Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 September 2014
In his definitive book A Perfect Moral Storm, ethicist Stephen Gardiner argues that the way forward in a climate-changed world is so difficult in part because we “do not yet have a good understanding of many of the ethical issues at stake in global-warming policy.” We remain confused about such vital questions as who should take responsibility for the current condition, how to preserve equity between generations, and how best to think about our responsibility toward nonhuman animals. The resistance of governments to taking action, attempts by various players to throw sand in the eyes of the public, and specious arguments used to justify an unwillingness to do what is necessary all add to our moral bafflement.
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6 Edward Maibach, Connie Roser-Renouf, and Anthony Leiserowitz, Global Warming's Six Americas 2009: An Audience Segmentation Analysis, Yale Project on Climate Change and George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication, June 19, 2009. See also Riley Dunlap and Aaron McCright, “A Widening Gap: Republican and Democrat Views on Climate Change,” Environment Magazine 50, no. 5 (2008).
7 See note 3.
8 A similar list of transgressions is made by Donald Brown, see: blogs.law.widener.edu/climate/category/climate-change-disinformation/.
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11 “Fate of Mountain Glaciers in the Anthropocene: A Report by the Working Group Commissioned by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences”, May 11, 2011 http://www.casinapioiv.va/content/dam/accademia/pdf/glaciers.pdf
12 Pope Benedict XVI, “If You Want to Cultivate Peace, Protect Creation” (Message for the celebration of the World Day of Peace, January 1, 2010), www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/messages/peace/documents/hf_ben-xvi_mes_20091208_xliii-world-day-peace_en.html.
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14 Hamilton, Requiem for a Species, ch. 4.
15 Boykoff, Maxwell T. and Smith, Joe, “Media Presentations of Climate Change,” in Lever-Tracy, Constance, ed., Routledge Handbook of Climate Change and Society (New York: Routledge, 2010), pp. 210–18.Google Scholar
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