Climate Change Ethics: navigating the perfect moral storm [ONLINE] by
CONTENTS:
Part 1. Introduction: Navigating the Perfect Moral Storm in Light of a Thirty-Five Year Debate
Part 2. Priority Ethical Issues
Ethical Problems with Cost Arguments
Ethics and Scientific Uncertainty Arguments
Atmospheric Targets
Allocating National Emissions Targets
Climate Change Damages and Adaptation Costs
Obligations of Sub-national Governments, Organizations, Businesses, and Individuals
Independent Responsibility to Act
Part 3. The Crucial Role of Ethics in Climate Change Policy Making
Why Has Ethics Failed to Achieve Traction
Conclusion: Navigating the Perfect Moral Storm.
Morality and the Environmental Crisis [ONLINE] by
The environmental crisis creates an unprecedented moral predicament: how to be a good person when our collective and individual actions contribute to immeasurable devastation and suffering. Drawing on an extraordinary range of sources from philosophy, political theory, global religion, ecology, and contemporary spirituality, Roger S. Gottlieb explores the ethical ambiguities, challenges, and opportunities we face. Engagingly written, intellectually rigorous, and forcefully argued, this volume investigates the moral value of nature; the possibility of an 'ecological' democracy; how we treat animals; the demands and limits of individual responsibility and collective political change; contemporary ambiguities of rationality; and how to face environmental despair. In Morality and the Environmental Crisis, Gottlieb combines compassion for the difficulties of contemporary moral life with an unflinching ethical commitment to awareness and action.
The Anthropocene Project: virtue in the age of climate change [ONLINE] by
The recent Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggested that continuing inaction on climate change presents a significant threat to social stability. IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri put the matter succinctly in stating recently that the new reportshows how our persistent inaction on climate change presents a grave threat to "the very social stability of human systems".The Anthropocene Project attempts to make philosophical sense of this, examining the reasons for the inaction highlighted by the IPCC, and suggests the normative bases for overcoming it. Williston identifies that we are now in "the human age" - the Anthropocene - but he argues that this is no meregeological marker. It is instead best viewed as the latest permutation of an already existing moral and political project rooted in Enlightenment values. Williston shows that it can be fruitful to do climate ethics with this focus because in so many aspects of our culture we already endorse broadlyEnlightenment values about progress, equality, and the value of knowledge. But these values must be robustly instantiated in the dispositions of moral agents, and so we require a climate ethics emphasizing the virtues of justice, truthfulness, and rational hope.One of the book's most original claims is that our moral failure on this issue is, in large part, the product of motivated irrationality on the part of the world's most prosperous people. We have failed to live up to our commitments to justice and truthfulness because we are, respectively, morallyweak and self-deceived. Understanding this provides the basis for the rational hope that we might yet find a way to avoid climate catastrophe.
Debating Climate Ethics [ONLINE] by
In this volume, Stephen M. Gardiner and David A. Weisbach present arguments for and against the relevance of ethics to global climate policy. Gardiner argues that climate change is fundamentally an ethical issue, since it is an early instance of a distinctive challenge to ethical action (the perfect moral storm), and ethical concerns (such as with justice, rights, political legitimacy, community and humanity's relationship to nature) are at the heart of many of the decisions that need to be made. Consequently, climate policy that ignores ethics is at risk of "solving" the wrong problem, perhaps even to the extreme of endorsing forms of climate extortion. This is especially true of policy based on narrow forms of economic self-interest. By contrast, Weisbach argues that existing ethical theories are not well suited to addressing climate change. As applied to climate change, existing ethical theories suffer from internal logical problems and suggest infeasible strategies. Rather than following failed theories or waiting indefinitely for new and better ones, Weisbach argues that central motivation for climate policy is straightforward: it is in their common interest for people and nations to agree to policies that dramatically reduce emissions to prevent terrible harms.
The Ethics of Global Climate Change [ONLINE] by
Global climate change is one of the most daunting ethical and political challenges confronting humanity in the twenty-first century. The intergenerational and transnational ethical issues raised by climate change have been the focus of a significant body of scholarship. In this new collection of essays, leading scholars engage and respond to first-generation scholarship and argue for new ways of thinking about our ethical obligations to present and future generations. Topics addressed in these essays include moral accountability for energy consumption and emissions, egalitarian and libertarian perspectives on mitigation, justice in relation to cap and trade schemes, the ethics of adaptation and the ethical dimensions of the impact of climate change on nature.
The following books are only available in print on the shelves of a U of T Library.
A Moral Climate: the ethics of global warming by
Despite clarion calls from scientists and cover stories on magazines like Time telling uss to "Be afraid!" Be very afraid!" the threat of an ecological crisis has failed to achieve prominence in religious or political circles. And yet it is one of the biggest moral dilemmas of our time. In this groundbreaking book Michael Northcott examines theological attitudes to climate change, from the complacent to the apocalyptic, and the ethical implications for all Christians. Hard-hitting and comprehensive, The Moral Climate is must reading for anyone truly concerned about the greatest threat to our well-being.
Ethical Adaptation to Climate Change: human virtues of the future by
An analytically precise and theoretically probing exploration of the challenge to our values and virtues posed by climate change. Predictions about global climate change have produced both stark scenarios of environmental catastrophe and purportedly pragmatic ideas about adaptation. This book takes a different perspective, exploring the idea that the challenge of adapting to global climate change is fundamentally an ethical one, that it is not simply a matter of adapting our infrastructures and economies to mitigate damage but rather of adapting ourselves to realities of a new global climate. The challenge is to restore our conception of humanity--to understand human flourishing in new ways--in an age in which humanity shapes the basic conditions of the global environment. In the face of what we have unintentionally done to Earth's ecology, who shall we become? The contributors examine ways that new realities will require us to revisit and adjust the practice of ecological restoration; the place of ecology in our conception of justice; the form and substance of traditional virtues and vices; and the organizations, scale, and underlying metaphors of important institutions. Topics discussed include historical fidelity in ecological restoration; the application of capability theory to ecology; the questionable ethics of geoengineering; and the cognitive transformation required if we are to "think like a planet."
Riders in the Storm: ethics in an age of climate change by
With the increase of natural disasters, droughts, and superstorms, it's clear that climate change isn't coming--it's here. The ecological crisis of climate change--and how we handle it--is the challenge of this century. Though policy changes or technological advances may help, they're not enough. We are in need of new ways of thinking and acting; new ways of understanding our relationship to the world. Riders in the Storm assesses the challenges of climate change through an interdisciplinary study, examining the basic scientific, political, economic, and moral dimensions through a framework of philosophical ethics. Equipped with colorful graphics and images, suggestions for further research and reading, and dialogue prompts, this text is a straightforward and engaging introduction to climate change.
Future Ethics: cluimate change and apocalyptic imagination by
Future Ethics: Climate Change and Political Action presents a comprehensive examination of the philosophical questions facing activists, policy makers and educators fighting the causes of climate change. These questions reflect a genuine crisis in ethical reflection for individuals and groups in today's society and are also underpinned by a broader question of how the future forms the basis for action in the present. For instance, does the reporting of impending 'points of no return' in global warming renew a spirit of resistance or a spirit of fatalism? How is the future of the human species really imagined in society and how does this affect our sense of ethical responsibility? In this fascinating book, thirteen leading experts explore the philosophical and ethical issues underlying social responses to climate change and in particular how these responses draw upon ideas about the future. Ideal for students of environmental ethics in multiple disciplines, the book provides sources and discussion for anyone interested in issues to do with environment, society and ethics.