The Ethics of Global Climate Change

Argues for new ways of conceptualising our ethical obligations regarding global climate change and responds to first-generation literature.

Denis G. Arnold (Edited by)

9781107666016, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 19 June 2014

354 pages, 16 b/w illus. 3 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm, 0.47 kg

'Featuring both essays that clearly outline key ethical issues in the mainstream of debate (and, moreover, engage crisply with others in the volume), alongside contributions that offer alternative perspectives on persistent and troubling problems, this collection will have undoubted value as an introduction for readers coming anew to the ethics of climate change after Copenhagen.' Christopher Groves, Environmental Ethics

Global climate change is one of the most daunting ethical and political challenges confronting humanity in the twenty-first century. The intergenerational and transnational ethical issues raised by climate change have been the focus of a significant body of scholarship. In this new collection of essays, leading scholars engage and respond to first-generation scholarship and argue for new ways of thinking about our ethical obligations to present and future generations. Topics addressed in these essays include moral accountability for energy consumption and emissions, egalitarian and libertarian perspectives on mitigation, justice in relation to cap and trade schemes, the ethics of adaptation and the ethical dimensions of the impact of climate change on nature.

Introduction: climate change and ethics Denis G. Arnold
1. Energy, ethics and the transformation of nature Dale Jamieson
2. Is no one responsible for global environmental tragedy? Climate change as challenge in our ethical concepts Stephen Gardiner
3. Greenhouse gas emission and the domination of posterity John Nolt
4. Climate change, energy rights and equality Simon Caney
5. Common atmospheric ownership and equal emissions entitlements Darrel Moellendorf
6. A Lockean defense of grandfathering emission rights Luc Bovens
7. Parenting the planet Sarah Krakoff
8. Living ethically in a greenhouse Robert H. Socolow and Mary R. English
9. Beyond business as usual: alternative wedges to avoid catastrophic climate change and create sustainable societies Philip Cafaro
10. Addressing competitiveness in US climate policy Richard D. Morgenstern
11. Reconciling justice and efficiency: integrating environmental justice into domestic cap-and-trade programs for controlling greenhouse gases Alice Kaswan
12. Ethical dimensions of adapting to climate change imposed risks W. Neil Adger and Sophie Nicholson-Cole
13. Does nature matter? The place of the nonhuman in the ethics of climate change Clare Palmer
14. Human rights, climate change, and the trillionth ton Henry Shue.

Subject Areas: The environment [RN], Social & political philosophy [HPS], Ethics & moral philosophy [HPQ]