Dale Jamieson explores the issues with geoengineering climate change. This was a popular discussion during the 1970’s and the 1980’s but since then that discussion has not nearly been as active. He describes the reawakening of this discussion based on the possibility of earth undergoing a greenhouse induced global warming and there needs to be some measures taken against this. In the paper Jamieson assesses the ethical acceptability of intentional climate change (ICC) He proposes a set of conditions that should be met for ICC to be morally permissible. However, he also says that those conditions are not met yet. Research on ICC should be continued based on certain conditions being met. He hopes to not be the last word on the ethics of ICC but the first word. He wants others to be stimulated to think through the ethics of ICC (Jamieson, 1996).
Jamieson outlines three ethical considerations that influence the permissibility of ICC. I will primarily deal with the first one for this piece. The first is the importance of democratic decision making. There is not a person on this planet who is not affected by climate. No matter where you are in the world it will have some impact on your life. Jamieson describes how poor people often aren’t included in major democratic decision-making processes. If ICC were to be used it would affect the poor just as much as the rich. “If the world belongs to anyone, it belongs to the poor just as much as it does the rich, and no decision to go forward with the ICC could be morally acceptable that did not in some way represent all the people from the world,” Jamieson says. It could be possible in principle to design a deliberative process that would prove to be just and include everyone. However, as Sachs 1993, says it would be difficult to do because it would have to be representative of all the people on earth and not just global middle class. People such as Rolston (1998) even think that other nonhuman things should be represented in the decision process.
On the topic of poor people and people who live in poverty I think that they could end up being affected even more by climate change than the rich or the middle class.
“We see climate as a magnifier, and in many cases a multiplier, of existing underlying causes of risk,” says Sarah Henly-Shepard, Mercy Corps Senior Advisor for Climate Change and Resilience.
Climate change is a root cause of conflict around the world because it leads to things such as food shortages, it threatens people’s livelihoods, and can displace entire populations. Some people who call the worlds poorest countries home are the most vulnerable. Examples of these countries include Haiti and Timor Leste. Three out of four people who live in poverty are reliant upon agricultural and natural resources to survive. As climate changes, it can become a matter of life and death for these people. More information can be found here https://www.mercycorps.org/blog/climate-change-poverty#who-affected-climate-change
Designing a process that could represent everyone’s interests fairly when it comes to the issue of ICC seems very difficult. I agree with Jamieson that the world belongs to everyone and climate change affects everyone. However, I think there are people who are at greater risk because their entire livelihood depends on the land. If they cannot grow their food, they will starve. It is not just a matter of being too hot or too cold, but once again I will say that it is a matter of life and death.
There would need to be a way to represent poor people in a truly democratic decision about ICC
Resources used
https://link-springer-com.login.ezproxy.library.ualberta.ca/article/10.1007/BF00142580
https://www.mercycorps.org/blog/climate-change-poverty#who-affected-climate-change
Hi Juniper 22, I agree with your considerations of how ICC may affect underprivileged nations and peoples. Certainly a big decision such as manipulating our own climate should not be done lightly and without first consider its impacts on everyone and everything.
However, if you agree with biocentric and ecocentric values of all living things having moral considerability, then I think we have an obligation to try to correct the integrity of our ecological systems. Either with ICC or by discontinuing harmful industrial practices. I think democracy would stand in the way of this. Many people might vote against ICC for a host of reasons (maybe they think climate change will actually benefit their specific locality, or maybe they do not want to invest their own resources into the technology hoping someone else will fix the commons). Not to protect biodiversity and ecological integrity of our natural systems for such reasons would be anthropocentric. If climate change is really a crisis, and we subscribe to the belief that all living things should be respected, have inherit worth, and are moral considerable, than we must either adopt ICC, or rework our entire society so as to make ICC unnecessary. I think ICC could be ethically correct even without a democratic consensus, as long it could be proven to be in line with the principles of minimum wrong and distributive justice.
I completely agree with all the points you make in your post and particularly appreciate the analogy of climate change as a magnifier for inequalities. The concept of intersectionality seems to be a big aspect of the discussion on climate change. Which demographics benefit and which demographics are hurt by it.
I think considerations of intersectionality are one of the larger hurdles that the conversation around climate change needs to address. But that is easier said than done. I feel like one ideology to use to approach this is Rawls’ veil of ignorance.
Removing people’s biases for their own preferences would be an excellent way to approach climate change. Unfortunately, that’s clearly impossible.
All in all, I agree with your final point. We need a way to bring everyone into the conversation in a way that gives everyone equal consideration in the decision making process. A method that cannot be influenced by those with power and that considers the vast array of stakeholders.