Climate change and you: consequences, intentions and consistency Climate change is a many-sided problem. It s a scientific problem, because what we do about it depends on empirical discoveries about the way our climate works. It s an economic problem as well, because what we do about it depends quite a bit on what various sorts of action might cost. It s also a political problem, because what we end up doing depends on how political power flows around our world. You can think about psychology, sociology, the law and other sorts of things which might figure into our decisions too. Quite a lot will have a bearing on what we do about climate change, but I want to focus on the moral side of things. Climate change is a moral problem because what we decide to do about it depends on questions about the nature of value as such. What matters more to us: enjoying present happiness or avoiding future suffering? Do ecosystems matter more than human happiness? Is it wrong to let a species go extinct? Should fairness figure into our action on climate change? Should causal responsibility for damage to the climate make a moral difference to the demand for action? Ought the rich help the poor adapt to climate change? Are we responsible for the environmental sins of our parents and grandparents? Is it morally acceptable to hope for a technological quick-fix? What s the right way to think about the risk to future people against the backdrop of scientific uncertainty? Is civil disobedience the right response to a government s failure to act on climate change? Are sanctions warranted against the world s biggest polluters? You cannot find answers 1
to these sorts of questions in ice cores, cost/benefit analyses, political treaties, Rorschach tests, opinion polls or law books. You have to think your way through them. You have to do a bit of moral philosophy. i I use the word you advisedly in that paragraph and throughout this paper to emphasise the fact that climate change presents us with a moral problem, us individuals who are alive right here and right now. You can read about most practical moral problems with a steady heartbeat, knowing all the while that the problems aren t really your own. You can study cloning, abortion, euthanasia, genetic modification, just wars, and on and on, secure in the hope that you might well saunter through your life untouched by the moral problems raised by such things. Maybe no one will clone you. With luck you won t have to decide to invade a neighbouring country. But climate change is a moral problem for you, right now. You are enmeshed in a fossil-fuel burning world, and just about every choice you make in your everyday life depends on the use of energy. The energy you use puts more greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, which thickens a layer of such gasses, which warms our world up. The warmer our world becomes, the more suffering we are in for, suffering caused by more heat, more extremes of weather, crop failure, water stress, the spread of disease, and on and on. ii It can seem difficult to make it through breakfast without the danger of a moral mistake. 2
So what s the right way to begin thinking about the moral dimension of climate change and the choices you make every day? Philosophers have a long history of working through moral problems, like the ones just scouted and other, more oldfashioned dilemmas. The task of the moral philosopher is to find a way through to an answer, or at least a good guess. Usually the answer is somehow grounded in one of just a few normative ethical theories. We don t have the room to consider all of the views out there, so think about the two dominant ones: Utilitarianism and Kantianism. To remind you, Utilitarianism is the view that the rightness or wrongness of an action is determined entirely by its consequences. Compared to other possibilities, if an action s consequences increase human happiness, maximize the overall balance of pleasure over pain, perhaps satisfy the most preferences, then choosing that action is the right thing to do. If, for example, you are thinking about telling a lie or telling the truth, think about the consequences for everyone involved and take the action which results in the greater overall balance of happiness. Utilitarianism is certainly promising when it comes to reflection on climate change. Peter Singer argues that a number of principles operative in clear thinking about climate change generally might be justified on utilitarian grounds. iii The polluter pays principle, which is starting to get press outside of environmental circles, holds that if anyone covers the cost of adapting to or mitigating environmental degradation, it s the person or corporation or state which is causally responsible for the damage. Such a principle might be endorsed by a utilitarian who notes that it sets up a strong incentive to 3
be careful about causing pollution or doing damage to the environment, as well as a demand for fixing damage already caused no doubt to the overall benefit of everyone. A utilitarian might also see the wisdom of actions which greatly favour the worst off. The pressure should be on the rich, a utilitarian might think, to offer help to the poor when it comes to adapting to climate changes or footing the bill for reducing global emissions. If a person already has considerable wealth, then giving her more does not affect her happiness much. Helping the poor even a little more might be a boon, might do a lot to make a life better. Certainly if sacrifices have to be made, there s less pain attached to the rich cutting back than the poor tightening belts even further. Just given this start on utilitarian reflection, you can come around to the thought that a concern with consequences issues in the conclusion that the rich countries of the world should do something about the environmental damage they have done, perhaps pay a lot to mitigate climate change. Further, at least a part of their action should be directed towards helping the poor of the world adapt to climate change. There s some guidance in Kantian reflection too. A Kantian might be persuaded by the thought that any action described by an environmentally unsustainable maxim, whatever that action might be, almost has to fail to pass muster. Recall that, for Kant, actions are undertaken under maxims or rules, such as don t steal or when I think I need some money, I will borrow it and promise to repay it, though I know I never can do so, or never lie. Kant s test for such maxims is universalizability. Suppose the maxim 4
under consideration were to become a universal law, a maxim adopted automatically by everybody. Would a world with that law be consistent or self-contradictory? If the former, you are in no danger of doing the wrong thing, but if the latter, you are in violation of the moral law. So, for example, if everybody made false promises, no one would believe a promise, so promising itself would be impossible. A world built on false promises ends up undermining itself, turning into a world with out any kind of promisemaking at all. Pick an unsustainable maxim: consume as much as you can, or don t conserve finite resources, or use a disproportionate share of a finite good. It doesn t take much to see that these maxims cannot be universalized. If everyone consumed as much as they could, there would be nothing much left to consume. Consumption on a certain scale undermines consumption itself. If resources weren t conserved, there d be no resources to use. Finally, not everyone can use a disproportionate share of a finite good only proportional uses are possible for everyone. The very fact that the maxims are themselves part of an unsustainable order means that they could never be universal laws, never part of consistent worlds, never in keeping with the moral law. Kantian reflection looks fruitful, looks like the sort of thing which really might help a person think through the choices she might make in the face of climate change. This thumbnail sketch can certainly get you going when it comes to thinking your way through the moral dimension of climate change, but you might have already noticed a certain sort of divergence between the two dominant moral views. Kantian reflection 5
seems almost ideally suited to local thinking about the moral dimension of climate change, while Utilitarianism seems to operate optimally when coming to global conclusions about what s best for us all. Maybe this should have been unsurprising, since the first utilitarians had an interest in securing social benefits for the greatest number of people, adding a little rationality to the legal system. Perhaps Kant s narrow focus has something to do not just with his famous failure to travel, but also his interest in the good will and an individual s duty to the moral law. If your view is that the consequences for the greatest number matter, then your moral outlook is wide indeed. If your view is that an individual s intentions alone are morally relevant, then probably your focus is as narrow as it gets. Small wonder, then, that Kant helps us think through our individual choices and utilitarianism helps us think about what s best for us all. As I said at the start, climate change is a moral problem for every one of us, right here and right now. If we are looking for advice, for help with thinking our way through individual choices and everyday actions, then Kant seems obviously relevant. The Kantian route is well-lit and easy to follow, but what do you do if you are a consequentialist? Do you recycle that coffee cup lid or not? Will you rack up frequent flyer miles? Should you turn the heating down and put on more clothes? Will you consume without regard for the future? Will you donate some time to green charities? Maybe a Kantian 6
can find grounds for green answers to every one of these questions only sustainable actions can be supported by universalizable maxims but if you are a utilitarian, what s the right way to think about climate change and individual actions? Here s the rub for the utilitarian: an individual s actions are probably as good as inconsequential when it comes to the future of our planet s climate system. The sea level will be where it will be in 2050, whether an individual chooses to recycle or not. The ice will melt whether or not I choose to fly a great deal. Coral will bleach whether or not I turn down my thermostat. If consequences are all that matter to the rightness or wrongness of an action, and an individual s actions are more or less inconsequential when it comes to the planet, then it looks like a utilitarian has no reason to be green. It makes no difference to the climate what an individual does. So feel free to drive an SUV. Consume as much as you like. Don t bother with the recycling. There are some obvious and not so obvious replies to this kind of thinking, but I d like to conclude with a consideration of a response rooted in consistency. Consistency is at the heart of reflection on moral matters. At bottom, consistency in our moral thinking amounts to the view that if someone in such and such a situation deserves a certain sort of treatment, then others in that situation deserve the same treatment too. If times are tough for me, and I think you ought to share what you ve got, then I should feel a moral nudge towards sharing out what I have when things are going well for me. If I think we ought to punish wrong-doers, I don t have room to complain when I m found guilty and punished. Consistency is built into our thinking about both 7
punishment and the moral demand for helping those in need. It s also why the thought that we ought to do unto others as we would have them do unto us strikes a chord with just about everyone. It s why a utilitarian thinks that everyone s pleasures and pains ought to figure into our calculations, not just her own or her mother s. It s why a Kantian universalizes maxims. It s part of what makes moral debates something more than expressions of emotion. Maybe, and I know this is a stretch, it s why we know that we have to live by our principles, perhaps die by them too. Consistency also might provide the utilitarian with a reason for favouring individually green choices. It s a round-about argument, but I think it still counts. It goes like this. A consequentialist can, rightly, denounce the world s biggest polluters on various consequentialist grounds. The US, for example, with just 5% of the world s population, is responsible for around 25% of the planet s greenhouse gas emissions. iv The developed world is causing the largest amount of damage, certainly an enormous amount of harm depends on what the developed world has done and continues to do. If you think causal responsibility is tied to moral responsibility for action if you think that breaking something we all need puts the onus on the breaker to pay for the fixing then probably you think that the biggest polluters have the largest moral obligation to do something about climate change. v A consequentialist can certainly see that the US and other countries are doing a lot of damage to the climate and that this damage will cause human suffering. There are numerous consequentialist reasons for thinking that such countries ought to change the way they use energy, ought to minimize their carbon- 8
footprints, ought to help the poor of the world to adapt to the changes already underway in short, the biggest polluters ought to take meaningful action on climate change. There are some principles operative in those thoughts, and if you apply them to your own life, you might be drawn to a worrying conclusion. If you are consistent in your thinking, you might notice that your denunciation of the world s biggest polluters depends on those countries doing nothing despite being responsible for a lot of greenhouse gas emissions compared with other countries in the world. It might be that the premises and principles operative in your thinking about the world s biggest polluters apply to you too. It might be that you ought to take strong action on climate change, and that you are doing wrong if you do nothing. Don t take that personally if it stops you taking it seriously. It s not just you, but me and everyone else living lives of high-energy consumption. If, for example, the US is wrong to do nothing about climate change despite being responsible for the most emissions per country, then maybe consistency demands that we think of ourselves as wrong to do nothing about climate change, despite being responsible for the most emissions per capita. People who live in the US, Canada or Australia are responsible for about 20 metric tons of carbon dioxide on average each year. People in many EU countries, like Denmark, the UK and Germany, emit about 10 metric tons on average. The people in other EU countries are typically responsible for a bit more or a bit less than this, with those industrializing late or just making the transition to a market economy responsible for around 5 metric tons on average. 9
Residents of more than half of the countries on our planet emit less than 5 metric tons on average. Residents of more than a third of the countries on the planet are responsible for less than even a single metric ton each year. Many human beings are responsible for no measurable emissions at all. Compared to most people on the planet, the greenhouse gas emissions resulting from our individual lives are massive. You might be doing 20 times as much damage to the planet as many other people in the world. Think again about consistency. If you are a utilitarian with good consequentialist grounds for thinking that the US ought to take strong action on climate change, then maybe consistency demands that the everyday choices in your life must be much more green. Probably you ought to take serious action to reduce your carbon-footprint. You have to recycle that coffee cup lid. You should not fly. Maybe you should cut back a lot, turn down the thermostat, give money to green charities, devote some time to lobbying your government and your representatives, and on and on. Maybe your life ought to change a lot. In the end it s best to leave most of the real thinking to you. It s your problem, after all. What you have here is just the start of a sketch, just a way into thinking about climate change and the choices you make everyday. I hope it s easy enough to see that both Kantian and Utilitarian reflection are fruitful in this connection. Perhaps you have enough to make a real start on your own conclusions when it comes to consequences, intentions, and climate change. 10
James Garvey The Royal Institute of Philosophy i You can find a number of answers to such questions in J. Garvey, The Ethics of Climate Change, London: Continuum, 2008, as well as a bibliography to get you going in other directions. ii For a good introduction to the science of climate change, see J. Houghton, Global Warming: The Complete Briefing, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. For an up-to-date take on the science as well as the prospects of our planet, see the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change s various summaries for policy-makers, available for free at www.ipcc.ch. iii P. Singer, One World, London: Yale University Press, 2004. pp. 40 43. iv Have a look at www.unstats.un.org for the numbers. The numbers in the paragraphs which follow come from this site. v See Singer s discussion on pp. 33-4 in One World. 11