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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... nature exists to serve human needs . Traditional Eastern and aboriginal ethics , by contrast , have often adopted this more radical principle , in varying degrees . However , without evoking the Eastern or aboriginal traditions , Hurka ...
... nature , they have said little on their attitudes to nature , and especially the status of humans in relation to nature . The latter is a recent issue , which did not concern people in the past ( especially in the West ) and therefore ...
... nature . The various Western views of a tran- scendent creator God see humans as responsible for the stewardship of the beautiful and bountiful world God has created for their use . Thus , Western religions do teach that nature is to be ...
... natural greenhouse effect keeps the planet habitable . Naturally present gases — carbon dioxide , water vapour , methane , ozone , and nitrous oxide — raise the global mean annual surface air temperature to about 15 ° C. They do this ...
... nature and society . The technical world must look for means of avoiding further warming if this is within our reach , and if not , of adaptation . Beyond all such questions lie those at the core of our study : what are the ethical ...
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 |