Climate change ethical issues and challenge of moral responsibility

THE SCIENCE OF CLIMATE CHANGE "It has been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that the climate is changing due to man-made greenhouse gases. We are already committed to future substantial change over the next 30 years and change is likely to accelerate over the rest of the 21st century" The Met Office20, Hadley Centre, UK "There is strong evidence that the warming of the Earth over the last half-century has been caused largely by human activity, such as the burning of fossil fuels and changes in land use, including agriculture and deforestation." The Royal Society UK, 2010 The question that I raise in my thesis is an ethical question which is largely connected with the idea of moral responsibility for climate change. But before any ethical enquiry is done, one has to be clear about what is meant by climate change. The nature and reasons for climate change as revealed by scientific studies are what raise ethical concerns and therefore ought to form the foundation for any moral study undertaken regarding the climate. With this idea in mind, I believe it would be prudent to start with a chapter on the science of climate change. It may be said that we can rely on scientific facts to help reveal at least a somewhat assured way what climate change and its underpinning are. However, matters are not so simple. There are those who believe that climate change is not happening. If the evidence for climate change is admitted, then it is found that the science of climate change itself struggles with even basic questions like how does it happen and what are its causes. Emerging from this uncertainty are two types of skeptics of climate change: - 1. One group of skeptics claims that climate change is not happening at all. 2. The second group of skeptics agrees that climate change is happening but claim that it is a natural event, out of human control. These skeptics thereby contest the cause of climate change. 20 The Met Office Hardley Centre is one of the United Kingdom's foremost climate change research.