échec stratégique peut coûter extrêmement cher. En nous rappelant de grandes victoires de l'histoire des luttes non-violentes, mais aussi des campagnes plus récentes comme celles des 'Décrocheurs de portraits' ou des 'grèves scolaires pour le climat,' l'auteur nous invite à cesser d'être spectateur et à devenir acteur de l'histoire. Comment (...) agir face à l'urgence climatique et à l'inaction de nos dirigeants? Avec quelles méthodes? Comment lutter efficacement contre le capitalisme et provoquer des changements culturels de grande ampleur? Comment résister à la répression? La Bataille du siècle--véritable manuel d'action civique et politique--propose des stratégies d'action concrètes pour faire émerger un mouvement citoyen de masse: désobéissance civile, non-violence radicale, convergence des luttes climatiques et sociales, complémentarité des alternatives et des résistances, réconciliation du local et du global... Jon Palais nous appelle à transformer la sidération en espérance, car, il en est convaincu, un autre monde est possible.."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Partant de la rythmanalyse de Lefebvre, j’examine l’énergétique et la constitution spatio-temporelle du rythme et la manière dont cela met en évidence l’enchevêtrement polyrythmique des flux d’énergie dans la vie quotidienne, ainsi que la relation entre la techno-énergie « artificielle » des systèmes énergétiques et les échanges énergétiques « naturels » des mouvements planétaires, des systèmes écologiques et du fonctionnement des organismes (y compris humains). Je développe une compréhension thermodynamique et matérialiste de l’énergie et du rythme, afin de présenter un (...) certain nombre de propositions et d’explorer les implications pour la poursuite de stratégies de transformation à faible intensité de carbone à l’intérieur et à l’extérieur des systèmes d’énergie. (shrink)

In this paper I make the following claims. In order to see anthropogenic climate change as clearly involving moral wrongs and global injustices, we will have to revise some central concepts in these domains. Moreover, climate change threatens another value that cannot easily be taken up by concerns of global justice or moral responsibility.

Climate models don’t give us probabilistic forecasts. To interpret their results, alternatively, as serious possibilities seems problematic inasmuch as climate models rely on contrary-to-fact assumptions: why should we consider their implications as possible if their assumptions are known to be false? The paper explores a way to address this possibilistic challenge. It introduces the concepts of a perfect and of an imperfect credible world, and discusses whether climate models can be interpreted as imperfect credible worlds. That would allow one to (...) use models for possibilistic prediction and salvage widespread scientific practice. (shrink)

Climate change is undeniably a global problem, but the situation is especially dire for countries whose territory is comprised entirely or primarily of low-lying land. While geoengineering might offer an opportunity to protect these states, international consensus on the particulars of any geoengineering proposal seems unlikely. To consider the moral complexities created by unilateral deploy- ment of geoengineering technologies, we turn to a moral convention with a rich history of assessing interference in the sovereign affairs of foreign states: the just (...) war tradition. We argue that the just war framework demonstrates that, for these nations, geoengineering offers a justified form of self-defense from an unwar- ranted, albeit unintentional, aggression. This startling result places our own car- bon-emitting activities in a stark new light: in perpetrating climate change, we are, in fact, waging war on the most vulnerable. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In Debating Climate Ethics, David Weisbach and I offer contrasting views of the importance of ethics and justice for climate policy. I argue that ethics is central. Weisbach advocates for climate policy based purely on narrow forms of self-interest. For this symposium, I summarize the major themes, and extend my basic argument. I claim that ethics gets the problem right, whereas dismissing ethics risks getting the problem dangerously wrong, and perpetuating profound injustices. One consequence is that we should reject (...) the alleged “feasibility constraint” of short-term, economic self-interest. (shrink)

Climate change confronts humanity with a challenge it has never faced before. It combines issues of global justice and intergenerational justice on an unprecedented scale. In particular, it stands to adversely affect the global poor. So far, the global community has failed to reduce emissions to levels that are necessary to avoid unacceptable risks for the future. Nor are the burdens of emission reductions and of coping with climate impacts fairly shared. The shortcomings of both political and individual climate action (...) thus seem like a paradigmatic case for non-ideal theory. Non-ideal theory can be understood as a form of political theorising that compares different responses to (i) failures of agents to comply with the demands of justice and (ii) unfavourable circumstances. Insofar as non-ideal theory also aims to be action-guiding, it asks normative theorists for a more thorough engagement with the empirical context so as to arrive at practical recommendations for the ‘here and now’. This volume examines the normative issues that become relevant when the non-ideal circumstances of the climate context are fully taken into account. It is comprised of three parts: The first collects chapters that reflect on general issues in responding to the shortcomings of current climate action. Chapters in the second part propose more specific practical reforms. The third part examines how moral values ought to be brought into the scientific, political, and public debates under the non-ideal circumstances of this world. (shrink)

What kinds of issues does the global crisis of climate change present to aesthetics, and how will they challenge the field to respond? This paper argues that a new research agenda is needed for aesthetics with respect to global climate change (GCC) and outlines a set of foundational issues which are especially pressing: (1) attention to environments that have been neglected by philosophers, for example, the cryosphere and aerosphere; (2) negative aesthetics of environment, in order to grasp aesthetic experiences, meanings, (...) and dis/values in light of the catastrophic effects of GCC; (3) bringing intergenerational thinking into aesthetics through concepts of temporality and ‘future aesthetics’ (4) understanding the relationship between aesthetic and ethical values as they arise in regard to GCC. (shrink)

Integrated assessment models of climate and the economy provide estimates of the social cost of carbon and inform climate policy. We create a variant of the Regional Integrated model of Climate and the Economy (RICE)—a regionally disaggregated version of the Dynamic Integrated model of Climate and the Economy (DICE)—in which we introduce a more fine-grained representation of economic inequalities within the model’s regions. This allows us to model the common observation that climate change impacts are not evenly distributed within regions (...) and that poorer people are more vulnerable than the rest of the population. Our results suggest that this is important to the social cost of carbon—as significant, potentially, for the optimal carbon price as the debate between Stern and Nordhaus on discounting. (shrink)

Lingering skepticism about climate change might be due in part to the way climate projections are perceived by members of the public. Variability between scientists’ estimates might give the impression that scientists disagree about the fact of climate change rather than about details concerning the extent or timing. Providing uncertainty estimates might clarify that the variability is due in part to quantifiable uncertainty inherent in the prediction process, thereby increasing people's trust in climate projections. This hypothesis was tested in two (...) experiments. Results suggest that including uncertainty estimates along with climate projections leads to an increase in participants’ trust in the information. Analyses explored the roles of time, place, demographic differences, and initial belief in climate change. Implications are discussed in terms of the potential benefit of adding uncertainty estimates to public climate projections. (shrink)

Climate has a strong influence on urban planning and also plays a fundamental role in soil composition affecting the character of plants and animals. The climate is a combination of different meteorological factors that characterized a specific region over a specific time. The movement of the Sun and Earth inclination toward it is the most important factors which determine the characteristics of the climate. The global movement of the air from equator toward poles and vice versa influences also drastically the (...) climate change. In this section are also included breezes. Also air relative humidity plays an important role shaping the climate. It plays a very important role in cloud formation. The built environment can influence the urban climate of the city through height, form, and applied building materials. Building form and shape, building materials, openings in the façade, and their orientation often are determined by climate parameters. Urban density, directions, and street network and their shape are related to the climate change, apart from topography. Density of urban structures produces important effects on the microclimatic conditions in external spaces. The bioclimatic behavior of each type of outdoor spaces depends on the relationship with its surrounding elements. The city of Tirana is included in Mediterranean climate characterized by hot dry summers and mild cold wet winters with high daily thermal excursions. All of the countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea benefit from the Mediterranean climate. Specifically spotted, Tirana is part of Mediterranean coastal zone (<22 °C in temperature) with an annual temperature of 15.3 °C. In the inner city can be found areas with high pollution, which normally contain a high percentage of business and industry, settlements, and traffic, so-called “sealed” areas. They constitute “hyperthermic areas” or “heat islands”. The term “heat island” describes built-up areas which are hotter than nearby rural areas. Heat islands can affect communities by increasing summertime peak energy demand, air-conditioning costs, air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, heat-related illness and mortality, and water quality. The aim of the bioclimatic design is also the reduction of the heat-island phenomenon. The use of materials with different energy absorption capabilities and integration of green spaces into urban life is important. The vegetation effects on microclimate and in the built environment are present. Trees are necessary and indispensable to human life. They provide shelter for us, provide food, and their fibers cloth us. Implementation of the green belts in the city is one of the strategies in order to reduce heat-island effect. Vegetation also can provide a deep feeling of attachment to certain places and trees which are part of it. The use of trees avoids monotony and ensures diversification. They play a crucial role creating microclimates which influence the thermal comfort of people reducing heating or cooling loads. Vegetation also creates cooler microclimates around the building through evapotranspiration, reduces wind speed, regulates humidity, and reduces temperature. It is observed that tree species have a greater influence on humidity than on temperature. Trees can also absorb and reduce the reverberation time of the sound, behaving as sound buffers. The benefits of tree plantation in the inner city are enormous and they can’t be neglected. (shrink)

Climate change poses grave threats to many people, including the most vulnerable. This prompts the question of who should bear the burden of combating ?dangerous? climate change. Many appeal to the Polluter Pays Principle. I argue that it should play an important role in any adequate analysis of the responsibility to combat climate change, but suggest that it suffers from three limitations and that it needs to be revised. I then consider the Ability to Pay Principle and consider four objections (...) to this principle. I suggest that, when suitably modified, it can supplement the Polluter Pays Principle. (shrink)

If climate change represents a severe threat to humankind, why then is response to it characterized by inaction at all levels? The authors argue there are two complementary explanations for the lack of motivation. First, our moral judgment system appears to be unable to identify climate change as an important moral problem and there are pervasive doubts about the agency of individuals. This explanation, however, is incomplete: Individual emitters can effectively be held morally responsible for their luxury emissions. Second, doubts (...) about individual agency have become overly emphasized and fail to convincingly exonerate individuals from responsibility. This book extends the second explanation for the motivational gap, namely that the arguments for the lack of individual agency do in fact correspond to mechanisms of moral disengagement. The use of these mechanisms enables consumption elites to maintain their consumptive lifestyles without having to accept moral responsibility for their luxury emissions. (shrink)

This paper examines what agents should do when others fail to comply with their responsibilities to prevent dangerous climate change. It distinguishes between six different possible responses to noncompliance. These include what I term (1) 'target modification' (watering down the extent to which we seek to prevent climate change), (2) ‘responsibility reallocation’ (reassigning responsibilities to other duty bearers), (3) ‘burden shifting I’ (allowing duty bearers to implement policies which impose unjust burdens on others, (4) 'burden shifting II’ (allowing some to (...) protect peoples rights in ways which impose otherwise unjustified burdens on the duty bearers, (5) 'compromising moral ideals' (permitting agents to compromise non-justice ideals that they are otherwise bound by); and (6) ‘promoting compliance (implementing policies and creating institutions which reduce noncompliance). It concludes by outlining a methodological framework for evaluating these options, and by setting out my tentative and provisional evaluation of which responses are the least bad. (shrink)

The multidimensional nature of climate change makes it a complex matter, on both the theoretical and practical planes. The urgency and centrality of the issues and problems it poses are of key importance for our species and its survival. In this paper, we propose pairing the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities – the cornerstone of climate talks over the last thirty years – with the criterion of transgenerational responsibility. Such a criterion seeks to focus particular attention on the issues (...) of diachronic justice and, in particular, intergenerational justice. (shrink)

Climate change is projected to have very severe impacts on future generations. Given this, any adequate response to it has to consider the nature of our obligations to future generations. This paper seeks to do that and to relate this to the way that inter-generational justice is often framed by economic analyses of climate change. To do this the paper considers three kinds of considerations that, it has been argued, should guide the kinds of actions that one generation should take (...) if it is to treat both current and future people equitably. In particular it examines the case for what has been termed pure time discounting, growth discounting and opportunity cost discounting; and it assesses their implications for climate policy. It argues that none of these support the claims of those who think they give us reason to delay aggressive mitigation policies. It also finds, however, that the second kind of argument can, in certain circumstances, provide support for passing on some of the costs of mitigation to future generations. (shrink)

Esteemed philosopher John Broome avoids the familiar ideological stances on climate change policy and examines the issue through an invigorating new lens. As he considers the moral dimensions of climate change, he reasons clearly through what universal standards of goodness and justice require of us, both as citizens and as governments. His conclusions—some as demanding as they are logical—will challenge and enlighten. Eco-conscious readers may be surprised to hear they have a duty to offset all their carbon emissions, while policy (...) makers will grapple with Broome’s analysis of what if anything is owed to future generations. From the science of greenhouse gases to the intricate logic of cap and trade, Broome reveals how the principles that underlie everyday decision making also provide simple and effective ideas for confronting climate change. Climate Matters is an essential contribution to one of the paramount issues of our time. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to address the neglected but important problem of differentiating between epistemically beneficial and epistemically detrimental dissent. By “dissent,” we refer to the act of objecting to a particular conclusion, especially one that is widely held. While dissent in science can clearly be beneficial, there might be some instances of dissent that not only fail to contribute to scientific progress, but actually impede it. Potential examples of this include the tobacco industry’s funding of studies that (...) questioned the link between smoking and lung cancer, and the attempt by the petroleum industry and other groups to cast doubt upon the conclusion that human consumption of fossil fuels contributes to global climate change. The problem of distinguishing between good and bad dissent is important because of the growing tendency of some stakeholders to attempt to delay political action by ’manufacturing doubt’. Our discussion in this paper focuses on climate science. This field, in our view, is rife with instances of bad dissent. On the basis of our discussion of climate science, we articulate a set of sufficient conditions for epistemically problematic dissent in general, which we call “the inductive risk account of epistemically detrimental dissent.”. (shrink)

Discounting future costs and benefits is often defended on the ground that our descendants will be richer. Simply to treat the future as better off, however, is to commit an ecological fallacy. Even if our descendants are better off when we average across climate change scenarios, this cannot justify discounting costs and benefits in possible states of the world in which they are not. Giving due weight to catastrophe scenarios requires energetic action against climate change.

Climate activists have recently engaged in widely publicized acts of politically motivated lawbreaking. This article identifies and critically analyzes two seemingly overlapping but in fact divergi...

An important factor that leads governments to engage in public service contracts with nonprofit organizations is the belief that they share similar ethical and value orientations that will allow governments to reduce monitoring costs. However the notion of the existence of similarities in ethical climate has not been systematically examined. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the ethical climate in government and nonprofit sectors and to determine the extent to which similarities (and differences) exist in ethical climate dimensions. (...) Using survey data and structural equation modeling technique, the factor structure equivalence and measurement invariance of the ethical climate in the two sectors are tested. Results indicate that while there is a significant overlap in shared perception of ethical climate dimensions, there are also key differences between the two sectors. The outcome of this research provides important preliminary insights for public policy makers in government to better understand the implications of using the nonprofit sector for service delivery. (shrink)

Climate change creates unprecedented problems of intergenerational justice. What do members of the current generation owe to future generations in virtue of the contribution they are making to climate change? Providing important new insights within the theoretical framework of political liberalism, Climate Change and Future Justice presents arguments in three key areas: Mitigation: the current generation ought to adopt a strong precautionary principle in formulating climate change policy in order to minimise the risks of serious harm from climate change imposed (...) on future generations Adaptation: the current generation ought to create a fund to which members of future generations may apply for compensation if the risks of climate change harm imposed on them by the current generation ripen into harms Triage: future generations ought to keep alive hope for a return to the framework of justice for the social cooperation of future people less burdened by climate change harms. This work presents agenda-setting applications of important principles of democratic equality to the most serious set of political challenges ever faced by human society. It should be required reading for political theorists and environmental philosophers. (shrink)

Climate change's impact on investor behavior is a scantly investigated area in finance. This paper examines the performance of socially responsible exchange trade funds (ETFs) concerning conventional ETFs, in response to climate change events. We proxy climate change signals with a list of natural disaster events that NASA scientists relate to climate change. We contribute to existing literature, by using a very extensive information set of ETF strategies, not influenced by rating agencies' subjective evaluation policies, and covering almost 90% of (...) the universe of worldwide sustainability thematic-oriented ETFs. This sample allows us to identify the socially responsible investment behavior in response to unpredictable climate change shocks. Our identification strategy accounts for endogeneity concerns and relies on two-stage least square (2SLS) approach finding that responsible investors react to climate change events by purchasing socially responsible investments. The relationship between climate change signals and return of investment in themes linked to the development of sustainability is positive. Interestingly enough, the sign of this relationship is different, when we disentangle the empirical results according to the asset type, confirming that investors shift their investments from equity funds to bond funds when market sentiment worsens. Our results indicate that policymakers should increase the support of firms adopting environmentally conscious business practices, while managers should boost a sustainable business strategy. (shrink)

In climate science, climate models are one of the main tools for understanding phenomena. Here, we develop a framework to assess the fitness of a climate model for providing understanding. The framework is based on three dimensions: representational accuracy, representational depth, and graspability. We show that this framework does justice to the intuition that classical process-based climate models give understanding of phenomena. While simple climate models are characterized by a larger graspability, state-of-the-art models have a higher representational accuracy and representational (...) depth. We then compare the fitness-for-providing understanding of process-based to data-driven models that are built with machine learning. We show that at first glance, data-driven models seem either unnecessary or inadequate for understanding. However, a case study from atmospheric research demonstrates that this is a false dilemma. Data-driven models can be useful tools for understanding , specifically for phenomena for which scientists can argue from the coherence of the models with background knowledge to their representational accuracy and for which the model complexity can be reduced such that they are graspable to a satisfactory extent. When citing this paper, please use the full journal title Studies in History and Philosophy of Science. (shrink)

Should we research, develop, and deploy climate engineering technology? Drawing upon contemporary moral and political theory, this book offers a normative perspective on such questions, ultimately making the case in favor of research and regulation guided by norms of legitimacy, distributive justice, and procedural justice.

Much of the work on the ethics of climate engineering over the last few years has focused on the front-end of the potential timeline for climate intervention. Topics have included the initial taboo on bringing the discussion of climate engineering into the open, guidelines to put in place before commencing research, and governance arrangements before first deployment. While this work is clearly important, the current paper considers what insights can be gleaned from considering the tail-end, that is, by using the (...) requirement for future cessation as a criterion for any acceptable climate engineering strategy. After showing that time-limited interventions are a key part of the rhetoric of leading climate engineering advocates, the paper examines the implications of imposing a ‘cessation requirement’ on solar radiation management and carbon dioxide removal strategies. Consideration of a cessation requirement turns out to reveal a great deal about what ought to be happening now, before any decision to proceed with climate engineering deployment has been taken. (shrink)

With the significant disconnect between the collective aim of limiting warming to well below 2°C and the current means proposed to achieve such an aim, the goal of this paper is to offer a moral assessment of prominent alternatives to current international climate policy. To do so, we’ll outline five different policy routes that could potentially bring the means and goal in line. Those five policy routes are: (1) exceed 2°C; (2) limit warming to less than 2°C by economic de-growth; (...) (3) limit warming to less than 2°C by traditional mitigation only; (4) limit warming to less than 2°C by traditional mitigation and widespread deployment of Negative Emissions Technologies (NETs); and (5) limit warming to less than 2°C by traditional mitigation, NETs, and Solar Radiation Management as a fallback. In assessing these five policy routes, we rely primarily upon two moral considerations: the avoidance of catastrophic climate change and the right to sustainable development. We’ll conclude that we should continue to aim at the two-degree target, and that to get there we should use aggressive mitigation, pursue the deployment of NETs, and continue to research SRM. (shrink)

Climate change has become one of the most pressing problems that can threaten the existence and development of humans around the globe. Almost all climate scientists have agreed that climate change is happening and is caused mainly by greenhouse gas emissions induced by anthropogenic activities. However, some groups still deny this fact or do not believe that climate change results from human activities. This article examines climate change denialism and its skeptical arguments, as well as the roles of scientists and (...) science communication in addressing the issues. Through this article, we call for the active participation of scientists in science communication activities with the public, the initiation of new science communication sectors specified for climate change, and more attention to social sciences and humanities in addressing climate change issues. (shrink)

Climate change is to a large extent a collective action problem, but many believe that individual action is also required. But what if no individual contribution to climate change is necessary nor sufficient to cause climate change-induced harms? This issue is known as the problem of inconsequentialism. It is particularly problematic for act consequentialism because the theory does not seem to judge such inconsequential contributions negatively. In this paper, we apply Henry Sidgwick's idea of esoteric morality to climate change and (...) assess whether what we call a climate esoteric morality could help to deal with the problem of inconsequentialism from an act consequentialist perspective. Consequentialists ought then to promote what we call nonconsequentialist faux principles; exaggerate existing consequentialist principles that pro tanto forbid contributing to climate change whenever strictly consequentialist principles fail to do so; and refrain from criticising nonconsequentialist principles that forbid contributing to climate change. (shrink)

Even though anthropogenic climate change is largely caused by industrialized nations, its burden is distributed unevenly with poor developing countries suffering the most. A common response to livelihood insecurities and destruction is migration. Using Peter Singer's ‘historical principle’, this paper argues that a morally just evaluation requires taking causality between climate change and migration under consideration. The historical principle is employed to emphasize shortcomings in commonly made philosophical arguments to oppose immigration. The article concludes that none of these arguments is (...) able to override the moral responsibility of industrialized countries to compensate for harms that their actions have caused. (shrink)

The scientific evidence and understanding underpinning societal responsibility for the accelerating pace of climate change has become increasingly strong over the past hundred years. Although many nations have begun to take actions that have the potential to eventually slow the pace of change, contention over the issue continues in the United States, particularly in the nation's capital. A major cause appears to arise from different interpretations of the evidence arising from different perspectives on the issue, including those of the scientific, (...) environmental, fossil-fuel generating, technological, economic and ethical communities. In addition, the public encounters a cacophony of intermixed perspectives from the media and elected officials. While each perspective provides some useful insights, each alone contributes to inhibiting development of the national political consensus needed to responsibly address climate change. Without leadership that balances and reconciles competing perspectives, it is unlikely that a sufficient limiting of emissions will be enacted to prevent significant changes in climate that will impose increasing challenges for those in both developing and developed nations. (shrink)

This exploration into spirituality and climate change employs the “four paths” of the creation spirituality tradition. The author recognizes those paths in the rich teachings of Pope Francis’s encyclical, Laudato Si' and applies them in considering the nobility of the scientist's vocation. Premodern thinkers often resisted any split between science and religion. The author then lays out the basic archetypes for recognizing the sacredness of creation, namely, the Cosmic Christ (Christianity); the Buddha Nature (Buddhism); the Image of God (Judaism); the (...) “Primordial Man” (Hinduism), as well as the premodern universal teaching of “God as Beauty.” He addresses the subject of evil which deserves serious attention in the face of the realities posed by climate change and the resistance to addressing them. In the concluding section, the author speaks of a new Order of the Sacred Earth that was launched in fall 2017 to gather persons of whatever spiritual tradition or none to devote themselves to preserving Mother Earth. (shrink)

Understanding climate change is becoming an urgent requirement for those in education. The normative values of education have long been closely aligned with the global, modernised world. The industrial model has underpinned the hidden and overt curriculum. Increasingly though, a new eco-centric orientation to economics, technology, and social organisation is beginning to shape up the post-carbon world. Unless education is up to date with the issues of climate change, the estate of education will be unable to meet its task of (...) knowledge transfer. This paper covers the basic science and ethical policy debates, and begins to outline the questions that will necessarily entangle education as we orientate ourselves to the new world that is upon us. (shrink)