Why have we reached a stage where are we forced to rediscover ethics and morality, when a proven ethical and moral way of living was handed down to us? Its tragic (and sometimes nearly horribly funny) to see hackles raise at the mere mention of ethics and morals when talking about resource usage / development / equity / climate change. So should pacifists / stoics / minimalists / believers in simple-living leave the E word and the M word and talk of SANITY / SANENESS instead? Each individual, community and nation must introspect and act. Carbon emissions have now accumulated to the point where avoiding warming by 2 degrees Celsius is impossible. Even under optimistic assumptions about the speed with which countries might respond, it now seems likely that the world will warm by 4 degrees Celsius or more, which will transform the conditions of life on the planet and result in catastrophes. Even the overly cautious analysis of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) cannot disguise these facts. Indeed, we know with certainty what must be done to avoid enormous harm, particularly to poor and vulnerable people—a task rendered less onerous by the fact that all economic studies show that the transition to a low-carbon energy system could be achieved at modest cost. Rather than creating a perfect storm, the ethical winds blow strongly in one direction. It is true, as Gardiner writes, that the debate is plagued by moral corruption—“the subversion of our moral discourse to our own ends”—yet moral corruption prevails not because the situation is inherently murky, but because confusion has been deliberately sown, and because the public and political representatives have welcomed reasons to shirk their ethical obligations. There are three kinds of actors in this process of subversion: those who tell the lies, those who repeat the lies, and those who allow themselves to be seduced by the lies.
Posted on: Mon, 15 Sep 2014 13:04:30 +0000
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