Jamieson offers valid considerations to the debate of climate change in how to ethically respond to it. He posits three ethical principles that must be properly satisfied before he believes it is ethical to employ ICC (intentional climate change). These conditions for ICC Jamieson lays out are “the importance of democratic decision-making, the prohibition against irreversible environmental changes, and the significance of learning to live with nature” (Jamieson, 1996). 

As an environmentalist, I felt an affinity with the ecocentric ethical theories recently discussed in this class. I attempted to tackle Jamison’s logic through the understanding of ecocentrism and found all three of his conditions to be heavily anthropocentric.  

For his first condition for the acceptance of ICC Jamieson states that it must be done under a democratic decision making process. He fears that “a decision to undertake ICC would likely be made by the same people who are causing inadvertent climate change and have reaped most of the benefits from fossil-fuel driven industrialization: people in rich countries and their political, social, and economic leaders” (Jamieson, 1996). Jamieson argues here that poor countries must be allowed to collaborate and give consent to have their climate manipulated. This is a valid concern and is trying to ensure the maximization of utility across all peoples, but is not egalitarian in the ecocentric sense in that it does not take into consideration the interests of other, non-human, living things. Therefore it could be dismissed as simply overly anthropocentric. More, I believe that ecocentrists would unconditionally require something to be done about the current state of affairs. That something being ceasing harmful industrial activities, not manipulating the climate via science. They believe in the integrity of ecological systems, which are being jeopardized by human induced climate change, and believing in a universal rule of non-interference and respect for ecological systems as a whole, humans thus have an ethical obligation to cease this interference. This is a categorical duty and one that ecocentrists would not leave up to a democratic vote.

Jamieson’s second condition prior to undertaking ICC is a guarantee that it would not implement irreversible environmental changes. A holistic thinker may believe that irreversible changes are permissible, naturally occurring extinctions are normal processes of an ecosystem. One widespread, common sense argument against ICC rests on the idea that it is wrong for humans to interfere dramatically with fundamental natural processes. In reply, some would point out that humans are already interfering with fundamental natural processes (Jamieson, 1996). 

However, unlike natural extinctions, climate change is heavily influenced and escalated by human influence. I believe an ecocentrist would initially disagree with the need to interfere at all as with natural extinctions – if the ICC were to cause irreversible changes or not – because it is interfering with nature and the integrity of ecological systems and the interests of its living components. They would reverse this position with the understanding that climate change is now largely a human driven process. I think an ecocentrist would advocate non-interference by simply stopping the activities that are contributing to global warming, but after a tipping point is reached through negative feedback loops such as the melting of the polar ice, this would change. If irreversible climate changes are imminent from our industrial societies, then I believe an ecocentric theorist would agree that ecological interference to prevent it would be allowable – just as action is allowable to prevent the extinction of a living thing if the extinction was human caused.     

Lastly, Jamieson talks about learning to live with nature. “Many of our environmental problems flow from attempts to manipulate nature in order to make it conform to our desires” (Jamieson, 1996). Non-interference and respect for nature is something ecocentrists would agree with here. Jamieson goes on to say that some manipulations of nature, such as ICC, may be justified, and his attempt at justification I believe ecocentrists would disagree with. He brings up the metaphor of the Earth as a spaceship, with different species as rivets holding the craft together. In this way he is saying biodiversity is necessary, but only at a certain threshold, and until we get there extinctions of animals are of little concern because they do not yet threaten us or the spaceship yet. Jamieson says as we approach that threshold we have an obligation to act – via ICC – to prevent a crash. As mentioned above, I think ecocentrists would agree to interfering in an ecological system if only to reverse what damage we already caused. This however would be morally required to happen before reaching any biodiversity threshold. Ignoring extinctions until they threatened our own species would be too anthropocentric. All species would be considered equal by an ecocentrist, and all would require our moral consideration, not just the last ‘rivet’ before the spaceship falls apart. 

Jamieson, Dale. (1996). “Ethics and Intentional Climate Change”. Climate Change 33: 323-336.