The rapid rise in interest in geoengineering the climate as a response to global warming presents a clear and significant challenge to environmental ethics. The paper articulates what I call the 'presumptive argument' against geoengineering from environmental ethics, a presumption strong enough to make geoengineering almost 'unthinkable' from within that tradition. Two rationales for suspending that presumption are next considered. One of them is a 'lesser evil' argument, the other makes connections between the presumptive argument, ecofacism, and the anthropocentrism/non-anthropocentrism debate. (...) The discussion is designed to prompt reflection on how environmental ethicists should orient themselves to the rapidly moving geoengineering debate and what they should think about the moral significance of the earth's large-scale biogeochemical processes compared to the moral significance of individuals, species, and ecosystems. (shrink)
Engineering the Climate: The Ethics of Solar Radiation Management is a wide-ranging and expert analysis of the ethics of the intentional management of solar radiation. This book will be a useful tool for policy-makers, a provocation for ethicists, and an eye-opening analysis for both the scientist and the general reader with interest in climate change.
Maintaining the coherence of the distinction between nature and artefact has long been central to environmental thinking. By building genomes from scratch out of 'bio-bricks', synthetic biology promises to create biotic artefacts markedly different from anything created thus far in biotechnology. These new biotic artefacts depart from a core principle of Darwinian natural selection – descent through modification – leaving them with no causal connection to historical evolutionary processes. This departure from the core principle of Darwinism presents a challenge to (...) the normative foundation of a number of leading positions in environmental ethics. As a result, environmental ethicists with a commitment to the normative significance of the historical evolutionary process may see synthetic biology as a moral 'line in the sand'. (shrink)
A collection of original and innovative essays that compare the justice issues raised by climate engineering to the justice issues raised by competing approaches to solving the climate problem.
Ethicists and social scientists alike have advocated for the inclusion of vulnerable populations in research and decision-making on climate engineering. Unfortunately, there have been few efforts to do so. The research presented in this paper was designed to build knowledge about how vulnerable populations think about climate engineering. The goal of this manuscript is to bring the ethics literature on climate engineering into dialogue with emerging social science data documenting the perspectives of vulnerable populations. The results indicate some concerns among (...) vulnerable populations may resemble those outlined by ethicists. However, the perspectives expressed by interviewees also extend previous ethical treatments by indicating ways in which climate engineering could compound existing injustices. (shrink)
Engineering the Climate: The Ethics of Solar Radiation Management is a wide-ranging and expert analysis of the ethics of the intentional management of solar radiation. This book will be a useful tool for policy-makers, a provocation for ethicists, and an eye-opening analysis for both the scientist and the general reader with interest in climate change.
New techniques for modifying the genomes of agricultural organisms create difficult ethical challenges. We provide a novel framework to replace worn-out ethical lenses relying on ‘naturalness’ and ‘crossing species lines.’ Thinking of agricultural intervention as a ‘negotiation’ of ‘integrity’ and ‘agency’ provides a flexible framework for considering techniques such as genome editing with CRISPR/Cas systems. We lay out the framework by highlighting some existing uses of integrity in environmental ethics. We also provide an example of our lens at work by (...) looking at the creation of ‘cisgenic’ potatoes to resist late potato blight. We conclude by highlighting three distinct advantages offered by the integrity framework. These include a more fitting way to look at the practice of scientific researchers, a more inclusive way to consider ethics around agriculture, and a more flexible way to provide the ethical grounds for regulation in different cultural contexts. (shrink)
He asks what these ideas in contemporary epistemology and environmental philosophy mean for environmental policy, concluding that the grounding of knowledge strongly suggests epistemic reasons for the protection of a full range of physical environments in their natural condition."--BOOK JACKET.
Extinction is usually associated with the death of the last remaining individual of a species, taxon, or population of organisms. Here I ask the question of whether extinction might also be applied to cases where individuals of the relevant category remain alive. Global impacts in the Anthropocene suggest extinction may be broader than typically thought. Technologies available in the emerging ‘synthetic age’ alter taxa in ways that may appropriately be characterized as extinction. The core of the more traditional account of (...) extinction remains valuable. Losing the last few individuals of a taxon matters. But emerging types of loss may demand a broader understanding of extinction. This broader understanding could capture more of what humans are doing to the biosphere. (shrink)
A collection of original and innovative essays that compare the justice issues raised by climate engineering to the justice issues raised by competing approaches to solving the climate problem.
Much of the work on the ethics of climate engineering over the last few years has focused on the front-end of the potential timeline for climate intervention. Topics have included the initial taboo on bringing the discussion of climate engineering into the open, guidelines to put in place before commencing research, and governance arrangements before first deployment. While this work is clearly important, the current paper considers what insights can be gleaned from considering the tail-end, that is, by using the (...) requirement for future cessation as a criterion for any acceptable climate engineering strategy. After showing that time-limited interventions are a key part of the rhetoric of leading climate engineering advocates, the paper examines the implications of imposing a 'cessation requirement' on solar radiation management and carbon dioxide removal strategies. Consideration of a cessation requirement turns out to reveal a great deal about what ought to be happening now, before any decision to proceed with climate engineering deployment has been taken. (shrink)
ABSTRACTGiven the existing inequities in climate change, any proposed climate engineering strategy to solve the climate problem must meet a high threshold for justice. In contrast to an overly thin paradigm for justice that demands only a science-based assessment of potential temperature-related benefits and harms, we argue for the importance of attention to recognitional justice. Recognitional justice, we go on to claim, calls for a different type of assessment tool. Such an assessment would pay attention to neglected considerations such as (...) relationships, context, power, vulnerability, narrative, and affect. Here we develop a care-ethics related tool for assessing the justice of climate engineering with stratospheric aerosols, and suggest that qualitative social science methods may be required for its effective application. We illustrate the use of this tool with a case study involving interviews about stratospheric aerosol injection conducted in Kenya, the Solomon Islands... (shrink)
Geoengineering has been broadly and helpfully defined as “the intentional manipulation of the earth's climate to counteract anthropogenic climate change or its warming effects” (Corner and Pidgeon , 26). Although there exists a rapidly growing literature on the ethics of geoengineering, very little has been written about its gender dimensions. The authors consider four contexts in which geoengineering appears to have important gender dimensions: (1) the demographics of those pushing the current agenda, (2) the overall vision of control it involves, (...) (3) the design of the particular technologies, and (4) whom geoengineering will most affect and benefit. After detailing these four gender dimensions, we consider three ways in which the geoengineering discourse could be enriched if it became more sensitive to issues of gender. These include increasing the focus on the concrete other, recognizing the socially transformative potential of geoengineering technologies, and engaging in value-sensitive design. Although ultimately remaining agnostic on the desirability of geoengineering, the paper brings gender considerations into a discussion from which they have been conspicuously absent. (shrink)
A decision was made at the UNFCCC, COP-18 meeting in Doha in 2012 to create a work programme on loss and damage. Part of this programme was to include the production of a technical paper to enhance the general understanding of non-economic losses from climate change. The following article looks carefully at that paper in order to discover whether it provides an adequate conceptual understanding of non-economic losses. Several shortcomings of the paper’s conceptualization of these losses are identified. An alternative (...) ethical framework with methods better suited for capturing a fuller range of non-economic losses is considered. This framework is likely to be most useful if used prospectively for the purpose of devising better adaptation policies to head off potential future losses rather than if used retrospectively for quantifying losses that have already occurred for the purposes of providing compensation. (shrink)
A collection of original and innovative essays that compare the justice issues raised by climate engineering to the justice issues raised by competing approaches to solving the climate problem.
Debates over the existence of intrinsic value have long been central to professional environmental ethics. Holmes Rolston, III’s version of intrinsic value is, perhaps, the most well known. Recently, powerful critiques leveled by Bryan G. Norton and J. Baird Callicott have suggested that there is an epistemological problem with Rolston’s account. In this paper, I argue first that the debates over intrinsic value are as pertinent now as they have ever been. I then explain the objections that Norton and Callicott (...) have raised against Rolston’s position. In the main body of the paper, I attempt to show that Rolston’s position can accommodate these objections. In this defense of Rolston’s position, I have two goals: first, to show that the notion of non-subjective intrinsic value in nature is coherent, and second, to illuminate the places where further philosophical work on intrinsic value remains to be done. (shrink)
The growing presence of the products of nanotechnology in the public domain raises a number of ethical questions. This paper considers whether existing environmental ethics can provide some guidance on these questions. After a brief discussion of the appropriateness of an environmental ethics framework for the task at hand, the paper identifies a representative environmental ethic and uses it to evaluate four salient issues that emerge from nanotechnology. The discussion is intended both to give an initial theoretical take on nanotechnology (...) from the perspective of environmental ethics and to provide a clear indication of the direction from which environmental resistance might come. (shrink)
In addition to carbon dioxide, it is becoming increasingly clear that there are numerous other potent agents of anthropogenic forcing (e.g. methane, ozone, black carbon) at work in the climate system today. The typical ethical framing of climate change has not yet accommodated this complexity. In addition, geoengineering has often been presented as a Plan B that would simply counter unintentional (and positive) anthropogenic forcing with intentional (and negative) anthropogenic forcing. This paper attempts to better address the complexity by outlining (...) an ethical framework for reducing all anthropogenic forcing, a position it labels the 'climate imperative.' The paper considers geoengineering alongside various other anthropogenic forcing activities and discusses what the climate imperative would say about each of them. On this analysis, GHG and black carbon reductions remain a priority. At the same time, the framing reveals a significant ethical difference between geoengineering through solar radiation management and through carbon dioxide removal. (shrink)
There is a growing demand to incorporate social, economic and ethical considerations into biotechnology governance. However, there is currently little guidance available for understanding what this means or how it should be done. A framework of care-based ethics and politics can capture many of the concerns maintaining a persistent socio-political conflict over biotechnologies and provide a novel way to incorporate such considerations into regulatory assessments. A care-based approach to ethics and politics has six key defining features. These include: 1) a (...) relational worldview, 2) an emphasis on the importance of context, 3) a recognition of the significance of dependence, 4) an analysis of power, including a particular concern for those most vulnerable, 5) a granting of weight to the significance of affect, and 6) an acknowledgment of an important role for narrative. This policy brief provides an overview of these defining features, illustrates how they can appear in a real world example and provides a list of guiding questions for assessing these features and advancing a politics of care in the governance of biotechnology. (shrink)
A great deal has been made of the question of whether nano-materials provide a unique set of ethical challenges. Equally important is the question of whether they provide a unique set of regulatory challenges. In the last 18 months, the US Environmental Protection Agency has begun the process of trying to meet the regulatory challenge of nano using the Toxic Substances Control Act (1976)(TSCA). In this central piece of legislation, ‘newness’ is a critical concept. Current EPA policy, we argue, does (...) not adequately (or ethically) deal with the novelty of nano. This paper is an exploration of how to do a better job of accounting for nanomaterials as ‘new.’ We explore three alternative ways that nanomaterials might be made to fall under the TSCA regulatory umbrella. Since nanomaterials are of interest precisely because of the exciting new properties that emerge at the nano-scale, each of these three alternatives must meet what we call the ‘novelty condition’ and avoid what we call the ‘central paradox’ of existing regulatory policy. Failure to meet either of these conditions is a moral failure. We examine both the strengths and weaknesses of each alternative in order to illuminate the conceptual, practical, and moral challenges of novelty. (shrink)
A great deal has been made of the question of whether nano-materials provide a unique set of ethical challenges. Equally important is the question of whether they provide a unique set of regulatory challenges. In the last 18 months, the US Environmental Protection Agency has begun the process of trying to meet the regulatory challenge of nano using the Toxic Substances Control Act (1976)(TSCA). In this central piece of legislation, ‘newness’ is a critical concept. Current EPA policy, we argue, does (...) not adequately (or ethically) deal with the novelty of nano. This paper is an exploration of how to do a better job of accounting for nanomaterials as ‘new.’ We explore three alternative ways that nanomaterials might be made to fall under the TSCA regulatory umbrella. Since nanomaterials are of interest precisely because of the exciting new properties that emerge at the nano-scale, each of these three alternatives must meet what we call the ‘novelty condition’ and avoid what we call the ‘central paradox’ of existing regulatory policy. Failure to meet either of these conditions is a moral failure. We examine both the strengths and weaknesses of each alternative in order to illuminate the conceptual, practical, and moral challenges of novelty. (shrink)
A number of those that have advocated for theoretical pluralism in epistemology suggest that naturalistic arguments from cognitive science can support their case. Yet these theorists have traditionally faced two pressing needs. First, they have needed a cognitive science adequate to the task. Second, they have needed a bridge between whatever scientific account of cognition they favor and the normative claims of a pluralistic epistemology. Both of these challenges are addressed below in an argument for theoretical pluralism that brings together (...) two recent prototype-activation approaches to cognition. The paper dovetails Paul Churchland's neuro-computational approach with George Lakoff and Mark Johnson's image schematic approach, and shows how they mutually support each other in an increasingly persuasive naturalistic case for theoretical pluralism in epistemology. (shrink)
This is a collection of contemporary writings on the work of Holmes Rolston, III. The authors contributing to this volume are a mixture of senior scholars in environmental ethics and new voices in philosophy and in literature. Together they provide an in depth evaluation of many of the topics discussed by Rolston. Rolston himself, in a detailed reply to each of his critics at the end of the volume, reveals where some of these criticisms sting him the most.
There exists in the United States a popular account of the historical roots of environmental philosophy which is worth noting not simply as a matter of historical interest, but also as a source book for some of the key ideas that lend shape to contemporary North American environmental philosophy. However, this folk wisdom about the historical beginnings of North American environmental thinking is incomplete. The wilderness-based history commonly used by environmental philosophers should be supplemented with the neglected story of garbage (...) and sanitation in North American urban areas during the nineteenth century. This supplemented history changes the conceptual territory over which North American environmental philosophy roams. This new territory is better suited to a number of important local and international environmental challenges. (shrink)
Recent work in ethics and epistemology argues that physical surroundings have normative force. The ideas of 'grounding knowledge' and 'real ethics' provide an important way to understand sense of place. This paper uses this work to argue that there is a moral structure to material culture, and that the existence of this moral structure makes it necessary for us to pay attention to the epistemic import of the physical environments we create and live in. Since environments are thick with moral (...) norms, it is incumbent upon us to figure out what kinds of environments are most conducive to our shared visions of the good life. (shrink)
In a recent contribution to this journal, Jim Cheney argues for a postmodern epistemological framework that supports a conception of inquiry as a kind of “conversation” with nature. I examine how Cheney arrives at this metaphor and consider why it might be an appealing one for environmental philosophers. I note how, in the absence of an animistic account of nature, this metaphor turns out to be problematic. A closer examination of the postmodern insights that Cheney employs reveals that it is (...) possible to stress the agency of nature in epistemology without having to draw on the metaphor of conversation. I conclude that this alternative account is not only more plausible, but can probably do the same ethical work as the problematic metaphor of inquiry as conversation. (shrink)
In a recent contribution to this journal, Jim Cheney argues for a postmodern epistemological framework that supports a conception of inquiry as a kind of “conversation” with nature. I examine how Cheney arrives at this metaphor and consider why it might be an appealing one for environmental philosophers. I note how, in the absence of an animistic account of nature, this metaphor turns out to be problematic. A closer examination of the postmodern insights that Cheney employs reveals that it is (...) possible to stress the agency of nature in epistemology without having to draw on the metaphor of conversation. I conclude that this alternative account is not only more plausible, but can probably do the same ethical work as the problematic metaphor of inquiry as conversation. (shrink)
