Climate Change, Social Transformation, and the Psychology of Moral (In)Action

Working Assumptions

Today I will be making the following assumptions about climate change:

• Climate change is human-caused and is the result of excessive greenhouse gas emissions into the earth’s atmosphere.

• Continuing “business as usual” would threaten the survival of humanity and other species.

• What is required, then, is urgent individual and collective action.

As a result, my focus today will be on the exercise of “practical wisdom” involved in identifying and assessing reasons that can be given to act or not to act in response to the moral problem of climate change.

The Moral Problem

1. One should urgently act to stop any grave threat that poses serious harm to others.

2. Climate change is a grave threat that poses serious harm to human beings and to other species.

3. Therefore, one should urgently act to stop climate change.

4. But climate change is caused by the release of excessive greenhouse gas emissions into the earth’s atmosphere.

5. Therefore, one should urgently act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions into the earth’s atmosphere.

What Needs to Be Done?

“If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm. The largest uncertainty in the target arises from possible changes of non-CO2 forcings. An initial 350 ppm CO2 target may be achievable by phasing out coal use except where CO2 is captured and adopting agricultural and forestry practices that sequester carbon. If the present overshoot of this target CO2 is not brief, there is a possibility of seeding irreversible catastrophic effects.”

(Dr. James Hansen et al., “Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?” [March 2008], available at

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/ )

Two Levels of Action

• Individual

• Collective

Individual Actions

• Educate yourself and others

• Create music and art to raise awareness

• Practice mindful, frugal, and sustainable consumption

• Calculate and try to reduce (or offset) your carbon footprint (www.myfootprint.org)

• Reuse and recycle products

• Buy local and organic

• Reduce meat intake in diet

• Walk, bicycle, carpool, or take mass transit

• Conserve, use alternative energy sources, and insulate your home

Two Forms of Collective Action

• From above: states and global treaties

• From below: social movements pressuring states

State Actions

• End the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan

• Immediately halt the construction of all new coal-fired power plants and begin to phase out the use of coal as an energy source, except when the CO2 is captured and stored

• Stop deforestation and soil-depleting agribusiness

• Create incentives for businesses and households to replace unsustainable technologies and to adopt sustainable technologies

• Move beyond the 1997 Kyoto Protocol by adopting stringent and enforceable targets at the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Conference

• Establish a World Environment Organization

Social Movement Actions

• Write letters, make phone calls, or send email to representatives

• Vote for environmentally accountable candidates

• Join existing or start new organizations and parties

• Demand sustainable workplaces

• Engage in direct action (e.g., marches, sit-downs, and strikes)

• Transform the socio-economic system from one based on limitless growth to one based on sustainable development (green capitalism vs. ecological socialism)

Reasons for Doing Nothing (1)

• Ignorance of the problem

• Skepticism about who caused the problem or how serious it is

• Willful ignorance or stupidity (“I’m happy not to know more.”)

• Cynicism (“I know very well, but whatever.”)

• Apathy (“I don’t care.”)

• Nihilism (“Nothing matters, anyway.”)

Reasons for Doing Nothing (2)

• Denial (“I know enough that I don’t want to know more--it’s too painful”)

• Despair (“It’s too late, there’s nothing that can be done.”)

• Greed (“I can still make money off this.”)

• Someone else will do it for me (“Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie…)

• God wants humans to dominate nature

• God will take care of everything

Reasons for Doing Nothing (3)

• Search for a quick technological fix (“Let’s put giant mirrors in space!”)

• Theoretical or practical ineptitude (“It’s too complex; we can’t pull this off.”)

• Reject the possibility of a collective solution (“I’ll just fend for myself.”)

Reasons for Doing Something

• Rational self-interest

• Solidarity with all of humanity, especially the “Wretched of the Earth”

• Concern for future generations

• Reverence for life

• God wants humans to be good stewards of nature

James Hansen on “Never-Give-Up Fighting Spirit”

“How refreshing, on cold, windy Thanksgiving Plus One Day, which we spend with our children and grandchildren, when I went outside to shoot baskets with 5-year-old Connor. Connor is very bright, but needs work on his hand-to-eye coordination. I set the basket at a convenient height for him, but his first several shots banged off the backboard off-target. Then he said, very brightly and bravely, “I don’t quit, because I have never-give-up fighting spirit.” It seems his karate lessons are paying off.

Some adults need Connor’s help….

The most foolish no-fighting-spirit statement, made by scores of people, is this: “we have already passed the tipping point, it is too late.” They act as if a commitment to a meter of sea level rise is no different than a commitment to several tens of meters. Or, if a million species become committed to extinction, should we throw in the towel on the other nine million? What would the plan be then – escape to Mars? As I make clear in “Storms of My Grandchildren”, anybody who thinks we can transplant even one butterfly species to another planet has some loose screws. We must take care of the planet we have – easily the most remarkable one in the known universe….

Are we going to stand up and give global politicians a hard slap in the face, to make them face the truth? It will take a lot of us – probably in the streets. Or are we going to let them continue to kid themselves and us, and cheat our children and grandchildren?

Intergenerational inequity is a moral issue. Just as when Abraham Lincoln faced slavery and when Winston Churchill faced Nazism, the time for compromises and half-measures is over.

Can we find a leader who understands the core issue, and will lead?

(Excerpted from <http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2009/20091130_FightingSpirit.pdf>.)