Debating Debating Climate Ethics

In Debating Climate Ethics, Stephen Gardiner and I offer our views on how ethics or theories of justice more generally apply to climate change and possibly help inform climate change policy. It is now five years since the book was published, and longer since we wrote our sections. In this essay, I look back at our debate, hopefully with the perspective gained by time, and offer my reflections. Rather than repeating my arguments or seeking to refute Gardiner in another round of back-and-forth, my goal is to understand where Gardiner and I disagree, where we agree, and why. The hope is that understanding the nature and basis of our disagreements will allow us to better find the best answers to how climate change, ethics, and theories of justice more generally interact. While each of us covers many issues in our sections of our book and in related work, I limit myself here to five topics. In each case, I do my best to represent Gardiner’s views in the strongest form that I understand them. This is, however, my own writing, and Gardiner may disagree with my characterizations.