Climate Change: A Challenge for Ethics

The attitudes that have contributed to climate change are the same attitudes that are retarding an adequate ethical response to that crisis. With a growing understanding of the planet as a self-contained and evolving ecosystem, we realize that we are derivative from and inescapably dependent upon Earth's ecological systems, that it is not possible to have healthy humans on a sick planet. Putting the health of the planet in peril endangers our own survival. While this new awareness encourages a less anthropocentric and more Earth-friendly human culture, vestiges of the thinking that created climate change continue to guide most of our responses to this global problem. This paper will consider ethical principles that might guide effective responses to climate change as well as certain responses to that crisis that are either misguided or inadequate.

2012

Climate Change Causes and Its Impacts, 2023

This Article explores the phenomenon of climate change, attributing its recent acceleration to human activities, particularly the combustion of fossil fuels. The release of greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide and methane, contributes to a warming effect on the Earth. The consequences of climate change are widespread, impacting ecosystems, weather patterns, and societies.

Is global warming due to human actions? According to many scientists all over the world, yes, it is indeed (over 90 percent confidence) the biggest cause of global warming. Global warming is the ongoing rise in global average temperature near Earth's surface. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the average temperature of the Earth has risen by 1.5

Akpa Matthew Ikechukwu , 2022

Man made global warming exists; this is due to unchecked actions of man in the society. The phenomenon of climatic regime on the earth surface is a dynamic process that evolved over millions of years. Research has it that Brundtland commission of 1987 discussed on the effect of mining and burning of fossil fuels, manufacture and release of toxic chemicals and pollutants into air and water, destruction of forests and soil erosion, with a clear warning for humanity to either change its development strategy or be prepared to face the consequences in near future. Unfortunately, the situation has further worsened due to unchecked population growth, consumption pattern, and use of fossil fuels and release of greenhouse gases, deforestation and pollution. There are incontrovertible evidences that temperatures today are more than 0.8 °C above pre-industrial levels and the sea level has been rising at 3mm per year. The world is currently witnessing frequent and severe natural disasters including droughts, floods, cyclones, fires and mudslides. So, the negative impact of climate change is enormous but these impacts can be remedied if man will accept to cooperate with nature.

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), 2022

Global warming or global changes includes climatic and ecological problems such as recent apparent climatic temperature shifts and precipitation regimes in some areas, sea level rise, ozone depletion, atmospheric pollution and forest decline. Every human on the planet shares the responsibility of preserving its resources. All these changes in turn have caused land cover change and habitat loss to a great extent and have resulted in loss of biodiversity. The negative effect of climate change on crop shows decline in quality and quantity of crop productivity. Climate change draw attention to the relationship between science and society, challenges global issues and triggers new social movements.

Amsterdam University Press eBooks, 2017

Global climate change, driven largely by the combustion of fossil fuels and by deforestation, is a growing threat to human well-being in developing and industrialized nations alike. Significant harm from climate change is already occurring, and further damages are a certainty. The challenge now is to keep climate change from becoming a catastrophe. There is still a good chance of succeeding in this, and of doing so by means that create economic opportunities that are greater than the costs and that advance rather than impede other societal goals. But seizing this chance requires an immediate and major acceleration of efforts on two fronts: mitigation measures (such as reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases and black soot) to prevent the degree of climate change from becoming unmanageable; and adaptation measures (such as building dikes and adjusting agricultural practices) to reduce the harm from climate change that proves unavoidable. Avoiding the Unmanageable Human activities have changed the climate of the Earth, with significant impacts on ecosystems and human society, and the pace of change is increasing. The global-average surface temperature is now about 0.8°C above its level in 750, with most of the increase having occurred in the 20th century and the most rapid rise occurring since 970. Temperature changes over the continents have been greater than the global average and the changes over the continents at high latitudes have been greater still. The pattern of the observed changes matches closely what climate science predicts from the buildup in the atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO 2), methane (CH 4), and other greenhouse gases (GHGs), taking into account other known influences on the temperature. The largest of all of the human and natural influences on climate over the past 250 years has been the increase in the atmospheric CO 2 concentration resulting from deforestation and fossil-fuel burning. The CO 2 emissions in recent decades (Figure ES.), which have been responsible for the largest part of this buildup, have come 75% to 85% from fossil fuels (largely in the industrialized countries) and 5% to 25% from deforestation and other land-cover change (largely from developing countries in the tropics). A given temperature change in degrees Celsius (ºC) can be converted into a change in degrees Fahrenheit (ºF) by multiplying by .8. Thus, a change of 0.8ºC corresponds to a change of 0.8 x .8 = .44ºF.