18 - Ethics

Summary

The ethics of climate change are deeply problematical – a “perfect moral storm.” This ethical terrain is characterized by a dispersal of cause and effect, a fragmentation of agency, and an institutional inadequacy. However, the greatest moral pitfall derives from the severely lagged nature of climate change, leading to dire issues of intergenerational equity. Common notions of justice in the climate arena include distributive, reparative, and procedural elements. The precautionary principle is also perceived to be a salient consideration. Ethical challenges particular to climate interventions start with the "moral hazard" or mitigation deterrence reservation as well as the risk of hubris in seeking to engineer the earth system. Some argue that geoengineering shirks responsibility for our emissions and saddles the future with a burdensome climate debt. An alternative though not universally accepted view is that since climate change is likely to have asymmetrical adverse impact on the poor, geoengineering would convey to them asymmetrical benefits. Though ethics would seem to demand not merely societal climate sacrifices but personal ones as well, few among my Yale students or Harvard colleagues have yet to undertake them. I can’t claim to be any holier than they, which is itself a dilemma.