Ethics And Global Climate Change

The planet is undergoing a global change in climate that has begun to negatively affect populations and is predicted to accelerate in the coming decades. The human beings now on Earth are the first to exist when the climatic dynamics of the planet are scientifically understood. That understanding makes patently clear that the aggregate effects of human activities have a distinct impact on planetary climate and the way humans will live, if they survive, in the future. This appears to be a tipping point time in human history when future climatic catastrophes that threaten generations of humans might be preventable if governments, institutions, and organizations now take mitigating actions. That suggests that the people currently alive on the planet bear a collective responsibility to address the negative human impact on climate.

In recent years global climate change is a major focus of research among scientists, economists, and political and legal theorists. It is also a blisteringly hot discussion topic among politicians, leaders of governments, and social media commentators and bloggers. There are hundreds of thousands of sites on the Internet that raise issues, either directly or indirectly, focused on climate change or that flatly deny the overwhelming weight of the scientific evidence of its existence or that the activities of humans worldwide are a major contributing factor. Political parties in the United States (and in other countries) have adopted policy and platform positions ranging from denial of human-caused climate change, while championing existing fossil fuel industries, to dire predictions of the end of civilization unless radical changes in governmental policies and human activities are taken.

The challenge of mitigating global climate change is often seen as potentially met through various kinds of scientific research, engineering (including genetic engineering), technological innovation, political action, or enforceable international treaties. However, at the heart of the challenge are very significant ethical matters. Ethical concerns arise in what is called "climate justice." They may involve burden-sharing issues and also raise questions about what constitutes justifiable actions taken against populations that do not act in ways to limit preventable negative impacts on climate. What, for example, are the responsibilities of peoples (and their governments) when others do not comply with internationally agreed-upon standards necessary to control greenhouse gas emissions? What sort of policies ought to be adopted by institutions and governments to successfully implement desired outcomes? Are there economic models that should be preferred when it comes to the intergenerational burdens of climate change? How should we design the environments in which we live and that future generations will inherit from us? The latter is not merely a political problem, but involves architectural and other personal preferences, urban development, institutional design, and a myriad of other elements that create the spaces in which humans exist. Should not such social design problems be integrated with concerns about climate impacts? They appear not to be have been in the past. For example, we now, as have people in developed countries for the last century, tend to favor certain types of personal transportation. Should the environment for the future be designed to allow the population's use of those preferred vehicles or should it be designed to make them impractical? In general, should there be normative constraints on personal preferences in order to mitigate climate change? How should the responsibilities for current levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere be assessed? Do we as individuals have a responsibility to reduce our carbon footprints? Do we have moral obligations to nonhumans not to radically alter the climate in which they can exist? What rights do we have regarding various elements of the environment, such as water, that are at risk because of climate change? Do corporations that have been major contributors to negative changes in the global climate have special responsibilities to find solutions that alleviate the economic, social, and environmental harm they have inflicted on current and future generations even if markets fail to provide such solutions? These and many more ethical issues are addressed in this volume by some of the world's leading ethical, social, economic, and legal theorists who are focusing their research and writing on the underlying ethical concerns raised by alarming changes in the global climate.

Peter A. French the Emeritus Lincoln Professor of Ethics and Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Arizona State University. He is the Founding coin Center for Applied Ethics and its Director from 2000 to 2013. Before that he was the Cole Chair in Ethics, Director of ' and Chair of the Department of Philosophy of the University of South Florida. He was the Lennox Distinguished Professor and Chair of Philosophy at Trinity University, and served as Exxon Distinguished Research Professor in the Center for the Study of Values at the University of Delaware. During his distinguished 51-year career in academia he has also been a professor of philosophy at the University of Minnesota, Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, and Northern Arizona University. Dr. French earned a BA from Gettysburg College, an MA from the University of Southern California, a PhD from the University of Miami and did postdoctoral work at Oxford University. He was awarded a Doctor of Humane Letters (L.H.D.) degree for his work in philosophy from Gettysburg College in 2006.

Dr. French has an international reputation in ethical and legal theory and in collective and corporate responsibility and criminal liability.

Dr. French has lectured at locations around the world. Some of his works have been translated into Chinese, Japanese, German, Italian, French, Serbian, and Spanish. He has published scores of articles in the major philosophical and legal journals and reviews, many of which have been anthologized. In 2008 the APA's Newsletter on Philosophy and Law dedicated an issue to him, and at its 2014 Central Division meetings in Chicago, the APA honored him with a session on his work.

Howard K. Wettstein is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Riverside. He has authored three books He is currently writing a book on the philosophy of religion; his work in that area includes such topics as doctrine and the viability of philosophical theology, the Book of Job and the problem of evil, the Akedah (the Binding of Isaac), the character of religious experience and religious life, and the roles of awe, ritual, and intimacy. He has published articles on these topics and well as in the philosophy of language.

Peter A. French is the Lincoln Chair in Ethics and the Director of the Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics at Arizona State University. Formerly, he held the Cole Chair In Ethics at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, and served as Exxon Distinguished Research Professor in the Center for the Study of Values at the University of Delaware. He is the author of seventeen books and has published dozens of articles in the major philosophical and legal journals and reviews, many of which have been anthologized.

Howard K. Wettstein is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Riverside. He has taught at the University of Notre Dame and the University of Minnesota-Morris, and has served as visiting professor at the University of Iowa and Stanford University. Wettstein has published articles on the philosophy of language and the philosophy of religion.

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