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The Dawning of an Earth Ethic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 September 2014

Scott Russell Sanders
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Extract

Among Earth's millions of species, ours is the only one capable of rapidly changing the chemistry of the atmosphere and thereby endangering the whole web of life, from phytoplankton and corals to polar bears and pine trees, from hummingbirds to humans. We are also the only species capable of documenting this disruption, identifying its causes, and acting to counter it. Yet so far we have failed to act on the scale or with the urgency required to avert this unfolding disaster. Why are we failing? What keeps us from caring for the atmosphere as a shared, finite, and fragile envelope for life?

Type
Roundtable: The Facts, Fictions, and Future of Climate Change
Information
Ethics & International Affairs , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , Fall 2014 , pp. 317 - 324
Copyright
Copyright © Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs 2014 

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References

NOTES

1 “Of the $32,000,000 the chamber spent on the 2010 midterm elections, 94 percent went to climate change deniers.” Website of the “The U.S. Chamber Doesn't Speak for Me” campaign, March 11, 2013, chamber.350.org (consulted November 2013). Nike and Apple are among the corporations that have resigned from the chamber over this issue.

2 “Koch Industries: Still Fueling Climate Denial,” Greenpeace USA, www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/polluterwatch/koch-industries/ (consulted November 2013). Recipients of the largest amounts of Koch's cash, ranging from $1 million to $13 million, include: Americans for Prosperity, Cato Institute, Citizens for a Sound Economy, Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy, Heritage Foundation, Institute for Humane Studies, Mercatus Center, Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy, Washington Legal Foundation, and Reason Foundation. See also: www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/polluterwatch/Dealing-in-Doubt---the-Climate-Denial-Machine-vs-Climate-Science/.

3 For an overview of societies doomed by ecological abuse, see Diamond, Jared, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, rev. ed. (New York: Penguin, 2011).Google Scholar

4 In many American high schools, departments formerly called “Home Economics” have been renamed “Consumer Science,” neatly shifting the emphasis from the managing of households to the buying of goods and services.

5 These “rights” were asserted in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission (2010) in a 5-4 vote that has been compared with the Dred Scott case as one of the most shameful decisions in the history of the Supreme Court. For a discussion of the case, see: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Election_Commission (consulted November 2013).

6 Sandel, Michael J. makes the case for such distinctions in What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012).Google Scholar

7 The Declaration, adopted in 1948 by the United Nations in response to the horrors of World War II and the concentration camps, bears frequent reading: www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/. The vote was 48-0, with eight abstentions: South Africa (to protect apartheid); Saudi Arabia (to protect state religion); the Soviet Union and members of the Soviet bloc (to avoid permitting the free movement of people).

8 Leopold, Aldo, A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There (New York: Oxford University Press, 1949; Special Commemorative Edition, 1987).Google Scholar

9 Leopold, pp. viii–ix.

10 Leopold, pp. 203–204.

11 Leopold, pp. 224–25.

12 For a comprehensive survey of world spiritual traditions as they bear on environmental concerns, see the Forum on Religion and Ecology: fore.research.yale.edu/. For a survey of the worldwide upwelling of social justice and environmental activism, see Hawken, Paul, Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Social Movement in History Is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beauty to the World (New York: Viking Penguin, 2007).Google Scholar

13 The full text of the Earth Charter, along with the history of its composition, can be read here: www.earthcharterinaction.org/content/pages/Read-the-Charter.html (consulted November 2013).