Addressing the Ethical Dimension

摘要

In A Perfect Moral Storm, Stephen Gardiner argues that the deepest challenge posed by climate change is an ethical one. The book diagnoses the nature of this ethical challenge and contends that part of the reason why progress in addressing climate change has been so dismal is that climate change constitutes what Gardiner (a philosopher at the University of Washington) calls a "perfect moral storm." This is an interesting way of approaching the topic. Gardiner claims that climate change is such a difficult issue because it involves the convergence of three separate "storms": the global nature of the problem, its intergenerational dimension, and the inadequacy of our theoretical models. The conjunction of these elements seriously impedes our ability to make ethical decisions about climate change.