Protecting Life from Climate Change
by David Chalmers
Harm-minimizing solutions are urgently needed to protect life from current and future climate change impacts. Individual choices are an important aspect of those solutions, but the magnitude of the problem is such that internationally coordinated governmental policies are required. The most important policy necessities are that all major greenhouse gas-emitting nations cooperatively impose costs on GHG emissions and that substantial resources are put into anticipatory adaptation. The problem cannot be reduced to scientific and economic analysis alone—ethics is fundamental. The individual’s ethics are crucial to protecting life from climate change because they are a major determinant of both their personal GHG emissions and their political engagement. Education is an essential determinant of the individual’s ethical views and education for sustainable development has particular transformative potential. Education, ethical analysis, and policy are all essential and life can best be protected from climate change only through synergies between the three.