The current situation of climate change at a global level clearly requires policy changes at local levels. Global efforts to reach a consensus regarding the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions have so far been focused on developing Climate-Friendly Technologies (CFTs). The problem is that in order for these efforts to have an actual impact at a global level we need to be concerned with more than just promotion and info-dissemination on the already existing CFTs, but also (...) with costs, implementation and the international intellectual property and trade system necessary for this strategy to work. Currently, almost 80% of all patent applications belong to OECD countries like Japan, US, Germany, South Korea, Great Britain and France. The obligations climate change imposes on developing countries represent a technological shift that depends on Technology Transfer (TT) and implementation of IP laws. The current IP framework, especially patent law, copyright and trade secrets produces another kind of obligations. The main question is if the conjunction of these two sets of obligations (rules) is fair from a global justice point of view. Also, it is questionable whether this conjunction helps developing countries to produce their own CFTs. When discussing the demands of global justice one cannot skip the very important distinction Pogge makes between negative and positive obligations. In the context of global warming and the measures that the world’s states ought to take to prevent it, there seems to lie another conjunction between the positive obligation of preserving the natural environment that we all share and a negative obligation of allowing the less developed countries to help us all do so. Because one cannot impose regulations that cannot be put into practice, it is more and more obvious that a new framework of action and development needs to be drawn in the field of TT of CFTs. (shrink)

A 1998 Cincinnati Enquirer investigation into the Central American labor practices of Chiquita Brands International was substantiated by the taped words of company officials themselves. Yet, soon after publication, the Enquirer ran a stunning front-page retraction and disavowed the report without challenging its claims. The Gannett Corporation, the paper's owner, paid Chiquita $14 million to avoid a suit. The resultant outcry by journalists was directed not at Gannett, but at lead reporter Michael Gallagher, who had surreptitiously accessed Chiquita voice mail (...) to support his allegations. Rather than being lauded as a tough investigative reporter serving a greater good, Gallagher was fired, convicted, sued by Chiquita, and vilified in the media. Was the backlash driven simply by higher ethical standards or also by anxieties about intrusive technology? A reexamination of the case suggests the latter explanation and helps frame an evolving debate about electronic eavesdropping by the media. (shrink)

This paper concerns virtue-based ethical principles that bear upon agricultural uses of technologies, such as GM crops and CRISPR crops. It does three things. First, it argues for a new type of virtue ethics approach to such cases. Typical virtue ethics principles are vague and unspecific. These are sometimes useful, but we show how to supplement them with more specific virtue ethics principles that are useful to people working in specific applied domains, where morally relevant domain-specific conditions recur. We (...) do this while still fulfilling the need for principles and associated practical reasoning to flexibly respect variation between cases. Second, with our more detailed approach we criticize and improve upon a commonly discussed principle about ecosystemic external goods that are crucial for human flourishing. We show this principle is far more conservative than appreciated, as it would prohibit many technology uses that are uncontroversially acceptable. We then replace this principle with two more specific ones. One identifies specific conditions in which ecosystem considerations are against a technology use, the other identifies favorable conditions. Third, we uncover a humility-based principle that operates within an influential “hubris argument” against uses of several biotechnologies in agriculture. These arguments lack a substantive theory of the nature of humility. We clarify such a theory, and then use it to replace the uncovered humility-based principle with our own more specific one that shifts focus from past moral failings, to current epistemic limits when deciding whether to support new technologies. (shrink)

International negotiations on anthropogenic climate change are far from running smoothly. Opinions are deeply divided on what are the respective responsibilities of developed and developing countries with regard to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and the alleviation of the negative effects of global warming. A major bone of contention concerns the role of intellectual property rights (especially patents) in the development and diffusion of climate-friendly technologies. While developing countries consider IPRs as a formidable barrier to (...) the rapid transfer and the widest possible diffusion of such technologies, developed countries, by contrast, see IPRs as a vital prerequisite for the development and transfer of these same technologies. This debate shows some similarity with the earlier debate on patents and access to lifesaving medicines, although there are also important differences. In our contribution we will explore both the analogies and the differences with this earlier debate. To provide a focus for our discussion, we will examine whether something similar to the Health Impact Fund (HIF), which has been proposed by philosopher Thomas Pogge as a reasonable solution to the ethical dilemmas of protection and accessibility in the field of pharmaceuticals, can also be elaborated for the development and diffusion of climate-friendly technologies. Thus the central question is how an analogous ‘Climate Impact Fund’ would look like and how it would work. This whole exercise will also yield a normative yardstick for assessing the various designs for a Green Climate Fund or a Technology Mechanism that are currently on the table of the international climate negotiations. (shrink)

One of the most attractive, but nevertheless highly controversial proposals to alleviate the negative effects of today’s international patent regime is the Health Impact Fund (HIF). Although the HIF has been drafted to facilitate access to medicines and boost pharmaceutical research, we have analysed the burdens for the global poor a similar proposal designed to promote the use and development of climate-friendly technologies would have. Drawing parallels from the access to medicines debate, we suspect that an analogous (...) “Climate Impact Fund” will increase the already very high scientific and technological supremacy of the developed world over the Global South. We advocate countering this dominance on the ground that countries with scarce research and development capacities will be in a difficult position to reject technologies and will not have a say on how such technologies should look like. Further, addressing global hazards should be an inclusive endeavour and not only a privilege reserved for the developed world. Incentivizing grassroots innovation would be a major step to promote scientific and technological inclusion. (shrink)

Over the last twenty years, the idea that climate change – and indeed global environmental change more generally – is fundamentally a moral challenge has become mainstream. But most have supposed that the challenge is one of acting morally, rather than to our morality itself. Dale Jamieson is a notable exception to this trend. From the earliest days of climate ethics, he has argued that successfully addressing the problem will involve a fundamental paradigm shift in ethics. In general, (...) Jamieson believes that our current values evolved relatively recently in “low-population-density and low-technology societies, with seemingly unlimited access to land and other resources,” and so are ill-suited to a globalized world. More specifically, he asserts that these values include as a central component an account of responsibility which “presupposes that harms and their causes are individual, that they can be readily identified, and that they are local in time and space.” But, he claims, global environmental problems such as climate change fit none of these criteria, so that a new value system is needed, one which addresses “fundamental questions” about “how we ought to live, what kinds of societies we want, and how we should relate to nature and other forms of life.” In particular, he declares that there is little hope of success without direct appeal to a hitherto underappreciated “duty of respect for nature.” In my view, Jamieson is right to question the adequacy of conventional ethical thinking for addressing global environmental problems. However, I also contend that the situation with respect to responsibility is less clear cut than he suggests. In this paper, I offer several objections to Jamieson’s main arguments, and propose an alternative, less revisionary, account of our predicament. Nevertheless, I also suggest that much of the spirit of Jamieson’s position remains intact, so that my proposal is more of a “friendly amendment” to his view than an outright rejection of it. According to this amendment, climate change involves a failure of our attempts to delegate responsibility to political institutions charged with acting on our behalf. Such failures are jarring, since they throw many of our normal practices into doubt, and threaten to restore to us demanding social burdens to which we have become largely unaccustomed. This situation need not cast doubt on our basic account of ethical responsibility. Indeed, that account helps to illuminate what is going on. Still, it does imply that we face a large (although somewhat familiar) moral and political challenge. (shrink)

T. C. Boyle’s A Friend of the Earth (2001), tells the story of Tyrone Tierwater, a one time monkeywrencher and environmental avenger for “E. F.!” (Earth Forever!) who we first meet in 2025 in his mid-seventies. Tierwater is now working for a character based on Michael Jackson, who in his semi-retirement has employed the elder eco-warrior to help save some of the last remnants of a few dying species – warthogs, peccaries, hyenas, jackals, lions and what is likely the last (...) Patagoninan fox. The not too distant environmental future painted by Boyle is a disaster. Global warming has finally caught up to us with a vengeance and even the secure shores of the U.S. are wracked by unmitigated cycles of flooding and drought seriously degrading most semblances of life as we know it. To be sure, though, people, and some versions of progress, go on. While most affordable food and drink is limited to some combination of catfish and sake (very little else having survived decades of disastrous weather and a series of crop blights), and there are constant threats of new strains of life-threatening and highly contagious diseases, suburban development continues and new humans come into existence with the promise, at least in the developed world, of longer life spans. But Boyle does not give us anything like the overly optimistic views expressed by some conservative columnists who dismiss the need for global climate treaties; this is not an environmental future that is only felt with difficulty in the underdeveloped south requiring simpler economic readjustments for Americans without a substantial shift in lifestyle. The world.. (shrink)

We examined whether differences in climate-friendly choices between the supporters of left-wing and right-wing ideologies are based on different moral foundations. Moreover, we compared general and issue-specific endorsement of moral foundations applied to climate change. Study 1 examined the endorsement of general moral foundations of university students living in Finland. Individualizing foundations were associated with increased climate-friendly choices and binding foundations were associated with decreased climate-friendly choices; the endorsement of moral foundations made the (...) effect of political orientation disappear. In Study 2 we developed and tested an issue-specific measure of moral foundations. The issue-specific endorsement of both types of foundations was directly associated with increased climate-friendly consumption. Binding foundations were associated with the avoidance of climate-friendly choices through right-wing orientation. These findings increase our understanding of differences between general and issue-specific moral concerns and their association to political orientation and pro-environmental behavior. (shrink)

Communication campaigns often highlight environmental progress to encourage further pro-environmental behaviour. Consequently, the drop in carbon emissions caused by the COVID-19 restrictions has been framed as a positive environmental outcome of the pandemic. We conducted an experimental study with a US-representative sample (N = 500) to show that raising awareness of emissions reduction has the contrary effect: an increase in moral self-concept facilitated a negative spillover, namely, it reduced climate-friendly behavioural intentions. Normative influence was able to prevent this (...) negative spillover because activating environmental norms inhibited compensatory feelings. Besides, awareness of recent emissions reduction was less likely to increase the moral self-concept of participants with a strong environmental self-identity. Our findings demonstrate that environmental progress increases moral self-concept which, in turn, could cause a negative spillover (i.e., reduce climate-friendly low-carbon behaviour and increase climate-harmful high-carbon behaviour). Normative influences and environmental self-identity can inhibit this negative spillover. (shrink)

This fresh examination of the works of Montesquieu seeks to understand the shortcomings of the modern democratic state in light of this great political thinker’s insightful critique of commercial republicanism. The western democracies’ muted response to victory in the Cold War signaled the presence of a pervasive discontent, a sense that despite this victory liberal democracy itself was deeply flawed. Paul A. Rahe argues that to understand this phenomenon we must re-examine—starting with Montesquieu—the nature of liberal democracy, its character, and (...) its propensities. In a brilliant exposition of the works of Montesquieu Rahe identifies the profound sense of uneasiness fostered by the modern republic as a source of weakness and as the principal cause of the present discontents. (shrink)

Technologies for mitigating and adapting to climate change are inherently political. Their development, diffusion and deployment will have uneven impacts within and across national borders. Bringing the governance of climate technologies under democratic control is imperative but impeded by the global scale of governance and its polycentric nature. This article draws on innovative theorising in the deliberative democracy tradition to map possibilities for global democratic governance of climate technologies. It is argued that this domain (...) is not beyond the reach of democracy. Civil society has a unique and expanded role to play in generating democratic legitimacy by fostering public deliberation; translating and transmitting concepts, ideas and messages; and promoting and facilitating deliberative accountability. (shrink)

Problem Solving Technologies provides a user friendly understanding of technological objects including what they are and how the function in our lives.

Climate change is considered one of the most pressing problems for life on Earth. Climate engineering technologies, it is believed, can offer a potential response to climate change and effective solutions to deal with its effects. However, these technologies may also pose risks. This chapter explores the ethical issues raised by climate engineering. It is divided into two parts. The first part asks what the ethical constraints of the technology might be and how moral (...) responsibility in climate engineering technologies might be articulated. The second part explores the role that artificial intelligence (AI) in information and communication technologies (ICTs) could play in relation to climate change and mitigation and adaptation measures. (shrink)

Aristotle’s account of friendship has largely withstood the test of time. Yet there are overlooked elements of his account that, when challenged by apparent threats of current and emerging communication technologies, reveal his account to be remarkably prescient. I evaluate the danger that technological advances in communication pose to the future of friendship by examining and defending Aristotle’s claim that perfect or character-friends must live together. I concede that technologically-mediated communication can aid existing character-friendships, but I argue that character-friendships (...) cannot be created and sustained entirely through technological meditation. I examine text-based technologies, such as Facebook and email, and engage a non-text based technology that poses the greatest threat to my thesis—Skype. I then address philosophical literature on friendship and technology that has emerged in the last decade in Ethics and Information Technology to elucidate and defend my account by contrast. I engage Cocking and Matthews (2000), who argue that friendship cannot be created and sustained entirely through text-based contact, Briggle (2008), who argues that friendship can be created and sustained entirely through text-based contact, and Munn (2012), who argues that friendship cannot be created and entirely sustained through text-based contact but can be created and sustained entirely in immersive virtual worlds. My account discusses a certain kind of friendship, character-friendship, and a certain kind of technology, Skype, that these accounts do not. Examination of these essays helps to demonstrate that character friendship cannot be sustained entirely by technologically-aided communication and that character-friends must live together. (shrink)

Technological change modelling (TCM) is quietly transforming the landscape of environmental debate. It provides a powerful new basis for technological optimism, which has long been a key battleground. The technique is at the heart of mainstream climate change mitigation policies and greatly strengthens environmentalism over ecologism. It seems to show that technological change can solve the problem. I argue that the models employ a flawed understanding of technological change and that policies based on them are a major gamble. The (...) article aims to begin a wider debate on TCM, offering a defence of ecologism rooted in the history of technology and SCOT literatures. (shrink)

An exploration of commercially available technologies that can enhance energy security and address climate change and public policy options crucial to their adoption.

Responding to the climate crisis requires social and economic innovation—because climate change is a symptom of patriarchal capitalist systems that are concentrating—rather than distributing—wealth and power. Despite the need for social and economic innovation, technological innovation continues to be prioritized in climate policy and climate investments. This paper reviews the dangers of technological optimism in climate policy by exploring its links to patriarchal systems and masculinity. The disproportionate focus on science and technology emerges from and (...) reinforces “climate isolationism,” a term that I use to refer to the common framing of climate change as an isolated discrete, scientific problem in need of technological solutions. This framing stems from assumptions of patriarchal white-male conceptions of privilege and power that evolve from a colonizing and controlling mindset. Masculine technological optimism is dangerous because it is exclusive, it minimizes the need for social change and social innovation, and it is ineffective in catalyzing inclusive societal transformation. This paper argues that embracing feminist, antiracist values is necessary for transformative climate policies, economic justice, and climate justice. (shrink)

본 논문의 목적은 커뮤니케이션 테크놀로지의 진보가 미래의 친구관계에 가하는 위험한 상황을 진단하는 것이다. 이때 필자는 ‘친구의 존재목적에 가장 잘 부합하는 친구는 함께 살아야 한다.’는 아리스토텔레스의 주장을 검토하면서 변호할 것이다. 기술적으로 매개된 커뮤니케이션이 실제로 친구의 존재목적에 가장 잘 부합하는 친구관계에 도움이 될 수도 있다. 그러나 기술적 매개를 통해서는 친구의 존재목적에 가장 잘 부합하는 친구관계가 생겨날 수도 없고 친구의 존재목적에 가장 잘 부합하는 친구관계를 온전하게 유지할 수도 없다. 이를 논증하기 위하여 필자는 우선 문자기반 테크놀로지를 검토할 것이다. 그리고 ‘친구의 존재목적에 가장 잘 부합하는 (...) 친구는 함께 살아야 한다.’는 아리스토텔레스의 주장을 가장 강력하게 위협하고 있는 비문자기반 테크놀로지에 대해서도 함께 검토할 것이다. 다음으로 필자는 본 논문의 주제와 관련하여 윤리학과 정보기술 분야에서 최근에 생산된 철학적 문헌을 살펴볼 것이다. 최근의 학자들 중에는 문자에 기반을 두고 접촉하는 것만으로는 친구관계가 생길 수도 없고 온전하게 유지될 수도 없다고 논증한 사람들도 있고, 정 반대로 문자에 기반을 두고 접촉함으로써 친구관계가 생길 수도 있고 온전하게 유지될 수도 있다고 논증한 사람들도 있다. 또 문자에 기반을 둔 접촉을 통해서는 친구관계가 생길수도 없고 온전하게 유지될 수도 없지만, 몰입적인 가상세계에서는 친구관계가 생길 수도 있고 온전하게 유지될 수도 있다고 주장한 사람도 있다. 그러나 이들이 언급하고 있는 친구관계는 아리스토텔레스의 ‘친구의 존재목적에 가장 잘 부합하는 친구관계’가 아니다. 그럼에도 불구하고 이들의 주장에 대한 검토는 기술적으로 도움을 받는 커뮤니케이션을 통해서는 친구의 존재목적에 가장 잘 부합하는 친구관계가 온전하게 유지될 수 없다는 것과 친구의 존재목적에 가장 잘 부합하는 친구는 함께 살아야 한다는 아리스토텔레스의 주장이 옳았음을 입증하는 데 도움이 된다. (shrink)

Much in Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is part of a participatory turn within the Technology Assessment (TA) and Science and Technology Studies (STS) community. This has an influence also on the evaluation of Climate Engineering (CE) options, as it will be shown by reference to the SPICE project. The SPICE example and the call for democratisation of science and innovation raise some interesting concerns for the normative evaluation of CE options that will be addressed in the paper. It (...) is by far not clear, or so it will be argued, how much of the innovation process of CE technologies should be put in the hands of social actors and the wider public. This is due not only to special features about CE technologies but also to some more principle concerns against some features of participatory RRI approaches. Still, this does by no way mean that ethical and societal issues in the context of CE technologies should be ignored. Rather, the paper will argue that one can take a step back to expert TA linked to the evolution of approaches of ethical impact analysis in this area. This does not only lead to reconsider the emphasis on participation and democratisation of research and innovation, but also opens up for an alternative evaluative framework for CE technologies developed in the last part of the paper. (shrink)

Hans Morten Haugen offers an analysis of the intersection of intellectual property with health, traditional knowledge and biodiversity against a backdrop of established and emerging human rights. How those rights interface and who decides are among the most difficult issues in international intellectual property, and there is no doubt that there is room for fresh ideas on how to simultaneously achieve the goals of innovation, development and access. 0Also part of series: Library of Human Rights; 2.

The chapter aims to introduce an integrated approach to concepts of smart cities and age-friendly cities and communities. Although these ideas are widely promoted by the European Union and the World Health Organisation, they are perceived as separate. Meanwhile, these concepts are closely intermingled in theory and practise concerning the promotion of healthy and active ageing, a universal design, usability and accessibility of age-friendly environments, reducing of the digital divide and robotic divide, and reducing of older adults’ social (...) isolation. The conclusion underlines the need for participatory creation of ambient assisted living technologies and applications with older adults and the need for advocacy to promote AAL in the context of the silver economy especially in the Central and Eastern Europe. (shrink)

This chapter discusses how solar geoengineering might affect different African states, with a particular focus on its impact on social justice from an African perspective.

A model of information technology (IT) ethical work climates is presented. Using these ethical work climates and data collected from a national mail survey of Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) members, empirical measures were developed and evaluated. A mailing of 2446 questionnaires was sent to ACM members and 136 usable responses were returned (5.6%). Using these data, an exploratory factor analysis was performed using principle components analysis to identify the IT ethical work climates from the data. Six of these work (...) climates were identified as predicted by the model. Two ethical work climates that were combinations of the proposed climates were also identified.From the results of the exploratory factor analysis, a confirmatory factor analysis was performed using Calis in PC SAS version 8. The purpose of this analysis was to evaluate the overall fit of these measures to the data and evaluate the psychometric properties of the measures. The fit of the IT ethical work climates model was acceptable. The psychometric properties of these measures were good. Based on these results, conclusions, limitations of the study, and directions for future research are proposed. (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.

The effects of anthropogenic climate change may be devastating. Nevertheless, most people do not seem to be seriously concerned. We consume as much as we always did, drive as much as we always did, eat as much meat as we always did. What can we do to overcome this collective apathy? In order to be able to develop effective measures, we must first get clear about the causes of climate change inaction. In this paper I ask whether moral (...) nihilism is a significant cause of climate change inaction. The answer to this question depends mainly on the extent to which being a moral nihilist reduces one's likelihood of taking action against climate change. At first sight, the extent seems to be considerable. I argue, however, that this assumption is false. Only slightly more non-nihilists than nihilists are led to climate-friendly actions by moral considerations. And in absolute terms, morality plays such a minor role in leading people to act that the difference is barely noticeable. (shrink)

Although still highly controversial, the idea that we can use technology to radically alter our environment in order to mitigate the climate challenges we now face is becoming an ever more discussed approach. This chapter takes up a specific climate engineering technology, carbon capture, usage, and storage (CCUS), and highlights how this technology works and how its governance still needs further work to ensure that it is aligned to the ideal of sustainable development. Given that climate engineering (...) technologies like CCUS have the potential to ameliorate many of the climate issues and support the SDGs, there remains a lacuna of inserting these globally impactful technologies within a normative political framework to respect that proper responsibility is attributed. The aim of the chapter is to examine the concept of accountability, how it has been traditionally understood in the literature, and why a polysemic and multidimensional account of accountability is required if climate engineering technologies like CCUS are actually to support sustainable development. This may serve as a first theoretically informed basis for reflection on how to create a synergy between the responsible deployment of climate engineering innovation and the achievement of the SDGs targets, one that can shed light on how justifications and decisions about sustainable strategies and constraints are managed, taken and communicated. (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)

There is no longer any doubt that the coming decades will bring serious threats to humanity from anthropogenic climate change. As we have suggested elsewhere, horrible scenarios are far more realistic than non-horrible ones, and science and technology are incapable, especially in our non-ideal world, of equitably distributing wealth, access to resources and adaptations to climate change. In this article, we offer an alternative to these inevitable horrible scenarios. The alternative is to implement either an anti-natalist policy, or (...) procreative beneficence and reproductive rights policies aimed at radically reducing the birth rate. These alternatives, however, are potentially unfair and quite possibly unthinkable to most of humanity. (shrink)

The importance of addressing the existential threat to humanity, climate change, has grown remarkedly in recent years while conflicting views and interests in societies exist. Therefore, climate change agendas have been weaponized to varying degrees, ranging from the international level between countries to the domestic level among political parties. In such contexts, climate change agendas are predominantly driven by political or economic ambitions, sometimes unconnected to concerns for environmental sustainability. Consequently, it can result in an environment that (...) fosters antagonism and disputes over power and position and increases the risk of prolonged confrontations, hindering the collective global efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Through the current discourse, we aim to provide a preliminary definition of the weaponization of climate change and environmental degradation and examine its risks and consequences on international relations, political dynamics, public perception, and the comprehensive integrity of climate action. We also recommend embracing a globally coordinated, scientifically substantiated approach to circumvent climate change by building an eco-surplus cultural value system. (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)

Methane emissions from sheep and cattle production have gained increasing profile in the context of climate change. Policy and scientific research communities have suggested a number of technological approaches to mitigate these emissions. This paper uses the concept of co-production as an analytical framework to understand farmers’ evaluation of a 'good animal’. It examines how technology and sheep and beef cattle are co-produced in the context of concerns about the climate change impact of methane. Drawing on 42 semi-structured (...) interviews, this paper demonstrates that methane emissions are viewed as a natural and integral part of sheep and beef cattle by farmers, rather than as a pollutant. Sheep and beef cattle farmers in the UK are found to be an extremely heterogeneous group that need to be understood in their specific social, environmental and consumer contexts. Some are more amenable to appropriating methane reducing measures than others, but largely because animals are already co-constructed from the natural and the technical for reasons of increased production efficiency. (shrink)

Anthropogenic climate change poses some difficult ethical quandaries for non-anthropocentrists. While it is hard to deny that climate change is a substantial moral ill, many types of non-human organisms stand to benefit from climate change. Modelling studies provide evidence that net primary productivity (NPP) could be substantially boosted, both regionally and globally, as a result of warming from increased concentrations of greenhouse gases. The same holds for deployment of certain types of climate engineering, or large-scale, technological (...) modifications of the global environment in order to prevent or slow anthropogenic climate change. For example, solar radiation management with stratospheric aerosol injections could benefit plant life by promoting enhanced photosynthesis, increasing diffuse radiation, and reducing heat stress. This has a surprising implication: from some non-anthropocentric perspectives, certain scenarios of climate change and climate engineering might bring about morally better states of affairs when compared to emission-mitigation baselines. (shrink)

We claim the climate crisis is the proper baseline for establishing the terms of debate about the viability of a post-work future. In this paper, we aim to assess the viability of a post-work future in which automation replaces a significant portion of human labor. We do this by laying out the possible outcomes of what such a future will look like based on three related axes: technological capacity, politics and social distribution, and alternative conceptions of the good. The (...) purpose in tracking these outcomes is to have a clear picture of those outcomes we should be pursuing in contrast to those we ought to avoid. Put another way, to achieve a post-work future that is egalitarian in character will require ensuring that technological capacity is used to improve the prospects for all humanity. The argument proceeds along the following lines. First, we summarize the scientific consensus about the causes and consequences of climate change, as well as the tools of mitigation and adaptation it recommends. The causes are primarily rooted in the global system of production and consumption that has developed over the last century. We refer to this pattern of development as the “Growth Model” since it primarily relies on energy created from burning fossil fuels and the exponential consumption of resources to promote more growth (Rose 2020). Second, we construct a range of possible outcomes regarding the climate crisis that are based on different trajectories of development. We do so by examining each of two cases located on the poles of three different axes. These axes include technology, political organization and social distribution, and conceptions of the good, yielding eight possible outcomes. The point of considering these cases and how they intersect along these axes is two-fold: to clarify the features that define them and compare their merits and drawbacks, enabling us to formulate the means for avoiding some outcomes and strive for others. Third, we then consider the viability of a post-work future in terms of these outcomes. Some of these outcomes point in a direction where automation replaces labor, and its benefits are shared widely. Others indicate a future in which some groups benefit at the expense of others, while some appear to preclude the emergence of such a future altogether. Finally, we conclude with some observations about the viability of a post-work future given our evaluation of these outcomes. (shrink)

This article critically evaluates the process of technology transfer from developed to developing countries. It considers market-based policies contained in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which are proposed as tools to promote the transfer of technologies that can abate greenhouse gas emissions contributing to climate change. It uses the case of India to exemplify the conditions that exist and issues that arise in a rapidly developing country that is a recipient of such investments. It (...) contests the claim that such market-based strategies embodied in the present climate policy framework can facilitate the transfer of technologies that offer ecologically sustainable and socially equitable solutions for developing countries. (shrink)

We make the case that scientifically accurate and politically feasible responses to the climate crisis require a complex understanding of human cultural practices of niche construction that moves beyond the adaptive significance of culture. We develop this thesis in two related ways. First, we argue that cumulative cultural practices of niche construction can generate stable equilibria and runaway selection processes that result in long-term existential risks within and across cultural groups. We dub this the back of the invisible hand. (...) Second, we argue that the ability of cultural groups to innovate technological solutions to environmental problems is highly constrained in ways that are exacerbated by sustained intergroup conflict, inequality and by inherently unpredictable cascades in climate change and human migration patterns. After developing these theoretical points about human cultural practices of niche construction in detail, we conclude our discussion with some tentative practical suggestions about the way that cultural evolutionary history can more fruitfully be used in efforts to remit the climate crisis and contribute to sustainable practices of human climate change adaptation. (shrink)

The human faculty of moral judgment is not well suited to address problems, like climate change, that are global in scope and remote in time. Advocates of ‘moral bioenhancement’ have proposed that we should investigate the use of medical technologies to make human beings more trusting and altruistic, and hence more willing to cooperate in efforts to mitigate the impacts of climate change. We survey recent accounts of the proximate and ultimate causes of human cooperation in order (...) to assess the prospects for bioenhancement. We identify a number of issues that are likely to be significant obstacles to effective bioenhancement, as well as areas for future research. (shrink)

Climate change confronts us with our most pressing challenges today. The global consensus is clear that human activity is mostly to blame for its harmful effects, but there is disagreement about what should be done. While no shortage of proposals from ecological footprints and the polluter pays principle to adaptation technology and economic reforms, each offers a solution – but is climate change a problem we can solve? In this provocative new book, these popular proposals for ending or (...) overcoming the threat of climate change are shown to offer no easy escape and each rest on an important mistake. Thom Brooks argues that a future environmental catastrophe is an event we can only delay or endure, but not avoid. This raises new ethical questions about how we should think about climate change. How should we reconceive sustainability without a status quo? Why is action more urgent and necessary than previously thought? What can we do to motivate and inspire hope? Many have misunderstood the kind of problem that climate change presents – as well as the daunting challenges we must face and overcome. Climate Change Ethics for an Endangered World is a critical guide on how we can better understand the fragile world around us before it is too late. This innovative book will be of great interest to students and scholars of climate change, climate justice, environmental policy and environmental ethics. "This book offers a rare combination of tough-mindedness, analytic rigor, and passion as it tackles the greatest challenge of our time―climate change. For Brooks, it’s past time to acknowledge that climate change cannot be solved though the careful selection of good polices. Climate change is an unavoidable tragedy that we must endure but may be able to survive. Offering a program that emphasizes flexibility and adaptation, Brooks brings original insights to a debate that too long has been bogged down in wishful thinking and empty scholasticism." Professor Eric Posner, Kirkland & Ellis Distinguished Service Professor of Law at the University of Chicago's Law School. (shrink)

Dealing with the effects of climate change requires the consideration of multiple conflicting moral claims. The prioritization of these claims depends on the vision of a desired future, eschatology broadly defined. These visions, sometimes implicit rather than explicit, shape our decision making by influencing our sense of how things “ought to be.” The role of future visions in economics, technology, and preservation of nature are explored as secular eschatologies. Four aspects of such visions are especially relevant to climate (...) change decisions: distributive justice, land use, the relationship among humans, and our relationship to the rest of nature. Effectively dealing with such wicked problems requires that we scrutinize our visions of how the future ought to be, both technically and morally. Finally, we must foster a dialogue between competing visions so that we can forge a path that strives for consent. (shrink)

Climate change presents us with a problem of intergenerational justice. While any costs associated with climate change mitigation measures will have to be borne by the world’s present generation, the main beneficiaries of mitigation measures will be future generations. This raises the question to what extent present generations have a responsibility to shoulder these costs. One influential approach for addressing this question is to appeal to neo-classical economic cost–benefit analyses and so-called economy-climate “integrated assessment models” to determine (...) what course of action a principle of intergenerational welfare maximization would require of us. I critically examine a range of problems for this approach. First, integrated assessment models face a problem of underdetermination and induction: They are very sensitive to a number of highly conjectural assumptions about economic responses to a temperature and climate regime, for which we have no empirical evidence. Second, they involve several simplifying assumptions which cannot be justified empirically. And third, some of the assumptions underlying the construction of economic models are intrinsically normative assumptions that reflect value judgments of the modeler. I conclude that, while integrated assessment models may play a useful role as “toy models,” their use as tools for policy optimization is highly problematic. (shrink)

Victor and Cullen (1987, 1988) developed a typology of ethical climates based upon the level of moral development of the work group (egoism, benevolence and principled a la Kohlberg, 1981) and the locus of analysis utilized in reaching decisions (individual, local, cosmopolitan). Building on this typology, data were obtained from a high technology company for the purpose of empirically extending the examination of the number of ethical climates that exist and portraying the relationship between ethical climates and the ethical dimension (...) of decisions.When faced with decisions posing various types of ethical dilemmas, most respondents indicated they would take the ethical path. The one exception involved bribery where respondents were about equally likely to make or withhold payment. One climate guided by laws/professional codes accounted for over half of the respondents. Several climates accounted for less than ten percent of the respondents. (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)