Ethical Issues of Climate Change (original) (raw)
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Ethics and Climate Change The year is 2050. An ecological disaster has devastated Earth. The planet is a shadow of its former grandeur. Water is the most valuable resource and is lacking. The 9.51 billion people who have survived the disaster are more divided economically than ever – developed and underdeveloped nations. The two factions continually fight against each other to gain control of the water, food supplies etc. Mankind is now at an intersection that will define its future for generations to come – survival or annihilation. " [W]e face the possibility that the global environment may be destroyed, yet no one will be responsible. " 2 Climate change is undeniably one of the most perplexing and controversial issues facing our global theatre in this 21st century. Starvation, poverty, flooding, droughts, war and disease are already leading to human catastrophes. They're to be expected as the world continues to warm from man-made climate change.3 Escalating global temperatures, principally owing to man-made greenhouse gases are that are at the epicenter of unique changes to the earth's growing sea levels, warming oceans and extreme weather occurrences. It entails not simply social and economic fluctuations, but also raises serious ethical dilemmas. Mounting temperatures will bring closure to much of our coral reefs and rainforests releasing hundreds of billions of tons of methane gas. The magnitude will be the mass extinction of most terrestrial and marine species and the end of our advanced civilizations.4 For civilizations or societies that are not well-suited to standard climate erraticism, the more recurrent and extreme events created by this change will be shattering. These effects will separate their economic, social, and political institutions, dispersing out into global disorder. Climate change will touch, disproportionately, all areas of the globe, and will cross not only human societies and cultures but also generational boundaries. Climate change and its toxic impact on the sustainability of hundreds of millions of people if not civilizations could be at the threshold
Ethical Challenges Posed by Climate Change: An Overview
This chapter provides an overview of key moral issues posed by climate change. It first considers overarching issues: the appropriate target for harm prevention; the distinction between duties of mitigation and duties of adaptation; instances in which efforts to fulfill these duties will be self-defeating or at work cross-purposes; and the distribution of the economic burdens of fulfilling those duties. The remainder of the chapter reviews challenges to the capacity of traditional moral theories to come to grips with questions of moral responsibility. Some challenges are generic; they are applicable to both individual and institutional agents under any moral theory, while others are specific to agent-types or particular theories. The chapter then surveys differences in the way wrongness is conceptualized, including theories that view wrongness as necessarily linked to harming someone, wronging someone without harming, and doing wrong without wronging anyone. The chapter concludes by showing how the challenge of developing a plausible theory of climate change ethics is magnified by the fact that the adverse consequences are a function of what numerous individuals and institutions do or fail to do, having both international and intergenerational impact.
The Ethical Adventures of climate Change:
There seems to be many ethical dilemmas, in regards to finding a sustainable solution to climate change. It has been suggested, the crux, of most of these climate change ethical dilemmas, is how we live now within our world. As a result, this essay argues that there needs to be a global, conciseness process that tackles Climate Change, from an ethical consensual, co-evolutionary, systems orientated, sustainable development ethical perspective. So that then there is a better understanding, how we can live and cope with the crisis of climate change at present and in the future.
Climate protection as an ethical challenge
Studia Ecologiae et Bioethicae
Mitigation of the global climate change is one of the most important challenges facing humanity in the 21st century. It will require significant changes in the economy, consumption, the style of life. However, the climate protection is also an ethical problem. It is a problem of responsibility for the climate – the common good of all creatures. This article discusses selected ethical issues that are related to the implementation of climate policy. It was indicated that the acceptance of research results indicating human responsibility for climate change is a prerequisite for active climate action. It has also been found that the common but differentiated responsibility of individual countries is primarily due to their historical greenhouse gas emissions. It also results from the fact that most of the significant negative impacts of climate change will occur in the poorest countries, whose share of greenhouse gas emissions is very small. The rejection of human responsibility for clim...
Ethical perspectives on climate change and implications for global mitigation responses
This paper argues that much of the problems facing global mitigation mechanisms against climate change are derived from contrasting ethical and moral positions on the main issue of responsibility. Specifically, these competing attitudes handicap the fulfillment of any promises and commitments to combating anthropogenic climate change. Additionally, this paper suggests that successful mitigation mechanisms ultimately need to be founded on an individual responsibility, morality and respect for nature.
Environment Ethics in Light of Climate Change
Environmental concerns are always on the rise. Back nearly 50 years ago, there were legitimate concerns dealing with the threats of pesticides on public health and the environment, brought up by Rachel Carson. Such concerns are never really accepted by the masses as a whole upon their forefront. Rather, it always begins with tension, especially via those promoting the environmental issues. Nowadays, we run into climate change concerns, directly related to carbon pollution. How will we solve this problem in a culturally relative sense? Will this be addressed by global societies in our modern, present day? Or will it be ignored? These are all questions that will be addressed as we delve into the topic and evaluate how it is impacted our environment.