There is a broad consensus that climate change presents the international community with a formidable challenge. Yet progress on all fronts-prevention, mitigation, and adaptation-has been slow. Ved P. Nanda finds an explanation for this disparity in the sharp divide between the developed and developing countries. Developing countries demand that major industrialized nations provide the necessary resources and technology to address climate change, while many developed countries seek firm commitments and timetables on action from the developing countries. The result is a stalemate. Climate Change and Environmental Ethics contains first-rate research and thinking from scholars from multiple disciplines-ethics, ecology, philosophy, economics, political science, history, and international law. What distinguishes this volume from recent work on climate change are two of its special features. One is the multi-disciplinary backgrounds of the scholars, their stellar experiences, and the wisdom with which they express not simply their philosophy and theory but also their suggestions for concrete, specific action in practical terms. The second is the special niche this volume fills in its overarching theme of the need for a renewed environmental ethic that can bring together these disparate but interconnected views. This volume explores alternative ways of conceiving our relation to the natural world. A spirit of international cooperation and collaboration is needed to meet the challenge. The reader is complelled to think anew about our understanding of the scientific and technical issues, as well as our values and ethical responsibilities regarding climate change.

This collection gathers a set of seminal papers from the emerging area of ethics and climate change. Topics covered include human rights, international justice, intergenerational ethics, individual responsibility, climate economics, and the ethics of geoengineering. Climate Ethics is intended to serve as a source book for general reference, and for university courses that include a focus on the human dimensions of climate change. It should be of broad interest to all those concerned with global justice, environmental science and policy, and the future of humanity.

This book provides an important new perspective on the debate over climate change ethics in light of a thirty-five year history of national and international debates about climate change policies. Donald A. Brown has written the first book of its kind that makes practical recommendations on how to increase consideration of ethical matters into policy, giving readers a new way of thinking about climate ethics.

Presenting human security perspectives on climate change, this volume raises issues of equity, ethics and environmental justice, as well as our capacity to respond to what is increasingly considered to be the greatest societal challenge for humankind. Written by international experts, it argues that climate change must be viewed as an issue of human security, and not an environmental problem that can be managed in isolation from larger questions concerning development trajectories, and ethical obligations towards the poor and to future generations. The concept of human security offers a new approach to the challenges of climate change, and the responses that could lead to a more equitable and sustainable future. Climate Change, Ethics and Human Security will be of interest to researchers, policy makers, and practitioners concerned with the human dimensions of climate change, as well as to upper-level students in the social sciences and humanities interested in climate change.

The planet is undergoing a global change in climate that has begun to negatively affect populations and is predicted to accelerate in the coming decades. The human beings now on Earth are the first to exist when the climatic dynamics of the planet are scientifically understood. That understanding makes patently clear that the aggregate effects of human activities have a distinct impact on planetary climate and the way humans will live, if they survive, in the future. This appears to be a tipping point time in human history when future climatic catastrophes that threaten generations of humans might be preventable if governments, institutions, and organizations now take mitigating actions. That suggests that the people currently alive on the planet bear a collective responsibility to address the negative human impact on climate.

This book examines from different perspectives the moral significance of non-human members of the biotic community and their omission from climate ethics literature. The complexity of life in an age of rapid climate change demands the development of moral frameworks that recognize and respect the dignity and agency of both human and non-human organisms. Despite decades of careful work in non-anthropocentric approaches to environmental ethics, recent anthologies on climate ethics have largely omitted non-anthropocentric approaches. This multidisciplinary volume of international scholars tackles this lacuna by presenting novel work on non-anthropocentric approaches to climate ethics. Written in an accessible style, the text incorporates sentiocentric, biocentric, and ecocentric perspectives on climate change. With diverse perspectives from both leading and emerging scholars of environmental ethics, geography, religious studies, conservation ecology, and environmental studies, this book will offer a valuable reading for students and scholars of these fields.

The second edition of Environmental Ethics combines a strong theoretical foundation with applications to some of the most pressing environmental problems. Through a mix of classic and new essays, it discusses applied issues such as pollution, climate change, animal rights, biodiversity, and sustainability. Roughly half of the selections are original essays new to this edition. Accessible introduction for beginners, including important established essays and new essays commissioned especially for the volume Roughly half of the selections are original essays new to this edition, including an entirely new chapter on Pollution and climate change and a new section on Sustainability Includes new material on ethical theory as a grounding for understanding the ethical dimensions of the environment, our interactions with it, and our place in it The text incorporates helpful pedagogy, including extensive editorial material, cases, and study questions Includes key information on recent developments in the field Presents a carefully selected set of readings designed to progressively move the reader to competency in subject comprehension and essay writing

Climate change is arguably the great problem confronting humanity, but we have done little to head off this looming catastrophe. In The Perfect Moral Storm, philosopher Stephen Gardiner illuminates our dangerous inaction by placing the environmental crisis in an entirely new light, considering it as an ethical failure. Gardiner clarifies the moral situation, identifying the temptations (or "storms") that make us vulnerable to a certain kind of corruption. First, the world's most affluent nations are tempted to pass on the cost of climate change to the poorer and weaker citizens of the world. Second, the present generation is tempted to pass the problem on to future generations. Third, our poor grasp of science, international justice, and the human relationship to nature helps to facilitate inaction. As a result, we are engaging in willful self-deception when the lives of future generations, the world's poor, and even the basic fabric of life on the planet is at stake. We should wake up to this profound ethical failure, Gardiner concludes, and demand more of our institutions, our leaders and ourselves. "This is a radical book, both in the sense that it faces extremes and in the sense that it goes to the roots." --Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews "The book's strength lies in Gardiner's success at understanding and clarifying the types of moral issues that climate change raises, which is an important first step toward solutions." --Science Magazine "Gardiner has expertly explored some very instinctual and vitally important considerations which cannot realistically be ignored. --Required reading." --Green Prophet "Gardiner makes a strong case for highlighting and insisting on the ethical dimensions of the climate problem, and his warnings about buck-passing and the dangerous appeal of moral corruptions hit home." --Times Higher Education "Stephen Gardiner takes to a new level our understanding of the moral dimensions of climate change. A Perfect Moral Storm argues convincingly that climate change is the greatest moral challenge our species has ever faced - and that the problem goes even deeper than we think." --Peter Singer, Princeton University

A vital new moral perspective on the climate change debate. Esteemed philosopher John Broome avoids the familiar ideological stances on climate change policy and examines the issue through an invigorating new lens. As he considers the moral dimensions of climate change, he reasons clearly through what universal standards of goodness and justice require of us, both as citizens and as governments. His conclusions—some as demanding as they are logical—will challenge and enlighten. Eco-conscious readers may be surprised to hear they have a duty to offset all their carbon emissions, while policy makers will grapple with Broome’s analysis of what if anything is owed to future generations. From the science of greenhouse gases to the intricate logic of cap and trade, Broome reveals how the principles that underlie everyday decision making also provide simple and effective ideas for confronting climate change. Climate Matters is an essential contribution to one of the paramount issues of our time.

Environmental Ethics provides an accessible, lively, and up-to-date introduction to the central issues and controversies in environmental ethics. Requiring no previous knowledge of philosophy or ethical theory, the book will be of interest to students, environmental scientists, environmental policy makers, and anyone curious to know what philosophers are saying today about the urgent environmental challenges we face. The book is divided into two parts.Part One deals with theoretical issues in environmental philosophy, examining a variety of ethical and environmental theories that provide diverse and thought-provoking perspectives on critical ecological issues. Part Two turns to applied environmental ethics, addressing current debates on topics such as climate change, biodiversity loss, wilderness preservation, responsibilities to future generations, population growth, overconsumption, food ethics, and ecological activism. Features include: Clear explanations of key concepts and theories that lie at the heart of current debates in environmental ethics. A mix of theory of practice that permits readers to apply diverse theoretical perspectives to key environmental debates. A wealth of pedagogical aids, including chapter summaries, discussion questions, suggested readings, and a glossary of important terms.