A while ago I likened tackling climate change to the 1st World War. But an earlier struggle also offers important lessons. I’m talking about the abolition of strategy in the British Empire. Why? Because it is one of those rare moments in history when ethical arguments eventually trumped economic ones. At least that’s the argument [...]
I’m still on holiday so instead of the normal fortnightly posting, I’m rethinking, revamping and reposting a couple of blogs from earlier in the year. In May, I posted about the strong but typically overlooked ethical dimension to climate change theories. As you know, my summer reading has included Mike Hulme’s fascinating book, “Why we [...]
It’s holiday time so instead of the fortnightly posting, I’m rethinking, revamping and reposting a couple of blogs from earlier in the year. In May, I posted some thoughts about how Charles Darwin’s use of the word economy to mean “the mutually useful and apparently ‘economical’ mechanisms connecting living beings are understood as purposefully designed.” [...]
The Great War was a moment when we threw the full force of the status quo at a problem that was the upshot of that status quo, and wound up in a petrified death hold.
Although ethics is implicit in much of climate change discussion and policy, there is little sign that we are prepared to confront head on the fact that climate change is an ethical as much as a scientific issue.