Recently in Climate Ethics Category

On April 27th, Jonathan Brockopp, director of the religion and ethics initiative at the Rock Ethics Institute, started off with a three-person team on a bike ride to Washington in order to raise awareness about the ethical dimensions of climate change.

"Most people know the scientific and political dimensions of climate
change," he said, "but few have thought deeply about the moral implications."
According to Brockopp, these are among the most important climate issues:
"People right now are suffering from changes in our climate, and the floods and
droughts we have seen recently are only harbingers of what may be coming down
the pike."

The trip is sponsored by Pennsylvania Interfaith Power & Light , a state-wide non-profit that has its main offices in State College. The bikers are staying overnight in church basements and giving talks to colleges and religious communities along the way. Click here for an update on days one and two of the four-day trip.

What would you do if you were a university administrator faced with two options for providing heat for your campus? On the one hand, you can adopt a plan that uses alternative energy (e.g., wind or solar) to generate the heat. On the other hand, you can upgrade an existing coal-fired plant to do so. Assume that the alternative energy route is significantly more expensive than the coal route, but that the coal option produces far greater greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution than alternative energy.

The coal option has the advantage of being relatively cheap. However, it has the disadvantages of producing significant pollution and contributing to climate change, which seriously threatens the well-being of persons and ecosystems around the world. The alternative energy option has the advantage of not contributing to climate change. However, it has the disadvantage of being relatively expensive. Nonetheless, a choice must be made. Which option would you choose?

Administrators at Penn State currently face a similar choice. At present, the coal-fired plant on Burrowes Road provides most of the heat for the University Park campus. The university plans to upgrade the plant in the near future but has not decided whether to use coal, natural gas, alternative energy, or some other fuel source. For more information, see this article on upgrading the Burrowes coal-fired plant, as well as our other blog posts below.

Imagine hearing that someone you love... someone for whom you feel responsible... someone who has been entrusted to your care... is very ill.  You are told that it is not completely clear how quickly, or how completely, she will recover even if aggressive treatment begins immediately.  Some doctors suggest that there is no time to waste in responding; it is a situation that should have been addressed long ago.  Other doctors say they cannot even be certain that she is sick and suggest it is probably best to proceed as if nothing were wrong while waiting for the results of further tests.  What would you do?

Many people think this situation is analogous to the one we are in with respect to the Earth.  We have a responsibility (to ourselves, to the millions of impoverished people around the globe, and, according to some at least, to God) to preserve and protect the environments on which our lives and the lives of future generations depend.  This responsibility has been neglected to such an extent that we cannot be sure how many threatened ecosystems, species, and cultures could still be saved even if everyone began to act responsibly right now.  Still, many people seem unwilling to take action...

So, what would you do if you were in this position with a loved one? Would you sit by calmly and hope that everything works itself out? Or would you begin doing everything you could immediately?  If you did nothing and she died, would you find comfort in being able to say that you couldn't have been certain she was actually sick? If you began treatment immediately, and it turned out she was not as sick as some had thought, would you feel your efforts had been wasted? 

Now, does what you would do in the case of a loved one have any bearing on what you think you should do, or even on what you will do, in response to the claims you are hearing about global climate change?

(Thanks are due to the Rev. Canon Sally Bingham for suggesting this analogy during her recent talk at the conference Stewardship or Sacrifice? Religion and the Ethics of Climate Change)