6 - Guilt and Responsibility

Summary

The poor and vulnerable are often are often simply victims of the environmental crisis, but countless others are agents as well as victims. This chapter focuses on the confusing moral position of we whose daily choices contribute to climate change, species extinction, and global pollution. What responsibility do we bear, especially when we have limited energy and other concerns (e.g., helping aging parents)? The chapter argues that we have obligations to examine each of our acts, even if they might make an infinitesimal contribution to environmental crisis, and to serious self-examination to assess what environmental commitments are possible for us. It concludes by exploring the mind-set of those who reap status, power, and wealth from their role in the environmental crisis and thus bear not only responsibility but also guilt, and seeks to understand the social madness embodied in their actions with analogies to the behavior of addicts.