Climate Ethics

With its international complexity and inter-generational span, global climate change challenges received ethical norms. Concepts such as justice, responsibility, and obligation seem ill equipped to deal with the scope of climate change. This course will examine these challenges and present ethical proposals that seek to respond to them. The course will begin with an overview of the scientific consensus surrounding climate change in order then to approach the ethical discussion with a relatively thorough understanding of the processes and consequences involved. Thus students will be required to synthesize a variety of scientific and ethical perspectives. The course is not normatively Christian, and most of the readings approach climate change from a non-theistic perspective. One of the main texts (Jenkins’s The Future of Ethics) adopts a Christian perspective, albeit one that is pluralist and particularist (don’t worry if these terms are unfamiliar at this point). Thus Christian theology will be a significant, though not exclusive, interlocutor for our ethical discussion.

Learning Goals

On completing this course, students will be able to:

  • Describe accurately the scientific data regarding climate change.
  • Articulate the unique moral challenges raised by climate change and describe a variety of responses to those questions.
  • Characterize the strengths and weaknesses associated with various ethical approaches to climate change.
  • Express confidently their own views on these perspectives, reflecting the complexity of these issues.

Evaluation

  • Essays: The objective of the essay(s) is to synthesize material from throughout the course into a coherent ethical analysis. Essays will be evaluated on mastery of the texts and ideas addressed (including the scientific data presented in the first portion of the course), originality and persuasiveness of the argument, and clarity and style of the writing. Students will have two options for essays: (1) because the course deals with ethical approaches to one urgent problem (climate change), the preferred option is a single paper, 20-30 pages. This paper will describe one or more of the unique moral challenges raised by climate change and articulate an ethical approach that addresses those challenges. The first essay will describe in some depth one or more of the unique challenges raised by climate change; the second essay will describe an ethical approach to climate change. The essays may focus on the same challenge(s), but they need not.
  • Participation: In keeping with the learning goals above, participation is considered in terms of constructive contribution to our ongoing conversation. Such contribution involves listening to and engaging the ideas of others as well as speaking. Participation will also include responses to in-class comprehension questions. Participation accounts for 15% of the final grade.
  • Reading Responses: Beginning on 3/4, students will be expected to submit weekly reading responses online. The responses should be no more than 250 words, and can discuss thoughts on the reading, criticisms of it, or questions it raises. Grades will be based on thoughtful engagement with the text and with other students’ ideas (not on how long or how polished the response is).

Required Texts

Gardiner, Stephen M., Simon Caney, Dale Jamieson, and Henry Shue, eds. Climate Ethics: Essential Readings. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Henson, Robert. The Rough Guide to Climate Change (3rd Edition). London: Rough Guides, 2011.

Jenkins, Willis. The Future of Ethics: Sustainability, Social Justice, and Religious Creativity. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2013.

Readings

  • Week 1- Overview, expectations, and systems: Jenkins, Preface and Introduction
  • Week 2 – Sun, energy, albedo: Henson, 3-22
  • Week 3 – Greenhouse Effect: Henson, 23-48
  • Week 4 – Circulation and climate: Henson, 116-140
  • Week 5 – Chemical cycles: Henson, 65-81
  • Week 6 – Observations, models, and projections: 249-265
  • Week 7 – Is Climate Change a Moral Issue? Reread Jenkins, Preface and Introduction; Gardiner, “Ethics and Global Climate Change” in CE; “Climate Change Divide is About Group Identity, Not Politics,” in Conservation (link on Blackboard)
  • Week 8 – What challenges does climate change raise for ethics? Jenkins, Ch. 1 (can skip pp. 46-54); Gardiner, “A Perfect Moral Storm,” in CE.
  • Week 9 – What does justice demand? Jenkins, Ch. 5; Caney, “Cosmopolitan Justice, Responsibility, and Global Climate Change,” in CE.
  • Week 10 – Who is responsible? Does it matter? World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, “Peoples Agreement” and “Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth” (links on Blackboard); Peter Rudiak-Gould, “Climate Change and Accusation: Global Warming and Local Blame in a Small Island State,” in Current Anthropology, Vol. 55, No. 4 (August 2014), pp. 365-386 (on Blackboard).
  • Week 11 – Can economics respond to climate change? Jenkins, Ch. 6; Stern, “The Economics of Climate Change” (§ I, III), in CE.
  • Week 12 – Can societies adapt to climate change? Jamieson, “Adaptation, Mitigation, and Justice,” in CE; Jouni Paavola, “Justice in Adaptation to Climate Change in Tanzania,” in Adger et al., Fairness in Adaptation to Climate Change (ebook). Note: Class will visit a site on the Domain with Kevin Hiers, Director of Environmental Stewardship.
  • Week 13 – What do we owe the future? Jenkins, Ch. 7; Shue, “Deadly Delays, Saving Opportunities,” in CE.
  • Week 14 – Assessing moral and political options: Henson, 306-322; Jenkins, “Afterword”; Goodin, “Selling Environmental Indulgences,” and Stern, “The Economics of Climate Change” (§IV) in CE.