Ethics & Climate Change: The Greenhouse EffectWilfrid Laurier Univ. Press, 1993 M08 19 - 199 pages Faced with the prospect of global warming, the anticipated rapid rise in global air temperatures due to the release of gases into the atmosphere, we have two choices of how to respond: adaptation or avoidance. With adaptation we keep burning fossil fuels, let global temperatures rise and make whatever changes this requires: move people from environmentally damaged areas, build sea walls, etc. With avoidance we stop warming from occurring, either by reducing our use of fossil fuels or by using technology such as carbon dioxide recovery after combustion to block the warming effect. Yet each strategy has its drawbacks—adaptation may not be able to occur fast enough to accommodate the expected temperature increases, but avoidance would be prohibitively expensive. An ethically acceptable goal must involve some mixture of adaptation and avoidance. Written by a team of scientists, social scientists, humanists, legal and environmental scholars and corporate researchers, this book offers an ethical analysis of possible responses to the problem. Their analyses of the scientific and technological data and the ethical principles involved in determining whose interests should be considered point to a combination of adaptation and avoidance of greenhouse gas production. They offer assessments of personal, corporate, government and international responsibility and a series of recommendations to aid decision-makers in determining solutions and apportioning responsibility. |
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... measures , about the prospects for new technologies . But it also raises ethical issues . In chapter 2 Thomas Hurka outlines a series of ethical principles ranging from the relatively uncontroversial and widely accepted to the more ...
... measurements after 1965 ( Angell 1988 , 1991 ) showed that the entire stratosphere was undergoing such a cooling ... measure , as is snow . Commonly used gauges are prone to error . Systematic measurement at sea is obviously impossible ...
... measures be ? The second is the continued weakness of the models . Reasons include the difficulty of an adequate treatment of cloudiness , which affects both gains and losses of heat , and the limited power of existing computers . If ...
... measures to reduce the rate of climatic change and some to adapt to the warming that does occur . The first ethical issue concerning climate policy is what mix of adaptation and avoidance is ethically preferable : to what extent should ...
... measures can be justified on economic grounds . Increasing the efficiency of heating and lighting systems or the fuel efficiency of automobiles and electrical generating plants can save money while , on the side , reducing emissions of ...
Contents
1 | |
11 | |
23 | |
3 Religious Responsibility | 39 |
4 The ArcticA Canadian Case Study | 61 |
5 Personal Responsibility | 81 |
6 Corporate Responsibility | 99 |
7 International Responsibility | 115 |
Efficiency and Ethical Considerations | 133 |
9 Energy Efficiency at Home and Abroad | 149 |
Conclusion | 165 |
About the Authors | 171 |
Bibliography | 175 |
Index | 187 |
Other editions - View all
Ethics and Climate Change: The Greenhouse Effect Harold Coward,Thomas Hurka No preview available - 1993 |
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The Life and Death of Planet Earth: How the New Science of Astrobiology ... Peter D. Ward,Donald Brownlee No preview available - 2003 |