Climate Change

As the climate crisis accelerates, ecological degradation is making vast swaths of the planet uninhabitable. This slow-moving disaster is producing a wave of human displacement—millions forced from their homes by sea-level rise, drought, extreme weather, and environmental collapse. Yet those displaced are not being protected by the international legal system, and the countries most responsible for climate change are often the least willing to accept them. This paper argues that current frameworks around climate migration are both ethically and politically insufficient. (...) Legal definitions such as "refugee" and "migrant" fail to capture the structural violence and involuntary nature of climate displacement, leaving people unprotected and stateless. Through a synthesis of philosophical argument, legal analysis, feminist theory, and ecosocialist critique, I propose a reparative, justice-oriented approach to climate migration rooted in the concept of "ecologically displaced people." Building from the failures of adaptation and resilience narratives, this paper explores how the Global North must bear a disproportionate obligation to provide refuge, land, and rights to displaced people—grounded in both needs and culpability. It further examines the capitalist logic of borders as tools of exclusion and labor control, ultimately proposing No Border politics and mutual aid as radical, necessary alternatives to a collapsing global order. In doing so, the paper aligns with red-green political frameworks to advocate a collective, anti-capitalist response to the ecological and moral emergency of climate displacement. (shrink)

Climate change is a global environmental issue that threatens humanity and the concept of 'Ubuntu' which means 'humanness' would be useful in the conversation for climate change mitigation and adaptation. With the rising global temperature changes to climate, the paper reflects on some critical questions such as: how can African environmental ethics make an epistemic contribution to the conversation on climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies? I argue that the issue of climate change is a problem rooted in anthropocentric activities, (...) individualistic values and capitalism can be minimized by integrating the ideologies of 'Ubuntu' as a cultural value in African environmental ethics into the dialogue on climate change adaptation approaches. Beyond the scientific, political and legal issues involved in the approaches, it is pertinent to consider divergent cultural ethical values in formulating policy for climate change adaptation. I recommend that the ideologies of Ubuntu should be integrated with other ethical principles aimed at providing a solid base for adapting to the problem of climate change. (shrink)

Many scholars and laypeople believe that, to address global warming, residents of high-income countries should limit themselves to having no more than one biological child. This article calls this view into question, referring to it as ‘climate-based procreative limitarianism’ (CPL). However, rather than arguing that the climate-related harms of procreation are outweighed by other considerations—such as individuals’ interests in parenting or in having biologically related offspring—it finds strong grounds for thinking that at least intelligent individuals in these countries may have (...) sufficient climate-related reasons to reproduce at or above replacement level. As will be argued, this is because their offspring are disproportionately likely to contribute to globally significant green innovation and to make above-average economic contributions, the latter being relevant because economic performance shapes countries’ ability and willingness to mitigate climate change. (shrink)

The esoteric tradition represented by Bailey and foreshadowed in the writings of H. P. Blavatsky proposes that humanity exists within a living planetary organism whose outer conditions reflect inner energetic realities. Human desire, emotion, and thought are not incidental to planetary life but active participants within it. At the same time, humanity is not the sole source of climatic influence. The Earth itself is subject to greater cosmic rhythms, magnetic forces, and evolutionary pressures originating beyond the planet. This paper explores (...) two complementary streams of causation present within the Bailey-Blavatsky worldview. The first concerns cosmic magnetism and planetary orientation. The second concerns collective human desire and its impact upon the etheric and astral life of the planet. Together these streams form an esoteric philosophy of climate in which environmental conditions emerge from the interaction between cosmic forces and human consciousness. The argument presented here is not intended as a scientific hypothesis but as a philosophical examination of an alternative cosmology—one in which climate serves as a bridge between matter and consciousness, between humanity and the cosmos, and between planetary evolution and spiritual purpose. (shrink)

The Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region is a distinct geographic, economic and cultural area with a place in the climate change landscape. LAC has suffered the impacts of climate change at a level disproportionate to the amount of emissions it produces. Awareness of this experience, in addition to factors such as the region’s large young population, increasing middle class, vast natural resources and considerable economic growth potential provide reasons to hope LAC can implement significant climate change policies to (...) meet its Paris commitments. Springing from its cultural and historical affinities, the region has borne a flurry of polycentric initiatives promoting exchange, integration and coordinated approaches to common problems. Climate policy implementation to meet Paris commitments is still incipient, with some of its countries serving as models, some as laggards and the rest positioned somewhere in between. For this reason, partnerships with regions which have advanced more in this area can prove useful. The EU-CELAC summits and the Euroclima program are two examples. Due to its high levels of inequality and social unrest, the key challenge to implementing climate policies in LAC will be the strengthening of a political atmosphere where human rights, the rule of law and democratic values prevail. (shrink)

This study explores the relationship between perceptions of catastrophic events and beliefs about climate change. Using data from the 2023 Life in Transition Survey, the study finds that contrary to conventional wisdom, more accurate knowledge about past catastrophes is associated with lower concern about climate change. The paper proposes that heightened threat sensitivity may underlie both the tendency to overestimate disaster impacts and increased concern about climate change. The findings challenge the assumption that a more informed citizenry necessarily leads to (...) better climate policy decisions. Instead, they suggest that psychological factors, like anxiety and risk perception, play crucial roles in shaping climate attitudes. Illuminating these dynamics can help societies to foster a more nuanced and constructive public dialogue about the urgent challenges facing our planet and our species. (shrink)

I consider whether a positive rate of pure intergenerational time preference is justifiable in terms of agent-relative moral reasons relating to partiality between generations, an idea I call ​discounting for kinship​. I respond to Parfit's objections to discounting for kinship, but then highlight a number of apparent limitations of this approach. I show that these limitations largely fall away when we reflect on social discounting in the context of decisions that concern the global community as a whole.

The argument in this essay will be divided into two parts: utilitarian and virtue ethics, where each party will agree or disagree with the idea that self-deception leads to happiness, taking climate change and meat production as examples to support their claims.

This is a draft of the last chapter of my book-in-progress entitled Kantsequentialism: A Morality of Ends. In it, I explain how Kantsequentialism offers us important insights regarding various practical issues, including those regarding partiality, procreation, collective action, population ethics, and the aggregation of lives and limbs. It includes four main sections: (1) Promoting the Impersonal Good: Population and Procreation; (2) The Duty to Rescue: Do the Numbers Count?; (3) Love and Solidarity: Affective Partiality versus Agential Partiality; and (4) Overdetermined (...) Collective Harms: Who Are the Culprits and What Are They Culpable for? (shrink)

A prior paper established constraint as an ontological primitive: the transcendental condition of determinacy, distinction, and existence as such (Prideaux, 2026c). A companion paper demonstrated that moral order is structurally homologous to constraint propagation at the social level (Prideaux, 2026a). Subsequent work extended Constraint Theory (CT) across the philosophy of physics, mathematics, mind, language, aesthetics, biology, causation, personal identity, free will, psychopathology, political philosophy, and artificial intelligence alignment (Prideaux, 2026e). The present paper extends CT into a further set of practical (...) and policy domains, arguing that the same structural principle — the distinction between constitutive and merely restrictive constraint — generates analytically precise and prescriptively non-trivial results in education, fiscal policy, democratic theory, organisational design, urban planning, climate policy, and the theory of computation. -/- The paper’s central argument is that the standard approach to constraint in policy and practice treats it as merely restrictive: the prohibition of certain behaviours within a pre-given possibility space. This approach generates a characteristic failure mode across all domains — the Goodhart pathology, regulatory evasion, institutional erosion, pedagogical stagnation, and computational intractability are all expressions of the same structural error. The CT framework identifies the structural alternative: constitutive constraint, which generates the possibility space rather than limiting it. In every domain examined, the CT prescription is structurally identical: ask not what should be prohibited but what constraint structure should be constituted, recognising that constitutive constraints are more robust, more durable, and more generative than any collection of merely restrictive rules. -/- The paper presents each application as a structured sketch sufficient to demonstrate CT’s analytical power and prescriptive reach in that domain, rather than as a full treatment of the domain’s internal debates. (shrink)

A brief examination of the self-negating quality of the precautionary principle within the context of environmental ethics, and its consequent failure, as an ethical guide, to justify large-scale regulation of atmospheric cabon dioxide emissions.

Humanity may underestimate the rate of natural global catastrophes because of the survival bias (“anthropic shadow”). But the resulting reduction of the Earth’s future habitability duration is not very large in most plausible cases (1-2 orders of magnitude) and thus it looks like we still have at least millions of years. However, anthropic shadow implies anthropic fragility: we are more likely to live in a world where a sterilizing catastrophe is long overdue and could be triggered by unexpectedly small human (...) actions. In the same way, an over-inflated toy balloon, which will soon burst, is very fragile. Anthropic fragility can manifest itself in the higher chances of runaway global warming. It has often been suggested that the Earth's atmosphere remained life-supporting for billions of years by sheer chance. Therefore, the survival bias can be strong. It is also known that Earth-like water worlds could experience transitions into deadly moisture greenhouse (mean T = 65C). This means that relatively small anthropogenic actions could put the climate above an unpredictable tipping point, which could lead to the moisture greenhouse. Thus, it is necessary to carry out urgent geoengineering studies and prepare to prevent an unexpected climate catastrophe. There are three main counterarguments against the existence of the anthropic shadow: self-indication assumption (SIA), past observers and the Gaia hypothesis; we show that they fail. It was proposed that SIA exactly compensates the anthropic shadow as an observer unlikely to find herself in a world with a strong anthropic shadow; however, there is a baseline level of the anthropic shadow for all habitable planets, similar to the rate of evolutionary transitions like abiogenesis. There are no “past observers” as qualified observers appeared only 50 years ago. Gaia hypothesis assumes existence of self-stabilizing feedback in climate, but new types of events like quick CO2 growth could override its coping ability. We present a list of other catastrophes that may have been underestimated because of the anthropic shadow, including collider catastrophes, nuclear war and even an alien invasion. We also hypothesized that human intelligence is more likely to emerge in an unstable world that is nearing its end and thus we get a new form of Doomsday argument. (shrink)

Environmental Research Web, April 18, 2007.

In its Sixth Assessment Report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) moved from a climate model-based to a climate model-supported assessment of equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS). Unlike all previous reports, climate model information is no longer used directly for estimates of ECS. This article offers a measurement view on the ECS assessment that allows us to evaluate this shift in practice in terms of its practical and epistemic consequences. In particular, I argue for two main conclusions involved in this (...) move to a climate model-supported assessment. First, the change in using climate models as direct sources of evidence to a supporting role involves a kind of repurposing of climate models as epistemic tools. This change should be evaluated relative to the researchers’ aims, which include more accurately assessing ECS. Second, and more generally, I suggest that this shift in practice shares a kinship to calibration activities aimed at increasing the reliability of a measurement procedure. (shrink)

The paper’s aim is to retrace the history of climate change through its definition and the process of negotiation aroused from the creation of the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC). After a brief description of this institution, the basic principles beneath the whole system of environment protection and the struggle against climate change will be presented. The intention is to demonstrate how, despite the undeniable advancements of the latest decades, the international legislative framework, even supported by the (...) action and intervention of the European Union, is still not sufficient and leads to a diffused and latent disillusion among civil society. (shrink)

We make the case that scientifically accurate and politically feasible responses to the climate crisis require a complex understanding of human cultural practices of niche construction that moves beyond the adaptive significance of culture. We develop this thesis in two related ways. First, we argue that cumulative cultural practices of niche construction can generate stable equilibria and runaway selection processes that result in long-term existential risks within and across cultural groups. We dub this the back of the invisible hand. Second, (...) we argue that the ability of cultural groups to innovate technological solutions to environmental problems is highly constrained in ways that are exacerbated by sustained intergroup conflict, inequality and by inherently unpredictable cascades in climate change and human migration patterns. After developing these theoretical points about human cultural practices of niche construction in detail, we conclude our discussion with some tentative practical suggestions about the way that cultural evolutionary history can more fruitfully be used in efforts to remit the climate crisis and contribute to sustainable practices of human climate change adaptation. (shrink)

Rawls’s contractualist approach to justice is well known for its adoption of ideal theory. This approach starts by setting out the political goal or ideal and leaves it to non-ideal or partial compliance theory to map out how to get there. However, Rawls’s use of ideal theory has been criticized by Sen from the right and by Mouffe from the left. We critically address these concerns in the context of developing a Rawlsian approach to climate justice. While the importance of (...) non-ideal theory for climate justice is increasingly being understood, its strategic and institutional importance for a Rawlsian approach needs further elaboration. We focus on the role of the Kantian conception of the reasonable and rational powers of persons in Rawls’s work and show how this helps us to develop a partial compliance theory that focuses on the importance of institutions and strategic political action for achieving climate justice. (shrink)

This article sketches ways in which business ethics should contribute to addressing the climate emergency. I consider some ways in which normative contributions to the debate on climate change and global warming have been defended, and how international thinking about environmental issues has moved from consequentialist to justice- and rights-based thinking. A recent case that came before the Hague District Court between a Dutch branch of Friends of the Earth, Milieudefensie, and Royal Dutch Shell (Milieudefensie v. Royal Dutch Shell), serves (...) as an illustration of how human rights have taken centre stage in climate change litigation – and how business ethics has entered the courtroom. I use this case also to show where the contributions of our field lie: to think about consequences and principles, to include various stakeholders in our evaluations, and to conceptualize the responsibilities of business and politics. (shrink)

Many of our large-scale problems that arise only recently in human history and in an industrialized global world present us with a unique challenge. Often while people collectively make a difference, individual actions are inconsequential. Consider climate change. We all collectively contribute to its unwanted consequences. But individual actions are inconsequential: One more or one less person taking a joyride in a gas-guzzler on a Sunday afternoon makes no difference regarding these consequences. Donating to charity, voting, buying fair trade products, (...) factory farming, and environmental pollution all present the same challenge. One more or one less vote doesn’t make a difference. But then it’s unclear why individuals should act against climate change or vote. This is the so-called problem of inconsequentialism. In this paper, I present a new solution to this problem by appealing to a type of action that is yet to receive philosophical attention—i.e., taking a stand. I show that taking a stand can be morally valuable and reason-giving even if it makes no difference. (NOTE: Email me for a copy.). (shrink)

This study examined the performance and future predictions for the Middle East produced by 18 global climate models participating in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report. Under the Special Report on Emission Scenarios A2 emissions scenario the models predict an overall temperature increase of ~1.4 K by mid-century, increasing to almost 4 K by late-century for the Middle East. In terms of precipitation the southernmost portion of the domain experiences a small increase in precipitation due to the (...) Northward movement of the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone. The largest change however is a decrease in precipitation that occurs in an area covering the Eastern Mediterranean, Turkey, Syria, Northern Iraq, Northeastern Iran and the Caucasus caused by a decrease in storm track activity over the Eastern Mediterranean. Other changes likely to impact the region include a decrease of over 170,000 km 2 in viable rainfed agriculture land by late-century, increases in the length of the dry season that reduces the length of time that the rangelands can be grazed, and changes in the timing of the maximum precipitation in Northern Iran that will impact the growing season, forcing changes in cropping strategy or even crop types. (shrink)

We analyze the moral aspects of Carbon Dioxide Removal technologies (CDRs) through what we call ‘transitional justice.’ Experts currently consider CDRs to be essential for mitigating climate change. This raises the question: are CDRs compatible with a just transition? We argue that there is a strong case for adopting CDRs within a just transition, despite some potentially unjust facets of these technologies. We also show that framing CDRs as a moral hazard to climate change mitigation is not conducive to a (...) just transition, and that instead a notional opposition to CDRs constitutes an actual moral hazard to sufficient mitigation. [Open access]. (shrink)

In a 2014 article in The Guardian, an Indigenous shaman of the Yanomami people of the Amazon rainforest named Davi Kopenawa offers a devastating critique of white society. It is formed of excerpts from multiple interviews, which form the basis of his memoir The Falling Sky, compiled and translated by his French anthropologist collaborator Bruce Albert. Here I bring the dual lenses of philosophy and dance studies to explore how Kopenawa’s lifelong interaction with white people facilitated his reworking of Yanomami (...) shamanic discourse into a parrhesia against the “epidemic fumes” of climate change, on behalf of the Yanomami of the Amazon, white people, and all the beings of the earth. (shrink)

Our doxastic conduct can be assessed from moral, epistemic and prudential perspectives. You might believe against the evidence, wrong others by believing certain things of them, or be unwise in cherishing a belief that is harmful to you. But how do we identify what kind of norm one violates in a given case? Developing further a framework put forth by Kauppinen (2018), we argue that the norms that bind us can be categorized to different normative domains by identifying what would (...) be the fitting reaction toward the norm violator. We demonstrate that this way of distinguishing epistemic from non-epistemic norms entails that there are no purely epistemic positive norms. We argue that cases in which intuitively one is required to form a specific belief, can be explained without positing positive duties. In some cases the subject’s suspension of judgment is grounded in a violation of a negative epistemic norm, and in other cases one is morally or prudentially required to believe. (shrink)

While the foundations of climate science and ethics are well established, fine-grained climate predictions, as well as policy-decisions, are beset with uncertainties. This chapter maps climate uncertainties and classifies them as to their ground, extent and location. A typology of uncertainty is presented, centered along the axes of scientific and moral uncertainty. This typology is illustrated with paradigmatic examples of uncertainty in climate science, climate ethics and climate economics. Subsequently, the chapter discusses the IPCC’s preferred way of representing uncertainties and (...) evaluates its strengths and weaknesses from a risk management perspective. Three general strategies for decision-makers to cope with climate uncertainty are outlined, the usefulness of which largely depends on whether or not decision-makers find themselves in a context of deep uncertainty. The chapter concludes by offering two recommendations to ease the work of policymakers, faced with the various uncertainties engrained in climate discourse. (shrink)

Joseph Heath sometimes plays the role of a gadfly in climate and environmental ethics. He often defends conventional, economics-focused claims which rub many philosophers the wrong way—claims that are at the heart of issues raised in these pages, claims such as that discounting is justifiable, growth is good, or cost-benefit analysis is appropriate in liberal democracies. I think we can all agree that sophisticated defences of conventional positions play an important part in the ecosystem. For philosophers, a gadfly can challenge (...) entrenched conceptions. If we agree that these goals are worthwhile, then this book serves as a useful summary and synthesis of the ways Heath has ably defended conventional claims about climate policy. (shrink)

What could philosophical or justice perspectives contribute to climate (and other applied philosophy) policy discussions? This question is important for philosophers on government policy committees. This article identifies two novel concerns about such contexts (which I call ‘contingent selection’ and ‘committee deference’) and systematizes some potential methodologies before arguing for a previously unrecognized methodology that focuses on disciplinary convergence. After supporting this methodology by providing several justifications, the Appendix explains how to apply it when evaluating a carbon budget. This methodology (...) and its application are meant to be of interest to both theorists and practitioners. [Open access]. (shrink)

Is authoritarian power ever legitimate? The contemporary political theory literature—which largely conceptualizes legitimacy in terms of democracy or basic rights—would seem to suggest not. I argue, however, that there exists another, overlooked aspect of legitimacy concerning a government’s ability to ensure safety and security. While, under normal conditions, maintaining democracy and rights is typically compatible with guaranteeing safety, in emergency situations, conflicts between these two aspects of legitimacy can and often do arise. A salient example of this is the COVID-19 (...) pandemic, during which severe limitations on free movement and association have become legitimate techniques of government. Climate change poses an even graver threat to public safety. Consequently, I argue, legitimacy may require a similarly authoritarian approach. While unsettling, this suggests the political importance of climate action. For if we wish to avoid legitimating authoritarian power, we must act to prevent crises from arising that can only be resolved by such means. (shrink)

We propose that populism is a storytelling performance that involves a charismatic truth-teller and a populist narrative frame. Populist narratives are sensemaking devices that guide people in areas of contestation, uncertainty and complexity where decisions cannot solely rely on rational and formal processes. Populist truth-tellers apply a particular narrative frame that pits people against the elite when interpreting complex problems such as climate change. The aim of this article is one of theory generating, using the cases of Donald Trump and (...) Greta Thunberg to illustrate the idea of populism as storytelling. While their climate change stories are very different, both share an approach that relies on the truth-telling character of their hero, applying the same populist narrative frame. These findings add to our understanding of the role emotions and conflicts play in the struggles to make sense of climate change based on particular interests or political agendas. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that the All Affected Principle generates a puzzle when applied to carbon tax referendums. According to recent versions of the All Affected Principle, people should have a say in a democratic decision in positive proportion to how much the decision affects them. Plausibly, one way of being affected by a carbon tax referendum is to bear the economic burden of paying the tax. On this metric of affectedness, then, people who pollute a lot are ceteris (...) paribus more affected than people who don’t, because the former stands to pay more in carbon taxes than the latter. Consequently, people who pollute a lot receive large voting power, while people who pollute a little receive little voting power. This is a puzzling distribution of voting power for several reasons. First, it is instrumentally counterproductive if the goal is to rectify damages to the climate. Second, it introduces prudential incentives for everyone to pollute more to gain voting power. Third, the relative difference in voting power between people who pollute a lot and people who don’t is puzzling from a desert-based point of view, since the former often make a serious effort to avoid polluting, while the latter don’t. (shrink)

There is a need for all industries, including healthcare, to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. In anaesthetic practice, this not only requires a reduction in resource use and waste, but also a shift away from inhaled anaesthetic gases and towards alternatives with a lower carbon footprint. As inhalational anaesthesia produces greenhouse gas emissions at the point of use, achieving sustainable anaesthetic practice involves individual practitioner behaviour change. However, changing the practice of healthcare professionals raises potential ethical issues. The purpose of (...) this paper is twofold. First, we discuss what moral duties anaesthetic practitioners have when it comes to practices that impact the environment. We argue that behaviour change among practitioners to align with certain moral responsibilities must be supplemented with an account of institutional duties to support this. In other words, we argue that institutions and those in power have second-order responsibilities to ensure that practitioners can fulfil their first-order responsibilities to practice more sustainably. The second goal of the paper is to consider not just the nature of second-order responsibilities but the content. We assess four different ways that second-order responsibilities might be fulfilled within healthcare systems: removing certain anaesthetic agents, seeking consensus, education and methods from behavioural economics. We argue that, while each of these are a necessary part of the picture, some interventions like nudges have considerable advantages. (shrink)

The recent wave of human rights-based climate litigation has raised the question of whether states can be held responsible for the impact of their greenhouse gas emissions on human rights outside their territory. Given the lack of legal consensus, this paper examines this question in light of philosophical theories of human rights. I argue that if the “humanist” conception of human rights holds, then states must bear extraterritorial obligations in the context of climate change. Most opponents of these obligations rely (...) on alternative “practical” conceptions. However, I defend that even if we follow the practice of human rights, as these conceptions insist, its internal norms require the allocation of extraterritorial climate obligations. Thus, I aim not only to give normative support to climate advocates, but also, to contribute to the development of a practice-based approach to the philosophy of human rights which goes beyond the borders of the state. (shrink)

Designing policy for climate change requires analyses which integrate the interrelationship between the economy and the environment. We argue that, despite their dominance in the economics literature and influence in public discussion and policymaking, the methodology employed by Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) rests on flawed foundations, which become particularly relevant in relation to the realities of the immense risks and challenges of climate change, and the radical changes in our economies that a sound and effective response require. We identify a (...) set of critical methodological problems with the IAMs which limit their usefulness and discuss the analytic foundations of an alternative approach that is more capable of providing insights into how best to manage the transition to net-zero emissions. (shrink)