Transcript Notes on Climate Justice

PHIL 100 (TED STOLZE)
NOTES ON CLIMATE JUSTICE
Reasons for Joining and
Sustaining a Social Movement
Four Basic Questions about Climate Change
• What is the scientific evidence for human-caused climate
change?
• What would likely be the result of “business as usual”?
• Why should we care?
• What should we do individually and collectively?
What is the Scientific Evidence
for Human-Caused Climate Change?
• Climate proxies for determining the Earth’s paleoclimate,
e.g., tree ring growth, CO2 concentration in air bubbles
trapped in deep ice core samples
• Steady increase of CO2 in the current Earth’s
atmosphere from the pre-industrial era (around 280ppm
in 1750) to now before (around 400ppm in 2013)
• Computer modeling based on such volcanic eruptions as
Mt. Pinatubo (in the Philippines) in 1991
What are the Probable Climate Outcomes
of “Business as Usual”?
• Ocean level rise leading to the erosion of coastal arfeas and
even the inundation of small islands
• Ocean acidification, coral bleaching, creation of “dead
zones”—good for jellyfish, bad for large fish and cetaceans
• Species loss, up to and including a mass extinction event
• Extreme weather, e.g. more intense tropical storms, heavier
rainfall, more frequent and longer heat waves
• Forest die off and increase of fires, esp. in the southwestern
U.S.
• Extensive glacier and snow pack melting that threatens
reliable fresh water access
• Human health endangered, e.g. intensification of allergies,
asthma
Working Assumptions
Let’s make the following assumptions about climate change:
• As James Hansen and the world’s leading climate scientists have
demonstrated, climate change is human-caused and is the result of
releasing excessive greenhouse gas emissions (>350ppm CO2) into
the earth’s atmosphere.
• Continuing “business as usual” would threaten the survival of
humanity and other species.
• What is required, then, is urgent individual and collective action.
As a result, our focus is on the exercise of “practical reasoning”
involved in identifying and assessing reasons that can be given to act
or not to act in response to the moral problem of climate change.
Planetary Boundaries
According to new scientific research, there exist nine “planetary
boundaries,” which are interlinked Earth-system processes and
biophysical constraints: climate change, rate of biodiversity loss,
interference with the nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, stratospheric
ozone depletion, ocean acidification, global freshwater use, change
in land use, chemical pollution, and atmospheric aerosol loading. (*)
Crossing even one of these boundaries would risk triggering abrupt
or irreversible environmental changes that would be very damaging
or even catastrophic for society. Furthermore, if any of these
boundaries were crossed, then there would be a serious risk of
crossing the others. However, as long as these boundaries are not
crossed, “humanity has the freedom to pursue long-term social and
economic development.”
(*)See Johan Rockström et al., “A Safe Operating Space for Humanity,” in Nature 461,
September 23, 2009, pp. 472-475.
The Nine Planetary Boundaries
A Working Definition
Let us define a sustainable society as “one that satisfies
basic human needs without exceeding any of the nine
planetary boundaries and so without diminishing the
prospects for future generations to satisfy their basic
needs as well.”
The Moral Problem
1. One should urgently act to halt any grave threat posing serious harm to
others.
2. Crossing any of the nine planetary boundaries would be a grave threat
posing serious harm to human beings.
3. Therefore, humanity should urgently act to avoid crossing these
boundaries, or, if already crossed, to reverse course and resume social
and economic development within them.
4. Dangerous climate change (>2˚C) will result from crossing one of the
nine planetary boundaries.
5. But dangerous climate change is caused by releasing excessive
greenhouse gas emissions into the earth’s atmosphere (>350 ppm
CO2).
6. Therefore, humanity should urgently act to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions into the earth’s atmosphere to a safe target (<350 ppm CO2).
Two Levels of Action
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Individual
Collective
Individual Actions
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Educate yourself and others
Create music and art to raise awareness
Practice mindful, frugal, and sustainable consumption
Calculate, and try to reduce, your carbon footprint
(www.myfootprint.org)
Reuse and recycle products
Buy local and organic
Reduce meat intake in diet
Walk, bicycle, carpool, or take mass transit
Conserve, use alternative energy sources, and insulate
your home
Two Forms of Collective Action
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From above: states and global treaties
From below: social movements pressuring states
State Actions
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End militarism
Immediately halt the construction of all new coal-fired
power plants and begin to phase out the use of coal as
an energy source, except when the CO2 is captured
and stored
Stop deforestation and soil-depleting agribusiness
Create incentives for businesses and households to
replace unsustainable technologies and to adopt
sustainable technologies
Move beyond the 1997 Kyoto Protocol by adopting
stringent and enforceable targets
Establish a World Environment Organization
Social Movement Actions
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Write letters, make phone calls, or send email to
representatives
Vote for environmentally accountable candidates
Join existing or start new organizations and parties
Demand sustainable workplaces
Engage in direct action (e.g., marches, sit-ins, civil
disobedience, and strikes)
Transform the socio-economic system from one based on
limitless growth to one based on sustainable
development (green capitalism vs. ecological socialism)
Reasons for Doing Nothing (1)
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Ignorance of the problem
Skepticism about who caused the problem or how
serious it is
Willful ignorance or stupidity (“I’m happy not to know
more.”)
Cynicism (“I know very well, but whatever.”)
Apathy (“I don’t care.”)
Nihilism (“Nothing matters, anyway.”)
Reasons for Doing Nothing (2)
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Denial (“I know enough that I don’t want to know
more—it’s too painful.”)
Ethical Weakness (“I have resolved to do what is right,
but I can’t help giving in to contrary desires.”)
Despair (“It’s too late, there’s nothing that can be
done.”)
Greed (“I can still make money off this.”)
Someone else will do it for me (Brad Pitt, Angelina
Jolie…)
God wants humans to dominate nature
God will take care of everything
Reasons for Doing Nothing (3)
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Search for a quick technological fix (“Let’s put giant
mirrors in space!”)
Theoretical or practical ineptitude (“It’s too complex; we
can’t pull this off.”)
Reject the possibility of a collective solution (“I’ll just fend
for myself.”)
The Real Obstacle: Our Brains?
Greg Craven has proposed that the real psychological obstacle is
that human brains have evolved to deal most effectively with threats
that are:
– Intentional and personal
– Violate our moral sensibilities
– A clear and present danger
– Involve quick changes rather than gradual changes
Unfortunately, as Craven notes, “global warming has none of these
properties. It is impersonal, morally neutral, in the future, and
gradual, and we’re just not wired to watch out for stuff like that” (pp.
72-3).
(*) See his new outstanding new book What’s the Worst that Could Happen?
A Rational Response to the Climate Change Debate (NY: Penguin, 2009).
Reasons for Doing Something
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Rational self-interest and risk avoidance
Precautionary principle = if an action or policy might
cause severe or irreversible harm to the public or the
environment, in the absence of a social consensus that
harm would not ensue, the burden of proof falls on those
who would still advocate taking the action
Solidarity with the “wretched of the earth”
Concern for future generations
God wants humans to be good stewards of nature
Reverence for life
The “Wedge” Approach to Climate Stabilization
The wedge approach is a proposal by Princeton University ecologist Stephen
Pacala and physicist Robert Socolow that climate stabilization could be
achieved if society picked seven actions, or wedges, each starting from zero
in the year 2004 and growing to avoid emissions of 1 gigaton of carbon per
year in 2054. Pacala and Socolow provided fifteen options, of which any
seven would suffice; more or fewer could be used if society’s goals changed.
Four of the wedges involved different efforts to improve energy efficiency, one
shifted much electric generation from coal to natural gas because gas
provides almost twice the energy for the same amount of CO2 released, three
wedges used different forms of capturing and storing CO2, one increased use
of nuclear power, three implemented renewable energy, and two preserved
carbon in forests and soils. Each of these options is already available at an
industrial scale. Alley doesn’t claim to know which of these wedges are the
best, or if others should be added. But this wedge approach to climate
stabilization demonstrates that transition to a sustainable society does not
have to occur all at once. With proper political commitment and enforceable
treaties, it could be carried out through a combination of actions over several
decades—but time is running out.
Climate Stabilization Wedges
Geo-engineering
Geo-engineering is the idea of covering up the effects of
excessive atmospheric CO2 on the Earth’s climate, for
example, by blocking some sunlight using mirrors in
space or spraying the upper atmosphere with sulfur
particulate and cooling Earth just enough to offset the
warming from the CO2.
Geo-engineering and Moral Hazard
Knowledge that
geoengineering
is possible
Climate impacts
look less
fearsome
A weaker
commitment to
cutting
emissions
Concluding Points
• This is science, not revealed truth, but the science is
solid.
• Delaying is not free.
• Fossil fuels will run out.
• We need alternatives to fossil fuels, and lots of them.
• We haven’t been trying very hard.
• Betting on the future can pay off, both economically and
morally.
James Hansen on “Never-Give-Up Fighting
Spirit”
“How refreshing, on cold, windy Thanksgiving Plus One Day, which we spend
with our children and grandchildren, when I went outside to shoot baskets with
5-year-old Connor. Connor is very bright, but needs work on his hand-to-eye
coordination. I set the basket at a convenient height for him, but his first several
shots banged off the backboard off-target. Then he said, very brightly and
bravely, “I don’t quit, because I have never-give-up fighting spirit.” It seems his
karate lessons are paying off.
Some adults need Connor’s help….
The most foolish no-fighting-spirit statement, made by scores of people, is this:
“we have already passed the tipping point, it is too late.” They act as if a
commitment to a meter of sea level rise is no different than a commitment to
several tens of meters. Or, if a million species become committed to extinction,
should we throw in the towel on the other nine million? What would the plan be
then – escape to Mars? As I make clear in “Storms of My Grandchildren”,
anybody who thinks we can transplant even one butterfly species to another
planet has some loose screws. We must take care of the planet we have –
easily the most remarkable one in the known universe….
Are we going to stand up and give global politicians a hard slap in the face, to
make them face the truth? It will take a lot of us – probably in the streets. Or are
we going to let them continue to kid themselves and us, and cheat our children
and grandchildren?
Intergenerational inequity is a moral issue. Just as when Abraham Lincoln faced
slavery and when Winston Churchill faced Nazism, the time for compromises
and half-measures is over.
Can we find a leader who understands the core issue, and will lead?”
(Excerpted from:
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2009/20091130_FightingSpirit.pdf.)
My Personal Stake