Climate Change

<p>Climatic changes are happening around the globe. The science of climate change</p><p>affirms that most of these changes have been brought about by the actions of human</p><p>beings. While trying to understand the concept of anthropogenic climate change it is</p><p>noticed that significant ethical issues surround it and the question of responsibility</p><p>becomes vital. Certain ethical issues including responsibility associated with climate</p><p>change are discussed in this Book.</p><p>This research examines and reviews some general or traditional concepts of individual</p><p>and collective responsibility along with some specific literature concerning climate</p><p>change responsibility. The work of two philosophers Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and</p><p>Baylor Johnson is quite influential in this regard. The central idea of the arguments</p><p>offered by both the philosophers is that unless everybody acts individual efforts to</p><p>diminish carbon emissions will have little or no effect on climate change. For instance</p><p>Sinnott-Armstrong assesses and rejects several ethical principles to arrive at the</p><p>conclusion that one has no moral obligations to limit one's personal emissions in</p><p>climate change. This idea is analyzed and shown to be inconsistent in this research.</p><p>Alternatively it is agreed that the moral theories which Sinnott-Armstrong considers</p><p>do not put a restraint on the individual to curb her greenhouse gas emissions. Thereby</p><p>a need to propose a different way of ascertaining moral obligation in climate change is</p><p>recognized. A knowledge based ethical relativist theory is suggested for the same.</p><p>This theory expects the agent to act in the light of the knowledge that exists and</p><p>illustrates that commitments at the individual level cannot be different from the</p><p>commitments at collective level if one has knowledge about it that exist in today's</p><p>world in case of climate change. It is concluded that this knowledge based ethical</p><p>theory is one possible way to assign responsibility in climate change but</p><p>concomitantly it is also admitted that this theory may face certain limitations.</p>