The Ethical Dimensions of Climate Change

When the topic of climate change comes up, I immediately think about the number of American politicians (and citizens, for that matter) that strongly believe “there is no such thing as global warming” or that “climate fluxuations on Earth are completely normal”. Brown’s article addresses these common statements, along with a few others, and makes a compelling argument that intervention must occur now because of ethical and moral issues that go along with global climate change.

Brown sees climate change as a moral issue. He presents eight different ethical issues, along with factual context and ethical analysis for each issue. One point Brown emphasizes in many ethical analyses is that many of those who are most harmed by climate change have contributed little to the cause of the problem. Conversely, those who have contributed the most to climate change are often affected the least. Thus, some of the poorest countries are affected the most by climate change but cannot do anything about it. Brown’s article states “the human-induced warming that the world is now experiencing is already causing 150,000 deaths and 5 million incidents of disease each year from additional malaria and diarrhea, mostly in the poorest nations” (9). Brown says that everyone has a right to life, liberty, and personal security and uses this as evidence to argue that there is no ethically acceptable excuse to allow global climate change, because these changes threaten basic human rights. Brown seeing environmental problems as ethical issues, and his evidence for it, is definitely a compelling argument. Most people probably do not realize that global climate change affect those in poverty much more than others. The media portrays common negative effects of global climate change with examples of ice caps melting and ocean levels rising, not with an increase in disease among the poorest of people. If the media presented the negative effects directly affecting people today, would more people consider taking action?

While many governments and individuals think there is not enough evidence of global climate change to justify taking action on the issue, Brown presents ethical issues with this claim (Issue IV) in points 7 and 8 of his ethical analysis that are hard to argue against. Brown sees intervention against green house gases emissions (GHGs), which cause climate change, as a human duty because of the serious risks of climate change. However, no matter what evidence exists, I think there will still be obstinate people who refuse to support taking action of global environmental problems. It seems that the current struggle (at least in the U.S.) is proving that global climate change is an issue, rather than brainstorming ways to reduce human effects. What will it take for people to recognize that this is a serious issue if current scientific evidence is not compelling enough?