The Challenge of the Perfect Moral Storm : Climate Change as a Consumption Tragedy

1. The Challenge of the Perfect Moral Storm:Climate Change as a Consumption Tragedy Stephen Gardiner Department of Philosophy & Program on Values in Society University of Washington, Seattle

2. Part I Political Inertia

4. On More Recent Data … “The rise in global carbon dioxide emissions last year outpaced international researchers' most dire projections …” “In 2007, carbon released from burning fossil fuels and producing cement increased 2.9 percent over that released in 2006 … This output is at the very high end of scenarios outlined by the IPCC and could translate into a global temperature rise of more than 11 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century …” “We should be worried, really worried … This is happening in the context of trying to reduce emissions.” Richard Moss, World Wildlife Fund From Eilperin, Washington Post, October 2008

5. A Perfect Moral Storm • The Global Storm • The Intergenerational Storm • The Theoretical Storm

6. Part II The Global Storm

7. The Global Storm • Spatial Dispersion of Causes and Effects • Spatial Fragmentation of Agency • Institutional Inadequacy Implies: the Tragedy of the Commons

8. Standard Solutions Conditions Broader context of interaction • Repeated games • Other cooperative interests Methods • “Mutual coercion mutually agreed upon” • Reciprocity • Morality

9. Obstacles to Resolving the Global Storm • Lack of Adequate Global System • Uncertainty about Effects at the Level of Nation States • Deep Roots • Skewed Vulnerabilities

10. Part III The Intergenerational Storm

11. The Intergenerational Storm • Temporal Dispersion of Causes and Effects • Temporal Fragmentation of Agency • Institutional Inadequacy Implies: the Problem of Intergenerational Buck-Passing

12. Lifetime of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide • Typical Estimate: 5-200 years (IPCC) • The Long Tail: “The carbon cycle of the biosphere will take a long time to completely neutralize and sequester anthropogenic CO2. … For the best-guess cases … we expect that 17-33% of the fossil fuel carbon will still reside in the atmosphere 1kyr from now, decreasing to 10-15% at 10kyr, and 7% at 100 kyr. The mean lifetime of fossil fuel CO2 is about 30-35 kyr.” (Archer)

13. Implications of Temporal Dispersion Climate change is: • Resilient • Backloaded • Substantially Deferred

14. Shape of the Temporal Storm • Benefits Now (to us); Costs Later (to them) • Predictable Bias • Iteration

15. Part IV The Theoretical Storm

16. The Theoretical Storm • Scientific uncertainty • Intergenerational equity • Contingent preferences • Contingent persons • Nonhuman animals • Nature

17. Example 1: Cost-Benefit Analysis “Cost-benefit analysis … would simply be self-deception. And in any case, it could not be a successful exercise, because the issue of our responsibility to future generations is too poorly understood, and too little accommodated in the current economic theory.” (John Broome, Counting the Cost of Global Warming)

18. Example 2: A Global Test for Political Institutions and Theories The Scenario: • Human life on this planet is subject to some serious threat. • This threat is caused by human activities, but also preventable by changes in human activities. • The existing social and political systems have both allowed this threat to emerge and then shown themselves incapable of adequately responding to it. The Global Test: In the circumstances of The Scenario, if a given conception of political philosophy does not respect the claim that failure to address a serious global threat is a criticism of the social and political system, and a potentially fatal criticism, then it is inadequate and must be rejected.

19. Part V Motivation

20. Motivational Dimensions Perfect Storm = Flexible Model • Traditional: Individual self-interest • Traditional: National self-interest • Mine: Modest “generation-relative”

21. My Motivational Assumptions • There is a natural default position for human action on climate change • The main driver of the problem is the consumption behavior of agents in the global economic system • Such consumption is largely driven by factors with a very limited temporal and spatial horizon. [Hence, it is such as to bring on the Perfect Storm, and especially the Intergenerational Storm]

22. Which Means …? “When most people go to the grocery store, to the gas station, or to the mall, or when they buy houses and vehicles, or decide to go on vacation, their choices are overwhelmingly driven by the implications here and now, for themselves and those close to them.” “Here and now”? • Time-frame of no longer than ten years, and spatial horizon that does not extend much further than the actors themselves. • We could be generous and extend this to say roughly the time-frame of their own lives, understood as the expected duration of their generational cohort, or just a little longer. (If so, we can speak of their concerns as bounded by “generation-relative” reasons or motivations.)

23. Core Problem … • Our current dominant institutions (e.g., the market, short-term election cycles) are good at registering (and perhaps supporting, developing and/or creating) short-term and limited scale motivation, but bad at registering (and perhaps supporting, developing and/or creating) concerns for the long-term and the wider-scale

24. Part VI The Problem of Moral Corruption

25. The Problem of Moral Corruption “There’s a quiet clamor for hypocrisy and deception; and pragmatic politicians respond with … schemes that seem to promise something for nothing. Please, spare us the truth.” Robert J. Samuelson, Newsweek, February 21, 2005

26. Some Modes of Moral Corruption • Distraction • Complacency • Unreasonable Doubt • Selective Attention • Delusion • Pandering • False Witness • Hypocrisy

27. Selective Theoretical Attention Focus on Global Storm: • Draws attention towards factors that problematize action (e.g., global politics and scientific uncertainty), and away from those that tend to demand it (e.g., intergenerational ethics) • By assuming that states represent the interests of their citizens in perpetuity, assumes away the intergenerational problem (e.g., ignores motivational issues, treats harms as “self-inflicted”)

28. Part VII Summary

29. Basic Claims The Analysis: • We have a profound problem of political inertia • The Perfect Moral Storm analysis highlights three ethical dimensions of the challenge: the global, intergenerational, and theoretical • This can help to explain political inertia • This implies that an important aspect of the problem may involve moral concerns about the future that we lack good institutions to register • But it also suggests that there may be a serious threat of moral corruption