Environmental activism is expected to improve society’s well-being and environmental sustainability. Nevertheless, some inappropriate ways of activism, like road blockage, art vandalism, assaults, etc., have been recently conducted and risked causing adverse repercussions, including violence escalation. The current study aims to explore which types of environmental activism are more likely to escalate violence between activists, affected citizens, and police. Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics was employed to analyze a dataset of 89 blockage, vandalism, and harassment cases in 13 countries in (...) this exploratory study. We discovered that rallies and demonstrations, marches, event disruption, and art vandalism were less likely to escalate violence between protestors, other citizens, and the police. In contrast, road blockades and assaults are more likely to lead to violence escalation. Apart from those, sabotage was found to have an ambiguous relationship with the violence escalation. Based on these results, we suggest that climate activists should be more selective in adopting activism approaches to raise public awareness and support and avoid using tactics that might be counterproductive and reduce public backing, such as road blockage and assaults. Despite the negative impact of art vandalism on violence escalation, we also discussed why art vandalism should not be used since it can curb the effectiveness of artivism, showing misuse of artworks (e.g., paintings, music, films) for environmental activism. (shrink)

In this article, we analyse the role that artificial intelligence (AI) could play, and is playing, to combat global climate change. We identify two crucial opportunities that AI offers in this domain: it can help improve and expand current understanding of climate change, and it can contribute to combatting the climate crisis effectively. However, the development of AI also raises two sets of problems when considering climate change: the possible exacerbation of social and (...) ethical challenges already associated with AI, and the contribution to climate change of the greenhouse gases emitted by training data and computation-intensive AI systems. We assess the carbon footprint of AI research, and the factors that influence AI’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in this domain. We find that the carbon footprint of AI research may be significant and highlight the need for more evidence concerning the trade-off between the GHG emissions generated by AI research and the energy and resource efficiency gains that AI can offer. In light of our analysis, we argue that leveraging the opportunities offered by AI for global climate change whilst limiting its risks is a gambit which requires responsive, evidence-based, and effective governance to become a winning strategy. We conclude by identifying the European Union as being especially well-placed to play a leading role in this policy response and provide 13 recommendations that are designed to identify and harness the opportunities of AI for combatting climate change, while reducing its impact on the environment. (shrink)

Many individual sentient wild animals are vulnerable to anthropogenic climate change. In this article, I suggest that animal ethicists who take sentient animals’ moral status seriously are likely to agree that, other things being equal, we have moral responsibilities to assist wild animals made vulnerable to climate change. However, I also argue that these ethicists are likely to diverge in terms of the strategies they believe would actually fulfil such moral responsibilities, depending on whether their primary (...) concern is rectificatory justice or duties of beneficence. To support this argument, I consider three plausible strategies for helping wild animals vulnerable to climate change: rescue and rehabilitation, habitat restoration, and assisted migration. I argue that different theoretical approaches to animal ethics are likely to diverge on aspects of all these strategies. These differences mean that the process of creating wide agreement among animal ethicists on climate adaptation strategies to assist vulnerable wild animals faces significant hurdles. (shrink)

In this article, we analyse the role that artificial intelligence (AI) could play, and is playing, to combat global climate change. We identify two crucial opportunities that AI offers in this domain: it can help improve and expand current understanding of climate change, and it can contribute to combatting the climate crisis effectively. However, the development of AI also raises two sets of problems when considering climate change: the possible exacerbation of social and (...) ethical challenges already associated with AI, and the contribution to climate change of the greenhouse gases emitted by training data and computation-intensive AI systems. We assess the carbon footprint of AI research, and the factors that influence AI’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in this domain. We find that the carbon footprint of AI research may be significant and highlight the need for more evidence concerning the trade-off between the GHG emissions generated by AI research and the energy and resource efficiency gains that AI can offer. In light of our analysis, we argue that leveraging the opportunities offered by AI for global climate change whilst limiting its risks is a gambit which requires responsive, evidence-based, and effective governance to become a winning strategy. We conclude by identifying the European Union as being especially well-placed to play a leading role in this policy response and provide 13 recommendations that are designed to identify and harness the opportunities of AI for combatting climate change, while reducing its impact on the environment. (shrink)

Gender bias is a recalcitrant problem in academia and society. However, dissent has been created on this issue. We focus on dissenting studies by Stephen J. Ceci and Wendy M. Williams, arguing that they reach conclusions that are unwarranted on the basis of the available evidence and that they ignore fundamental objections to their methodological decisions. Drawing on discussions from other contexts, particularly on manufactured dissent concerning anthropogenic climate change, we conclude that dissent on gender bias substantially contributes (...) to the exacerbation of biases in society and an increasing number of attacks on researchers, making it both epistemically and socially problematic. (shrink)

This Handbook offers a broad yet unified treatment of all the philosophical issues connected with climate change, ranging from foundational puzzles to detailed applications. It addresses the philosophical foundations of the discussion on the ethical, social, political and legal impacts of climate change. It covers all branches of philosophy that are relevant to the understanding of the premises and implications of the impacts on human, animal and natural life on Earth. More specifically, the Handbook examines the (...) scientific accounts of climate change as well as its causes. It explores the tools offered by social sciences and humanities to study the societal impact of climate change. It studies the ethical and political issues connected with and resulting from climate change, and puts it all in an environmental and historical context. In addition, the book offers solutions to the main philosophical puzzles and problems, and provides paths of interaction between philosophy and other disciplines. The discussion about climate change and the mitigation/adaptation policies spans many areas and levels – from abstract science and philosophy to current on-the-ground politics. However, climate change is also a great a philosophical puzzle. Indeed, its existential and practical relevance can be thought to largely derive from the philosophical complications it engenders. Climate change is applied philosophy par excellence. Preventing dangerous anthropogenic climate change needs very good philosophy applied to concrete and specific practical issues. Climate change is an area where scholars from very different provenances should cooperate on equal terms, having in view a common, and really important, purpose – contribute to preventing great burdens and even the extinction of humankind and the destruction of hospitable and valuable non-human nature. (shrink)

Arguments may sometimes be advanced with a non-standard function. One such function, it is suggested, is the expression of identity, a practice which may play a significant role in political representation. This paper sets out to examine a number of short addresses given at the High-Level segment of the Cop26 conference, which are considered to contain instances of such argumentation. Their content is analysed and evaluated by means of the Comprehensive Assessment Procedure for Natural Argumentation (CAPNA), and an attempt is (...) made to highlight the purposes of the delegates in addressing the conference. At a more fundamental level, the goal of this work is to assess the possibility of identifying arguments as being meant largely as statements of identity or representation, and the suitability of the CAPNA or other norm-based systems for evaluating such discourse. The speakers studied include representatives from OPEC, the Trade Unions, and the leaders of Vietnam and Liechtenstein. Ultimately, the study concludes that while further work is necessary both on understanding the relationship between argument and identity in the political arena, and on the application of argument norms to representational discourse, evaluations of this kind are meaningful and informative. (shrink)

Argues that it is not only a point of literal construction, but also inherent in the object and purpose of the 1951 Refugee Convention, that displaced stateless persons unable to return to their countries of former habitual residence may be eligible for refugee status even if unpersecuted. 'Unable to return' as it occurs in the clause following the semi-colon of 1(A)2 of the 1951 Refugee Convention must be understood as a term of art subject to appropriate canons of construction in (...) its own right. Its construal must therefore be more restrictive than many commentators have suggested, though not so strict as to preclude all but persecuted persons. Then argues that, as a case study, those who are displaced from their island nations because those nations have submerged beneath the sea will count as 'unable to return' in the relevant sense, and so will qualify for Convention refugee status, if they count as lacking a nationality, i.e. as stateless. (shrink)

Recent years have seen a notable increase in the production of scientific expertise by large multidisciplinary groups. The issue we address is how reports may be written by such groups in spite of their size and of formidable obstacles: complexity of subject matter, uncertainty, and scientific disagreement. Our focus is on the International Panel on Climate Change, unquestionably the best-known case of such collective scientific expertise. What we show is that the organization of work within the IPCC aims (...) to make it possible to produce documents that are indeed expert reports. To do so, we first put forward the epistemic norms that apply to expert reports in general, that is, the properties that reports should have in order to be useful and to help decision-making. Section 2 claims that these properties are: intelligibility, relevance and accuracy. Based on this analysis, section 3 points to the difficulties of having IPCC reports indeed satisfying these norms. We then show how the organization of work within the IPCC aims at and to a large extent secures intelligibility, relevance and accuracy, with the result that IPCC reports can be relied on for decision-making. Section 4 focuses on the fundamentals of IPCC’s work organization--that is, division of labour within the IPCC--while section 5 investigates three frameworks that were introduced over the course of the functioning of the IPCC: the reviewing procedure of IPCC reports, the language that IPCC authors use to express uncertainty and the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project. Concluding remarks are offered in section 6. (shrink)

This article discusses whether it is rational and valuable to have hope in the face of the climate crisis. The aim is to explore a distinctive Kantian perspective characterized by three main elements. First, hope is not seen primarily as a means of sustaining action, but action is viewed as a condition for rational hope. Second, the value of certain ‘fundamental’ hopes is not merely instrumental but derives from their constitutive role in our practical identity. Here, I focus on (...) Kantian hope in the compatibility of our fundamental ends, happiness and morality. Third, the rationality of such a hope presupposes trust – in particular, trust that our conceptions of morality and the good life are sufficiently flexible to adapt to drastically new circumstances. (shrink)

Several climate ethicists have recently argued that having children is morally equivalent to over-consumption, and contributes greatly to parents’ personal carbon footprints. We show that these claims are mistaken, for two reasons. First, including procreation in parents’ carbon footprints double-counts children’s consumption emissions, once towards their own, and once towards their parents’ footprints. We show that such double-counting defeats the chief purpose of the concept of carbon footprint, namely to measure the sustainability and equitability of one’s activities and choices. (...) Furthermore, we show that proposals to avoid double-counting have other unacceptable implications. Second, we show that the key arguments for a supposed moral equivalence of procreation and consumption overgenerate and lead to unacceptable consequences in many cases, such as for the work of doctors who save lives or enable procreation. Finally, we propose that rather than counting children’s emissions towards their parents’ carbon footprints, we should consider these emissions as part of the parents’ carbon impact, i.e. the difference that their choices make to the overall global carbon emissions. It is from the perspective of impact that we should think about the ethics of procreation in an age of climate change. (shrink)

This is the second of three parts of an introduction to the philosophy of climate science. In this second part about modelling climate change, the topics of climate modelling, confirmation of climate models, the limits of climate projections, uncertainty and finally model ensembles will be discussed.

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 essay discusses the causes, significance, and skeptical arguments of (...) class='Hi'>climate change denialism, as well as the roles of scientists and science communication in addressing the issues. Through this essay, we call for the active participation of scientists in science communication activities with the public, the opening 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 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)

In this paper, we examine how organizations’ impression management evolves in response to rising stakeholder pressures regarding organizations’ corporate responsibility initiatives. We conducted a comparative case study analysis over a period of 13 years for two organizations—Exxon and BP—that took extreme initial stances on climate change. We found that as stakeholder pressures rose, their IM tactics unfolded in four phases: advocating the initial stance, sensegiving to clarify the initial stance, image repairing, and adjusting the stance. Taken together, our (...) analysis of IM over these four phases provides three key insights about the evolution of IM in the face of rising pressures. First, when faced with stakeholder pressures, it seems that organizations do not immediately resort to conforming but tend to give in gradually when pressures increase and start to come from relatively powerful stakeholders. Second, evolution of IM seems to be characterized by path dependence, i.e., even as organizations’ positions evolve, they continue to show their conviction in their initial positions and try to convey that their subsequent positions flow logically from the previous ones. Finally, IM involves navigation between symbolism and substance, and companies tend to strive toward harmonizing their symbolic and substantive actions as stakeholder pressure increases. (shrink)

Climate change, pollution, and deforestation have a negative impact on global mental health. There is an environmental justice dimension to this challenge as wealthy people and high-income countries are major contributors to climate change and pollution, while poor people and low-income countries are heavily affected by the consequences. Using state-of-the art data mining, we analyzed and visualized the global research landscape on mental health, climate change, pollution and deforestation over a 15-year period. Metadata of (...) papers were exported from PubMed®, and both relevance and relatedness of terms in different time frames were computed using VOSviewer. Co-occurrence graphs were used to visualize results. The development of exemplary terms over time was plotted separately. The number of research papers on mental health and environmental challenges is growing in a linear fashion. Major topics are climate change, chemical pollution, including psychiatric medication in wastewater, and neurobiological effects. Research on specific psychiatric syndromes and diseases, particularly on their ethical and social aspects is less prominent. There is a growing body of research literature on links between mental health, climate change, pollution, and deforestation. This research provides a graphic overview to mental healthcare professionals and political stakeholders. Social and ethical aspects of the climate change-mental health link have been neglected, and more research is needed. (shrink)

This is the first of three parts of an introduction to the philosophy of climate science. In this first part about observing climate change, the topics of definitions of climate and climate change, data sets and data models, detection of climate change, and attribution of climate change will be discussed.

Last year, I flew to two bioethics conferences, one in Europe and one in North America. These were good things to do, or so I thought. But I worry that flying and other activities are contributing to climate changes that will affect the health of vulnerable people, the life prospects of future generations, and the balance of the natural world. Thus, in this paper, I consider how I should respond. To begin, I describe briefly how climate change (...) will impact human health. Then I note how climate change raises issues about justice. But I focus on issues about moral responsibility and responsiveness. (shrink)

Values related to culture, identity, community cohesion and sense of place have sometimes been downplayed in the climate change discourse. However, they have been suggested to be not only important to citizens but the values most vulnerable to climate change. Here we test four empirical consequences of the suggestion: at least 50% of the locations citizens' consider to be the most important locations in their municipality are chosen because they represent these values, locations representing these values (...) have a high probability of being damaged by climate change induced sea level rise, citizens for which these values are particularly strongly held less strongly believe in the local effects of climate change, and citizens for which these values are particularly strongly held less strongly believe that they have experienced the effects of climate change. The tests were made using survey data collected in 2014 from 326 citizens owning property in Höganäs municipality, Sweden, and included values elicited using a new methodology separating instrumental values from end values, and using the former as stepping stones to pinpoint the latter, that represent the true interests of the respondents. The results provide the first evidence that, albeit frequent, values related to culture, identity, community cohesion and sense of place are not the values most vulnerable to climate change. This in turn indicates a need to further investigate the vulnerability of these values to climate change, using a methodology that clearly distinguishes between instrumental and end values. (shrink)

This paper argues that climate migration-in case of climate refugees in a strict sense-differs from other forms of migration not only by its finality but also by the fact that entire communities are forced to resettle elsewhere. For such communities to migrate with dignity-that is in a way that protects the social bases of their self-respect-their host countries are required to ensure the necessary institutional arrangements enabling these people to become full and equal members within a reasonably short (...) time. Ensuring that their equal participation rights are not merely formal but have ‘fair value’ requires taking cultural differences into account to ensure that they do not pose substantial disadvantages for participation in the political and social sphere. (shrink)

Several philosophers claim that the greenhouse gas emissions from actions like a Sunday drive are so miniscule that they will make no difference whatsoever with regard to anthropogenic global climate change (AGCC) and its expected harms. This paper argues that this claim of individual causal inefficacy is false. First, if AGCC is not reducible at least in part to ordinary actions, then the cause would have to be a metaphysically odd emergent entity. Second, a plausible (dis-)utility calculation reveals (...) that such actions have a not-insignificant amount of expected harm. One upshot is that the near-exclusive focus in the literature on AGCC as a collective action problem is too restricted. The paper also provides several moral psychological explanations of why it is so difficult to comprehend individual responsibility with regard to global phenomena, including a reappraisal of Thomas Nagel’s view of the absurd. (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)

The evidence most of us have for our beliefs on global climate change, the extent of human contribution to it, and appropriate anticipatory and mitigating actions turns crucially on epistemic trust. We extend trust or distrust to many varied others: scientists performing original research, intergovernmental agencies and those reviewing research, think tanks offering critique and advocating skepticism, journalists transmitting and interpreting claims, even social systems of modern science such as peer-reviewed publication and grant allocation. Our personal experiences and (...) assessments of evidential indicators themselves may be buttressed significantly by trust, not just in. (shrink)

Climate scientists have proposed two methods to link extreme weather events and anthropogenic climate forcing: the probabilistic and the storyline approach. Proponents of the first approach have raised the criticism that the storyline approach could be overstating the role of anthropogenic climate change. This issue has important implications because, in certain contexts, decision-makers might seek to avoid information that overstates the effects of anthropogenic climate change. In this paper, we explore two research questions. First, (...) whether and to what extent the storyline approach overstates the effects of anthropogenic climate change. Second, whether the objections offered against the storyline approach constitute good reasons to prefer the probabilistic approach. Concerning the first question, we show that the storyline approach does not necessarily overstate the effects of climate change, and particularly not for the reasons offered by proponents of the probabilistic approach. Concerning the second question, we show, independently, that the probabilistic approach faces the same or very similar objections to those raised against the storyline approach due to the lack of robustness of climate models and the way events are commonly defined when applying the probabilistic approach. These results suggest that these objections might not constitute good reasons to prefer the probabilistic approach over the storyline approach. (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.

This dissertation is a contribution to the debate about ‘climate justice’, i.e. a call for a just and feasible distribution of responsibility for addressing climate change. The main argument is a proposal for a cautious, practicable, and necessary step in the right direction: given the set of theoretical and practical obstacles to climate justice, we must begin by making contemporary development practices sustainable. In times of climate change, this is done by recognising and responding (...) to the fact that emissions of greenhouse gases, with climate change as their result, are an immanent threat to any reflectively embraced development project. In the universal pursuit of progress, basic needs of both present and future people are put at risk. Even so, a political stalemate and business-as-usual prevail. The situation is locked up by an uncertainty about the exact impacts of choices made and by the reasonable disagreement of modern societies. The result is passiveness, and the passing on of a slowly and indiscernibly growing problem to future generations. This dissertation brings out a crucial message about the need to make our development sustainable. Instead of delaying action through trying to resolve the intractable epistemic and normative uncertainty fully, the focus should be on vindicating already shared points of practical convergence. On the constructivist method here adopted, the task is to characterise the agent and the situation faced from a practical and first-person point of view. More specifically, to specify the practical problem climate change gives rise to; the moral importance of needs (chapter three); how a principled priority of basic needs can be defended (chapter four), intergenerationally (chapter five) and internationally (chapter six); and what natural and social limits there are to development (chapter seven). These conceptions narrows the practice of development in the present context: it can be concluded that development must not risk the basic needs of anyone implicated. This common ground brackets off disagreement irrelevant to the urgent need to act, and so brings together otherwise deeply divided agents. A sufficientarian basic needs-principle, as the focus of an overlapping consensus, is practicable and anticipatory in the disuniting moral conundrum of climate change. (shrink)

Presidential candidate Trump vehemently denied the reality of climate change. However, President Trump and his administration have not officially taken this position. This may be because it would m...

Should we help wild animals suffering negative impacts from anthropogenic climate change? It follows from diverse ethical positions that we should, although this idea troubles defenders of wildness value. One already existing climate threat to wild animals, especially in the Arctic, is the disruption of food chains. I take polar bears as my example here: Should we help starving polar bears? If so, how? A recent scientific paper suggests that as bears’ food access worsens due to a (...) changing climate, we should consider supplementary feeding. Feeding starving bears could meet ethical obligations to help wild animals suffering from climate change. But supplementary feeding may also cause harms, and lead to park-like management of some bear populations – a concern for those who care about the value of wildness. While this situation is in many ways intractable, I’ll make a tentative suggestion of a possible way forward for wildlife managers. (shrink)

ABSTRACT ‘Facts remain robust only when … supported by a common culture,’ observes Bruno Latour. Current debates over the veracity of climate change are, in actuality, crises of facts. Questions of facticity have, moreover, precipitated a deeper issue – the prospects of unshared, ‘alternative’ worlds. Climate science believers have one world, climate change deniers another, creating what Latour calls ‘epistemological delirium.’ Following Latour, the paper turns to Pierre Hadot’s description of Stoic physics and understanding of (...) philosophy as spiritual exercise. Finally, taking up both Latour’s claims of ‘alternative worlds’ and Hadot’s notion of spiritual exercise, this paper explores the possibilities of shared practices in light of unshared realities. (shrink)

Amid public health concerns over climate change, “precision public health” is emerging in next generation approaches to practice. These novel methods promise to augment public health operations by using ever larger and more robust health datasets combined with new tools for collecting and analyzing data. Precision strategies to protecting the public health could more effectively or efficiently address the systemic threats of climate change, but may also propagate or exacerbate health disparities for the populations most vulnerable (...) in a changing climate. How PPH interventions collect and aggregate data, decide what to measure, and analyze data pose potential issues around privacy, neglecting social determinants of health, and introducing algorithmic bias into climate responses. Adopting a health justice framework, guided by broader social and climate justice tenets, can reveal principles and policy actions which may guide more responsible implementation of PPH in climate responses. (shrink)

The power to change the natural environment has received relatively little attention in public health law, yet is a core concern within environmental and agricultural law. Examples from environmental and agricultural law may inform efforts to change the natural environment in order to reduce the health impacts of climate change. Public health lawyers who attend to the natural environment may succeed in elevating health concerns within the environmental and agricultural law spheres, while gaining new tools for (...) their public health law toolbox. (shrink)

Dialectical thinking refers to a constellation of beliefs that consist of expectation of change, tolerance of contradiction, and holism. The current research explored whether dialectical thinking would affect people’s anticipation of climate change, which has been propagated globally. Study 1 compared the responses between Chinese participants, representing people from cultures that promote dialectical thinking, and North American participants, representing people from cultures that promote linear thinking. The results showed that Chinese participants demonstrated a stronger non-linear pattern regarding (...) the anticipation of climate change as compared with American participants, in which Chinese participants were more likely to anticipate a stable trend but less likely to anticipate an increasing trend for global warming. Study 2 with a manipulation of dialectical and linear thinking was conducted and provided some generally supportive evidence for the causal relation between dialectical beliefs and the anticipation of climate change. Implications for cross-cultural environmental research and international climate change education programs were discussed. (shrink)

Il saggio introduce le tematiche di questo numero, soffermandosi in parti- colare sulla rilevanza etica e politica del cambiamento climatico. Dopo una rapida spiegazione dell'effetto serra naturale e artificiale, si ripercorrono le teorie che concepiscono il cambiamento climatico come un problema di giustizia distributiva. Secondo alcuni autori queste teorie non sono suffi- cienti per dare strumenti adeguati, perché il cambiamento climatico rappre- senta un problema etico nuovo, che richiede una strumentazione etica ine- dita. Il saggio approfondisce alcune delle caratteristiche nuove (...) dell'etica del cambiamento climatico, soprattutto in relazione all'impatto che le scelte presenti avranno sulla qualità della vita delle generazioni future.It is an introduction to the topic of the present issue of "La società degli in- dividui", dealing with the ethical and political relevance of climate change. After a brief account of the greenhouse effect, various approaches to clima- te change as a matter of distributive justice are considered. According to many authors, these approaches are inadequate, because climate change is a new issue, requiring new tools. The paper focusses on some of the new fea- tures of climate ethics, mainly in connection with the effects that our pre- sent choices may have on the quality of life of future generations. (shrink)

Although actions of individuals do contribute to climate change, the question whether or not they, too, are morally obligated to reduce the GHG emissions in their responsibility has not yet been addressed sufficiently. First, I discuss prominent objections to such a duty. I argue that whether individuals ought to reduce their emissions depends on whether or not they exceed their fair share of emission rights. In a next step I discuss several proposals for establishing fair shares and also (...) take practical considerations into account. I conclude that individuals should not always be obliged to reduce their emissions to what is their fair share for they may depend on carbon-intensive structures. Instead, they have a Kantian imperfect duty to reduce their emissions ‘as far as can reasonably be demanded of them’. In addition, they should press governments to introduce proper regulation. At the end, I further specify both duties. (shrink)

This book investigates the ethical values that inform the global carbon integrity system, and reflects on alternative norms that could or should do so. The global carbon integrity system comprises the emerging international architecture being built to respond to the climate change. This architecture can be understood as an 'integrity system'- an inter-related set of institutions, governance arrangements, regulations and practices that work to ensure the system performs its role faithfully and effectively. This volume investigates the ways ethical (...) values impact on where and how the integrity system works, where it fails, and how it can be improved. With a wide array of perspectives across many disciplines, including ethicists, philosophers, lawyers, governance experts and political theorists, the chapters seek to explore the positive values driving the global climate change processes, to offer an understanding of the motivations justifying the creation of the regime and the way that social norms impact upon the operation of the integrity system. The collection focuses on the nexus between ideal ethics and real-world implementation through institutions and laws. The book will be of interest to policy makers, climate change experts, carbon taxation regulators, academics, legal practitioners and researchers. (shrink)

Benatar has a principle of asymmetry, i.e. that coming into existence as a human being is coming into a world in which harm is more likely than well-being. This is Thesis 1. Thesis 2 is that thesis 1 entails that one should not procreate. The threat of the end of civilization and the extinction of humanity by climate change renders ‘do not procreate’ a notion no longer counter-intuitive. Thesis 3 concerns ‘population and extinction’: he envisages ‘population zero’ as (...) a desirable consequence of thesis 2 even though ‘The last generation to die out would bear heavy burdens’. Benatar writes, ‘It would indeed have been better if no people had been added to the Edenic Lives of Adam and Eve’. The Blue Bird by Maurice Maeterlinck one hated. Benatar cites two schools of thought in the Talmud—the House of Hillel who thought the creation of humans was good and the House of Shammi thought it bad. Christians following Aquinas’ omne ens est bonum may find some Jewish notions quite the opposite of a Christian conviction, that, to be, is simply good. (shrink)

We are facing uncertainties regarding climate change and its impacts. To conceptualize and communicate these uncertainties to policy makers, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has introduced an uncertainty framework. In this paper, I assess the latest, most developed, version of this framework. First, I provide an interpretation of this framework, which draws from supporting documents and the practice of its users. Second, I argue that even a charitable interpretation exhibits three substantial conceptual problems. These (...) problems point towards untenable assumptions regarding evidence aggregation in the context of climate scientific findings. Third, I put forward a tentative roadmap for improving the uncertainty framework. (shrink)

RESUMO O problema da era do gelo foi o primeiro e, até algumas décadas atrás, o único debate relevante sobre as mudanças climáticas, emergindo como uma discussão da geologia, que não foi capaz de equacioná-lo. Ficou como um mistério que transitou, no século XIX, pela matemática e astronomia e foi objeto de especulações na geofísica e geoquímica sem que uma solução satisfatória fosse encontrada. A resposta básica para a ocorrência das eras do gelo foi dada por Milankovitch, com sua teoria (...) matemática da insolação, na década de 1940. Todavia somente a consolidação da paleoclimatologia, na década de 1970, ofereceu as evidências necessárias para comprová-la. O refinamento desses estudos paleoclimatológicos acabou revelando, todavia, um fenômeno inesperado, a saber, que as transições de estados de equilíbrio no sistema climático aconteceram muito rapidamente no passado. As mudanças climáticas da era do gelo do pleistoceno ocorreram de maneira abrupta e radical, em uma negação do gradualismo. Em consequência, o atual aquecimento global deve ser visto como um fenômeno muito mais perigoso e imprevisível do que usualmente apresentado. ABSTRACT The ice age problem was the first and, until a few decades ago, the only relevant debate on climate change, emerging as a discussion in geology, which was unable to frame it. It remained a mystery in the nineteenth century, being discussed in mathematics and astronomy, and it was a matter of speculation in geophysics and geochemistry without a satisfactory solution. The basic explanation for the occurrence of ice ages was given by Milankovitch, by means of his mathematical theory of insolation in the 1940s. Nevertheless, only the consolidation of paleoclimatology, in the 1970s, provided the necessary evidence to prove it. The refinement of these studies in paleoclimatology, however, brought to light an unexpected phenomenon: the transition between equilibrium state in the climate system took place very quickly in the past. Climate change in the Pleistocene Ice Age was abrupt and radical, contrary to any gradualism. Therefore, the current global warming should be seen as a much more dangerous and unpredictable phenomenon, in comparison with the way it is usually presented. (shrink)

This Special Issue collects five articles that are located in the present global context, and draw on methods from across critical discourse studies (CDS) to examine the interaction between material realities of climate change and discursive communication between different Parties and non-Party stakeholders in multimodal ways and on multiple platforms. To this end, it draws on discourses such as the UN speeches, UN documents, EU green deal policy, official documents submitted by African countries to the United Nations Framework (...) Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and news reports in China and Australia. In these studies, diverse social and linguistic concepts were utilized and revisited to better inform the use of linguistic and/or visual symbols in different types of public discourse. This Special Issue aims to take the field a step further by showing the importance of carrying out more international research to expand our knowledge of the global, regional, and local discourse and ideologies that shape what we come to know and understand as climate change and how it is to be addressed. We envisage it will bring significant theoretical, methodological, and empirical insights into the relations between language use, discursive practice, and social practice. (shrink)

Climate Change and the Moral Agent examines the moral foundations of climate change and makes a case for collective action on climate change by appealing to moralized collective self-interest, collective ability to aid, and an expanded understanding of collective responsibility for harm.

Under the UNHCR definition of a refugee, set out in the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, people fleeing their homes because of natural disasters or other environmental problems do not qualify for refugee status and the protection that come from such status. In a recent paper, "Who Are Refugees?", I defended the essentials of the UNHCR definition on the grounds that refugee status and protection is best reserved for people who can only be helped by granting them (...) refuge in a safe state for an indefinite period of time, and argued that this does not include most people fleeing from natural disasters. This claim is most strongly challenged by possibility of displacement from climate change. In this paper I will explore to what degree the logic of the refugee convention, as set out in my earlier paper, can and should be extended to those fleeing the results of climate change, and will argue that the logic of the refugee convention tells in favor of extending refugee protection to a portion of those who must flee their homes because of climate-change related environmental problems. (shrink)

Scientists in anthropology, geography, and other fields within social sciences and humanities have long suggested that the environments in which people live deeply influence their cultural value systems and practices. Shota Shibasaki, Ryosuke Nakadai, and Yo Nakawake have built on this idea, demonstrating that local ecological characteristics shape the appearance of trickster animals in folklore. Based on their finding and the SM3D (Serendipity-Mindsponge-3D) knowledge management framework, we discuss how the individuals’ or groups’ ability to create cultural products depends on the (...) availability and accessibility of information from the surrounding environment. Due to biodiversity loss and climate change, such valuable resources for cultural creativity have been diminished. Thus, it is crucial to adopt biodiversity preservation and climate action as fundamental values of a progressive and humane culture. Only then can we continue to preserve and enhance the creative cultural capacity of society. (shrink)

Part 1. Introduction -- Introduction: Navigating the Perfect Moral Storm in Light of a Thirty-Five Year Debate -- Thirty-Five Year Climate Change Policy 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. (shrink)

Climate change harms health and damages and diminishes environmental resources. Gradually it will cause health systems to reduce services, standards of care, and opportunities to express patient autonomy. Prominent public health organizations are responding with preparedness, mitigation, and educational programs. The design and effectiveness of these programs, and of similar programs in other sectors, would be enhanced by greater understanding of the values and tradeoffs associated with activities and public policies that drive climate change. Bioethics could (...) generate such understanding by exposing the harms and benefits in different cultural, socioeconomic, and geographic contexts, and through interdisciplinary risk assessments. Climate change is a bioethics problem because it harms everyone and involves health, values, and responsibilities. This article initiates dialog about the responsibility of bioethics to promote transparency and understanding of the social values and conflicts associated with climate change, and the actions and public policies that allow climate change to worsen. (shrink)

In this paper I engage interdisciplinary conversation on inaction as the dominant response to climate change, and develop an analysis of the specific phenomenon of complacency through a critical-feminist lens. I suggest that Chris Cuomo's discussion of the “insufficiency” problem and Susan Sherwin's call for a “public ethics” jointly point toward particularly promising harm-reduction strategies. I draw upon and extend their work by arguing that extant philosophical accounts of complacency are inadequate to the task of sorting out what (...) it means to be complacent on climate change. I offer a sketch for an alternative account, which I take to be a start in the direction of mapping out a diverse array of “motivational vices” that need to be named, grappled with, and remedied. (shrink)

Climate change and justice are so closely associated that many people take it for granted that a global climate treaty should--indeed, must--directly address both issues together. But, in fact, this would be a serious mistake, one that, by dooming effective international limits on greenhouse gases, would actually make the world's poor and developing nations far worse off. This is the provocative and original argument of Climate Change Justice. Eric Posner and David Weisbach strongly favor both (...) a climate change agreement and efforts to improve economic justice. But they make a powerful case that the best--and possibly only--way to get an effective climate treaty is to exclude measures designed to redistribute wealth or address historical wrongs against underdeveloped countries. In clear language, Climate Change Justice proposes four basic principles for designing the only kind of climate treaty that will work--a forward-looking agreement that requires every country to make greenhouse--gas reductions but still makes every country better off in its own view. This kind of treaty has the best chance of actually controlling climate change and improving the welfare of people around the world. (shrink)