Climate Change and Morality

Here’s a scholarly article in The Economist that discusses the morality of climate change mitigation.  Not surprisingly, it comes down to the question: What value do we place on the lives of other people, in particular, young people and the yet-to-be-born?

Alternatively put, as well-known authority on issues related to global resource depletion Nate Hagens, PhD (pictured), told me during an interview for Is Renewable Really Doable?, it comes down to discount rate.  In essence, when it comes to climate change, we function like children and drug addicts, meaning that we have extremely high discount rates; we value pleasure and resist sacrifice today far more than we do decades hence.

The real problem, it seems to me, is that there really is no “we.” There is a collection of individuals in 200+ sovereign countries with different cultures, different values, and different economic standings.  What Bernie Sanders or I would do if we were king of the world has absolutely no bearing on the matter.  Even worse, there is no king of the world, and the closest thing we have to it, the president of the United States says publicly that the theory of anthropogenic climate change is a hoax.

Another way to look at this is to assume what George Carlin observed is true, i.e., that behind the scenes the Earth is controlled by a small group of extremely powerful people who make all the really important decisions.  If that’s correct, they appear to have very little interest in dealing with this problem, for whatever reason.

In any case, it doesn’t look promising.