Research project
Climate Change, Ethics and Responsibility
- Start date: 2014
- End date: 2015
- Funder: Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
- Primary investigator: Dr Rob Lawlor
- External co-investigators: Dr Josie Freear (Historian)
Description
An important part of the project was its interdisciplinary nature, bringing together philosophers, historians and engineers. Increasingly, moral and political philosophers are focusing on the ethics of climate change, and climate ethics is establishing itself as a vibrant area of study for philosophers. Historians also have much to offer, in relation to climate ethics, by considering examples of coercive and liberty-limiting regulations from the past, such as rationing in World War II, and also by considering examples of significant social change, political action and moral progress - such as the abolition of slavery. Meanwhile, engineers have played a significant role in climate change in the past and, more positively, will be at the heart of any responses to climate change in the future. However, there has been relatively little collaboration between these disciplines. A key aim of this project is to respond to this lack by encouraging and facilitating interdisciplinary collaboration, through events, publications, and steering group meetings.
The project considered the ethical issues at different levels, as well as considering the inter-relation between those levels:
- Government/policy
- Individuals (especially in the context of a government not implementing the policies it should)
- The Engineering profession
Representatives of the Engineering profession were involved in the project from the start, contributing to the project's steering group, as well as contributing to the workshops and conference.
In addition, after the project had ended, this project led to a spin-off project in which Helen Morley and myself collaborated with Engineers without Borders UK to consider the question of whether professional institutions could develop a declaration of global responsibilities (based on the idea of professions taking a lead on an important global ethical issue, as the World Medical Association did when developing the Declaration of Helsinki.)
Publications and outputs
Short videos from events
Climate Change and Corporations - 27 August 2015 - 10am
This AHRC-funded event brought together experts from different disciplines to discuss what responsibilities corporations have, in relation to climate change, but also to think about what governments should be doing to limit corporate power or to impose regulations etc.
Each speaker made a short presentation (approx. 7 minutes) followed by a panel discussion.
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Alix Dietzil, Philosophy: Climate Change and Moral Responsibility
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Rob Lawlor, Philosophy: Corporations and Climate Change
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James Dawkins, Historian: The Regulation and Abolition of the British Slave Trade, and Compensated Emancipation, 1807-1834
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Henry Irving, Historian: Industry Salvage in the Second World War
Climate Change and International Conflict and Coercion – 27 August 2015 - 2pm
This AHRC-funded event brought together expert views from a variety of disciplines discussing what methods nations could use to "persuade" other nations into taking appropriate action, regarding climate change, and which of these approaches could be morally justified?
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Rob Lawlor, Philosophy: International Conflict: Slavery and Climate Change
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Mary Wills, History: The Suppression of the Slave Trade
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Kevin Macnish, Philosophy: Just Wars and Climate Change
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Elizabeth Ellis, Philosophy: Climate Change and Economic Sanctions
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Simone Turchetti, History: Challenging the Comparison with Slavery
Perspectives of Climate Change - Public event – 21 June 2015
The AHRC-funded public event on the 21st of June was an informal event, held in the upstairs room of the Belgrave Music Hall, Leeds, aiming to inform the public about climate change, and to give people a chance to ask academics (from a range of different disciplines) about climate change and responses to climate change.
The event consisted of a number of short presentations (about 5 minutes), ending with a panel discussion, in which the speakers responded to questions from the audience.
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Rob Lawlor, Philosophy: Climate Change, Economics and History
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Josie Freear, HIstory: Rationing Fuel in the Second World War
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Linda Steg, Psychology: Mitigating Climate Change: A Psychological Perspective
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And this is the video that Linda Steg refers to in her talk
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Martijn van Zomeren, Psychology Just how Weird are Activists
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Rachel Howell, Social and Political Science: Social Norms
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Bruce Yardley, Geology: Climate Change and the Laws of Nature
The Q&A discussion for this event has been broken down into the following 5 topics:
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Climate Change and Economics
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For more thoughts specifically on the relation between neoclassical economics and neoliberalism, see this longer talk (from the conference the day after) especially between 33 minutes and 35 minutes.
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Longer videos from events
Engineers and Climate Change – 12 June 2015
This AHRC-funded event focussed on the role that the engineering profession can play in responding to climate change, with a particular focus on professional institutions, industry and education. The event was held at the Royal Academy of Engineering under the Chatham House Rule. However, presentations from the event were also presented at the Ethics Centre's 10 year anniversary, and Andrew Chilvers also presented his summary of the event. See below.
Climate Change, Engineering and History – September 2015
A session from the Ethics Centre's 10 year anniversary, focusing on climate change and engineering, and also some discussion of rationing and climate change, and a summary of the AHRC project as a whole.
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Andrew Chilvers, Engineering: Engineers and Climate Change: leadership, ethics and responsibility
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Rob Lawlor, Philosophy: Climate Change, Ethics and Responsibilities
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Rob Lawlor, Philosophy, and Helen Morley, Philosophy/Engineering: Rethinking the Leadership Role of the Professional Institutions (from 2 min 15)
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Henry Irving, History: Rationing
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Final Q&A – Andrew Chilvers, Henry Irving, Rob Lawlor and Helen Morley, chaired by Elizabeth Ellis
Teaching Engineering Ethics – September 2015
A session from the Ethics Centre's 10 year anniversary, focusing on the teaching of engineering ethics.
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Rob Lawlor, Philosophy: Engineering Ethics: What to teach and how to teach it (but not in that order)
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Helen Morley, Philosophy/Engineering: Engineering Education as Professional Formation
One-day interdisciplinary workshop on The History and Future of Rationing – 25 March 2015
This workshop sought to invite discussion of both the historical experiences of rationing and potential use of rationing in the future, to explore ideas of acceptability and fairness in the organisation, distribution and consumption of resources.
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Rob Lawlor, Philosophy: "Not For Love Nor Money"
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Stefan Kesting, Economics: "Can price control in conjunction with and supported by rationing work? A Galbraithian perspective"
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Tina Fawcett, Policy: "Rationing in Response to Climate Change"
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Mark Roodhouse, History: "'Rationing Returns?' Eight Years Later"
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Note that the paper that Mark Roodhouse is referring to here can be found here
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Henry Irving, History: "Saving paper in the Second World War: A case study in rationing and its alternatives"
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Ingrid de Zwarte, History: "Food rationing and famine: Government regulated nutrition and consumer agency during the Dutch "Hunger Winter", 1944 – 1945" (recording not available)
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Josie Freear, History: "Fuel Rationing in 1942: the limits of acceptability"
Two-day interdisciplinary conference on Climate Change, Policy and Responsibilities – 22nd to 23rd June 2015
This conference focused on questions of government policy and individual responsibilities, and the inter-relations between these.
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Rob Lawlor, Philosophy: Climate Change and Economics: the spell of scientificity, from 1 min 23
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Rob Lawlor (presenting Josie Freear's research, as Josie was unable to attend), Climate Change and Rationing, from 42 minutes 50 seconds.
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Linda Steg, Environmental Psychology: Climate Change Mitigation: A Psychological Perspective
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And this is the video that Linda Steg refers to in her talk
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Martjin van Zomeren, Social Psychology: Four core motivations to engage in social protest
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Rachel Howell, Geography and Earth Sciences: It's not just "the environment, stupid!": Values, motivations and formative influences of climate change mitigators
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Julia Steinberger, Earth and Environment: Climate Change and a New Approach to Economics
Publications
Publications so far:
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"Rejecting Machin’s Complacent Democracy (and Defending the Importance of Truth, Consistency and Moral Argument)", Environmental Ethics, 2017
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"Climate Change and Professional Responsibility: A Declaration of Helsinki for Engineers" with Helen Morley, Science and Engineering Ethics, 2017.
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“The Absurdity of Economists’ Sacrifice-Free Solutions to Climate Change,” Ethics, Policy & Environment, 19, no. 3, 2016.
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"Questioning the Significance of the Non-identity Problem in Applied Ethics", Journal of Medical Ethics, 2016. (This is not primarily on climate change, but has important implications for climate change. John Broome, for example, relies heavily on the non-identity effect in his Climate Matters.)
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"Delaying Obsolescence", Science and Engineering Ethics, 2015
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"Freezing Eggs in a Warming World", in Utiltas 2015
Some interesting links
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An interesting approach to business and obsolescence
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A very short summary of the academic consensus on climate change
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A history of how Holland's bike-friendly roads developed.
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An interesting website about climate science, with responses to climate sceptics
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Is economic growth sustainable? George Monbiot, "If we can't change our economic system, our number's up."
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Could rationing be used in response to climate change: Mark Roodhouse, "Rationing Returns: a solution to global warming?" History and Policy
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A very interesting, and accessible, book on rationing: Stan Cox, Any Way You Slice It
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An interesting and accessible book on the moral limits of the market (and potentially, therefore, an argument in favour of rationing): Michael Sandel, What Money Can't Buy
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A moral philosopher's involvement with the IPCC: John Broome at the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)
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Rationing plastic: San Francisco ban bottled water
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Obsolescence and premature scrapping: Why washing machines are no longer built to last
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Conflict between science and politics: Nafeez Ahmed, "IPCC reports 'diluted' under 'political pressure' to protect fossil fuel interests"
Downloads
Download the Programme for Climate Change Conference: 22nd - 23rd June, 2015
People
"Climate Change, Ethics and Responsibility" was an inter-disciplinary project, integrating philosophical ethics, history, and engineering.
The project was led by Dr Rob Lawlor, who explored the ethics of climate change, with a particular focus on the responsibilities of engineers and the engineering profession, in addition to the responsibilities of government, and the public.
Dr Josie Freear was the research assistant. She considered the history and ethics of rationing, considering the question of whether we can learn any lessons from rationing in World War II, which can illuminate how we may use policies to reduce carbon emissions.
In addition, the project benefited from having a steering group, which included representatives from business and engineering, in addition to academics.
Contact
If you are interested in this project or have any questions please contact Dr Rob Lawlor directly: r.s.lawlor@leeds.ac.uk, or contact the IDEA Centre on the details below:
Email: idea@leeds.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0) 113 343 7799
Postal address:
Inter-Disciplinary Ethics Applied Centre
University of Leeds
8-12 Fenton Street
Leeds
LS2 9JT
Partners and collaborators
Steering Group: Barry Clarke (Professor of Geotechnical Engineering and previously president of Institute of Civil Engineers), Alan Walker (Head of Policy, Royal Academy of Engineering), Deborah Seddon (Head of Policy, Engineering Council), Chris Megone (Professor of Applied Ethics, IDEA Centre), Graeme Gooday (Professor of History of Science and Technology), Richard Smith (Engineer at Thames Water Conall Doherty, Structural Engineer, BuroHappold Engineering), Hayley Sharp (Infrastructure Advisor, Department for International Development).