How Not to Save the Planet

Climate change presents us with perhaps the most pressing challenge today. But is it a problem we can solve? This article argues that existing conservationist and adaptation approaches fail to satisfy their objectives. A second issue that these approaches disagree about how best to end climate change, but accept that it is a problem that can be solved. I believe this view is mistaken: a future environmental catastrophe is an event we might at best postpone, but not avoid. This raises new ethical questions for climate change: what are the moral implications of a future climatic catastrophe that might be delayed at best? What practical consequences might these implications yield? This article argues most political philosophers have misunderstood the kind of problem that climate change presents and the daunting challenges we face.