En Espanol: Diálogo Global de la Carta de la Tierra en torno a la Ética y el Cambio Climático

Climate change -- caused by humanity's emission of greenhouse gases -- has emerged as a global issue of the highest urgency. On this website, we inaugurate a global dialogue on addressing climate change from an integrated ethical perspective, as framed by the Earth Charter.

To initiate this dialogue, two members of Earth Charter International Council -- Australian scientist Brendan Mackey of Australian National University, and Chinese lawyer Song Li of the World Bank -- have written a report to the Council entitled Winning the Struggle Against Global Warming. We invite you to read or download the paper and then to post your comments to this website, or send us a contribution by email.

To read the Director's Introduction to this site, click here .

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by Alan AtKisson

"Ethics" is a word that does not usually get the blood flowing. It calls up images of Aristotle, schoolteachers, hearings where political leaders weakly defend their honor after having done something foolish that everyone else understands to be wrong.

"Ethical issues," as a phrase, is even worse. Ethical issues are often precisely the ones we prefer to avoid, because they force us to confront the sometimes muddy difference between doing right and doing wrong -- or because we know that in confronting ethical issues generally, we must sometimes confront the ethical deficiencies in our own behavior.

But global warming is undeniably an ethical issue, and we must face it as such. That means asking hard questions about responsibility, accountability, and the differences between actions -- whether political, economic, or wholly personal -- that are right versus those that are wrong.

When considering the question of "Ethics and Climate Change", perhaps the first thing to do is to calculate your own personal contribution to greenhouse gas emissions.

When Svante Arhenius first calculated global greenhouse gas emissions and their likely effect on climate at the end of the 1800's, it took him the better part of a year, working with pencil and paper.

These days, making the calculation for yourself is a simple matter of clicking on websites and adding some personal data. Below, we have assembled a list of websites with "carbon calculators", for a number of different countries.

Most of these calculators determine your contribution to greenhouse gasses based on your home energy consumption, transportation habits, and amount of household waste. Many include links to various "carbon offset" services, so you can invest in tree-planting or other activities intended to "neutralize" your personal contribution to a warming world. (A donation to Earth Charter International does not guarantee you carbon "neutrlization," but it does contribute to our work to promote greater awareness and action on climate change as well as many other related global challenges.)

For those living somewhere not on the list of countries below -- national calculators are often geared to the specific energy situation of that country -- you can try one of the following sites, which are better for international use:

SafeClimate by the World Resources Institute
www.safeclimate.net/calculator
BP China
www.bp.com/iframe.do?categoryId=9011363&contentId=7029371
My Carbon Footprint by the European Commission
www.mycarbonfootprint.eu

The EU site also gives good recommendations on how to reduce one's personal carbon footprint through simple, everyday changes: turning down household heat, switching off the appliances properly, recycling, and making more conscious decisions about transportation use.

For specifically calculating the carbon emissions associated with your national or international airline flight, have a look at:
http://www.climatecare.org/calculators/flight

by Steven Rockefeller and Alan AtKisson

On Saturday 7 July 2007 nine simultaneous Live Earth Concerts took place around the world focusing the world’s attention on the Climate Change. Earth Charter International took the opportunity to highlight our understanding of climate change as one of several global emergencies that must be addressed in a more integrated manner, not as separate challenges. On that occasion this special opinion editorial was written by ECI Co-Chair Steven Rockefeller and Executive Director Alan AtKisson on this topic. A version of this article by EC Commissioner Ruud Lubbers and ECI Advisor Herman Mulder was published in the Netherlands in one of the nation's major daily newspapers.
- Editors

On 7 July 2007, nine simultaneous concerts will focus the attention of the world on the issue of global warming and climate change. Dozens of international celebrities will use their collective star power to sound the alarm about this "global emergency," and inspire people to action. The organizers of "Live Earth" hope to reach an audience of two billion.

But as the Live Earth organizers themselves well know, climate change is not the only global emergency we face. It is just one of a number of global emergencies ranging from mass poverty to widespread violent conflict to the loss of biological diversity, and all of them inter-connected. To succeed in averting any one of these emergencies, all of them must -- and indeed can -- be addressed in a more integrated manner.

This is a more complicated message to convey to the general public. But the world should not miss the opportunity of the "Live Earth" moment to get that message across.

There is now little doubt that climate change, driven by humanity's release of greenhouse gases, is indeed the global emergency that campaigner Al Gore -- the inspirational leader of Live Earth -- says it is. It is clear that we must come together, as a world, and address this enormous challenge to our future.

We have received a number excellent comments on the inaugural paper for this web dialogue on Ethics and Climate Change. Authors Brendan Mackey and Song Li have written the following response to the comments received so far. Their original paper appears just below this post.
- Editors

We would like to express our deep appreciation to all those who have posted comments on the Earth Charter website in response to our article Winning the Struggle Against Global Warming. We are very pleased to see that our concern and proposals for stronger actions to address climate change are largely shared and supported by individuals from all over the world. We are also very touched by the sense of responsibility you have shown by taking the time to voice your opinion on climate change action; we note that a number of you sent comments very early or late in the morning or evening!

The comments we received as of end of April can be grouped into three categories ...

by

Brendan Mackey (1) and Song Li (2)

(1) The Australian National University
(2) The World Bank Group

NOTE: The opinions expressed here are those of the authors and do not represent the views of Earth Charter International or the Earth Charter International Council. The authors' organizational affiliations are noted for identification only.

To download this paper, or to read it online, click on the appropriate action below. To submit a comment on the paper, click here.

Download the Report in PDF format

To read the comments on this paper, or to enter your own comment, please click below. Read/scroll to the bottom of the published comments to enter your comment.

ECI is pleased to be inaugurating this important dialogue. Here, we hope to bring together many voices, from many disciplines, cultures, and perspectives, on the ethical dimension of climate change.

Those familiar with the film "An Inconvenient Truth" and the global awareness-raising campaign of former US Vice President Al Gore know that he consistently frames global warming as a moral issue. From the perspective of the Earth Charter, this could not be more true. While the Charter does not mention global warming or climate change -- or many other specific issues -- its language speaks forcefully, directly, and inspirationally to our responsibility to address them. If global warming is one of the "great perils" mentioned in the second sentence of the Preamble, the Earth Charter is one of the "great promises" that can guide us to solving this urgent problem.

But while the perceived urgency of global climate change has increased dramatically in the last two years, it is important to remember two things:

[Note: The author has submitted a long paper on preferred farming practices in Senegal as his contribution to the debate on climate change and ethics. While the paper does not address directly the issues raised in the Brendan Mackey/Song Li essay, readers may find the paper relevant. We have posted it in its entirety below. - Editors]