How best to response to climate change is one of the most pressing challenges facing us all. There is no uncertainty about whether it is happening, only the likely negative effects beyond the short-term. The need for a compelling analysis... more
How best to response to climate change is one of the most pressing challenges facing us all. There is no uncertainty about whether it is happening, only the likely negative effects beyond the short-term. The need for a compelling analysis of what to do is more than a question of justice, but a matter of human survival. The stakes could not be higher. Proposed solutions come in one of two approaches. Each takes a different route to addressing the negative effects of climate change. The first is conservationist and seeks to minimise these effects by reducing, if not eliminating, them by bringing climate change to a stop. This can take form of advocating the use of an ecological footprint or implementing a polluter pays principle. The second is focused specifically on adaptation mostly through technological advances to help us endure climate change by minimising its effects on us. Many theorists advocate some use of both approaches in tandem as climate change is happening making necessary some form of adaptation and conservationism together. Yet it is also clear that most give greater weight to either conservation or adaptation as the primary mode of securing climate change justice. The dilemma for these proposed solutions is in their aim of being a solution to the problems that climate change brings. In short, they mistake the kind of challenge that climate change presents us. This is what I call the problem of "end-state" solutions. It is where we attempt to bring to an end a circumstance that might be influenced positively or otherwise by our activities, but beyond our full control. So to claim a so-called "solution" to such an everchanging problem could make it better or worse without concluding it. If climate change is this kind of problem-and I will claim it is-then end-state "solutions" can be no more than a band aid (or sticking plaster) and the nature of our challenge is different requiring an alternative future strategy. This chapter will set out how the problem of climate change is understood through attempted solutions that do not succeed. It concludes with some ideas about why this matters and the arising implications for how we should think about climate change justice beyond the false prism of end-state solutions.
Severe poverty is a key challenge for theorists of global justice. Most theorists have approached this issue primarily by developing accounts for understanding which kinds of duties have relevance and how responsibilities for tackling... more
Severe poverty is a key challenge for theorists of global justice. Most theorists have approached this issue primarily by developing accounts for understanding which kinds of duties have relevance and how responsibilities for tackling severe poverty might be assigned to agents, whether individuals, nations or states. All such views share a commitment to ending severe poverty as a wrongful deprivation with profoundly negative impact on affected individuals. While much attention has prioritised identifying reasons for others to provide relief, this chapter will examine the nature of the wrongful deprivation that characterises severe poverty. One influential view is championed by Martha Nussbaum in her distinctive capabilities approach. An individual might be considered to experience severe poverty where she is unable to enjoy the use of her capabilities which should be available to her. But this position raises several questions. Take the fact that about 1 billion people are unable to meet their basic needs today. Would the capabilities approach claim the number is much higher given its wider grasp of human flourishing beyond mere material subsistence-and what implications would flow from this? Or would the capabilities approach claim only a portion of those unable to meet their basic needs are in a wrongful state because their circumstances are a result of free choice-and what would this mean? These questions indicate a potential concern about whether the approach is over-or under-inclusive and why. (Forthcoming in Thom Brooks (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Global Justice. Oxford University Press.)
Climate change confronts us with our most pressing challenges today. The global consensus is clear that human activity is mostly to blame for its harmful effects, but there is disagreement about what should be done. While no shortage of... more
Climate change confronts us with our most pressing challenges today. The global consensus is clear that human activity is mostly to blame for its harmful effects, but there is disagreement about what should be done. While no shortage of proposals from ecological footprints and the polluter pays principle to adaptation technology and economic reforms, each offers a solution – but is climate change a problem we can solve?
In this provocative new book, these popular proposals for ending or overcoming the threat of climate change are shown to offer no easy escape and each rest on an important mistake. Thom Brooks argues that a future environmental catastrophe is an event we can only delay or endure, but not avoid. This raises new ethical questions about how we should think about climate change. How should we reconceive sustainability without a status quo? Why is action more urgent and necessary than previously thought? What can we do to motivate and inspire hope? Many have misunderstood the kind of problem that climate change presents – as well as the daunting challenges we must face and overcome. Climate Change Ethics for an Endangered World is a critical guide on how we can better understand the fragile world around us before it is too late.
This innovative book will be of great interest to students and scholars of climate change, climate justice, environmental policy and environmental ethics.
