Re: [asa] Global Warming, Ethics, and Social Sciences

David wrote:

> Given all this, what say ye about the appropriate ethical / policy
> response? The strongest argument I've heard in favor of Kyoto is based on the
> "precautionary principle." I don't find that argument convincing at all, given
> that the long term social consequences of Kyoto are so uncertain and may be
> quite negative, and given that I don't think consequentialism works on its own
> generally. In Christian circles, we of course bandy about the word
> "stewardship," but it's not clear to me how that concept applies in this instance. Does
> "stewardship" imply a spiritualization of consequentialist cost/benefit
> analysis? Does it suggest an absolutist stance against carbon emissions? Does
> it incorporate issues such as the appropriate boundaries of national
> sovereignty and economic growth?
>

The "ethical/policy" response is also what I have been trying to get
some thinking about.

More than just "it will hurt the economy", the issue with Kyoto
is that it was thought out with a picture that was maybe reasonable
at the time, but it is not clear that the policy was well thought
out with an eye to future developments.

For one thing, it was thought out when the economies in much of
Asia were only beginning to heat up. In particular, China's rapid
economic growth and massive demands for energy was probably
never even considered realistically. However, the demand
in all of Asia has surged dramatically, even with the over
investment and crash that happened. So rules excluding these
economies are arguably unfair in the current context. What
context the future brings is also hard to estimate. At minimum,
the burden should be shared in a fair an equitable way.

But there is another thing too. It is "what to do". A system
as massive and complex as the environment is something akin
to an aircraft carrier as far as its response goes. Aircraft
carriers do not turn on a dime. Likewise, any drastic policy
change you chose will take a good part of a life time before
the results are even known. You are probably best not to
make wild gyrations on a ship this big and certainly, once
you gently turn that wheel, you have be prepared to wait for
the response. At best, a "response" might become observable
within a decade.

So a wise policy is the first issue.

It does sound like the CO2 problem is of our own making, but
you cannot just pull the plug. We would probably have to
shift to nuclear power for example which takes decades to
put in place and plan. Some people have issue with nuclear
power. How to overcome that resistance in a policy shift
that will take decades to implement.

Hence, finding a good plan is the first and most difficult
matter at hand, when it comes to the issue of "what to do",
as opposed to the majority of the discussions that have
been "what is happening", the economics of this is not
trivial.

There are clearly enormous costs to ignoring the problem, but
there are also enormous costs in doing something about it. I
suspect that ignoring the problem will be more costly, but
the load paid now will also be a burdensome cost. I don't
think it is wrong to say that some may find the burden at
least unfair, and possibly unbearable. We have to consider
that seriously in the "what to do" equations.

by Grace we proceed,
Wayne

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Received on Wed Jan 17 22:04:12 2007