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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... reflects Hurka's " humans everywhere " ethical stance . Section 2 , the bulk of the chapter , offers a detailed evaluation and critique of the Convention on Climate Change signed at Rio de Janeiro in June 1992. After providing a ...
... reflect the balance be- tween gains ( rain or snow ) and evaporative losses , offer other evidence of altered climate . Here , again , no global synthesis can be offered , although there are many examples of apparent regional trends ...
... reflect the greenhouse gas concentrations . Some of the synthetic gases that attack ozone , notably the chlo- rofluorocarbons , are also greenhouse gases , as is ozone itself . □ Nitrous oxide , an important greenhouse gas , breaks The ...
... reflects the ethical idea that the temporal location of a harm or benefit — the time when it occurs - has no bearing on its ethical significance . Goods and evils in the future will be just as real as ones today and ought to count as ...
... reflects the idea that the spatial location of a good or evil — the place where it oc- curs - does not matter ethically : benefits and harms far away are as real as ones close by and should figure as much in our deliberations ( Singer ...
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 |
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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 |