Climate Change, Ethics and Responsibility

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.

• Alix Dietzil, Philosophy: Climate Change and Moral Responsibility

• Rob Lawlor, Philosophy: Corporations and Climate Change

• James Dawkins, Historian: The Regulation and Abolition of the British Slave Trade, and Compensated Emancipation, 1807-1834

• Henry Irving, Historian:  Industry Salvage in the Second World War

• Q&A discussion

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?

• Rob Lawlor, Philosophy: International Conflict: Slavery and Climate Change

• Mary Wills, History: The Suppression of the Slave Trade

• Kevin Macnish, Philosophy: Just Wars and Climate Change

• Elizabeth Ellis, Philosophy: Climate Change and Economic Sanctions

• Simone Turchetti, History: Challenging the Comparison with Slavery

• Q&A discussion 

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.

• Rob Lawlor, Philosophy: Climate Change, Economics and History

• Josie Freear, HIstory: Rationing Fuel in the Second World War

• Linda Steg, Psychology: Mitigating Climate Change: A Psychological Perspective

  • And this is the video that Linda Steg refers to in her talk 

• Martijn van Zomeren, Psychology Just how Weird are Activists

• Rachel Howell, Social and Political Science: Social Norms

• 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:

• Activism

• Economic Incentives v Moral Motivations

• The Developing World

• Climate Change and Economics

  • 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.

• Demonising Individuals and Individual Responsibility

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.

• Andrew Chilvers, Engineering:  Engineers and Climate Change: leadership, ethics and responsibility

• Rob Lawlor, Philosophy: Climate Change, Ethics and Responsibilities

• Rob Lawlor, Philosophy, and Helen Morley, Philosophy/Engineering:  Rethinking the Leadership Role of the Professional Institutions (from 2 min 15)

• Henry Irving, History: Rationing

• 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.

• Rob Lawlor, Philosophy: Engineering Ethics: What to teach and how to teach it (but not in that order)

• 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. 

• Rob Lawlor, Philosophy: "Not For Love Nor Money"

• Stefan Kesting, Economics: "Can price control in conjunction with and supported by rationing work? A Galbraithian perspective"

• Tina Fawcett, Policy: "Rationing in Response to Climate Change"

• Mark Roodhouse, History: "'Rationing Returns?' Eight Years Later"

  • Note that the paper that Mark Roodhouse is referring to here can be found here

• Henry Irving, History: "Saving paper in the Second World War: A case study in rationing and its alternatives"

• Ingrid de Zwarte, History: "Food rationing and famine: Government regulated nutrition and consumer agency during the Dutch "Hunger Winter", 1944 – 1945" (recording not available)

• 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.  

• Rob Lawlor, Philosophy: Climate Change and Economics: the spell of scientificity, from 1 min 23

• Rob Lawlor (presenting Josie Freear's research, as Josie was unable to attend), Climate Change and Rationing, from 42 minutes 50 seconds. 

• Linda Steg, Environmental Psychology: Climate Change Mitigation: A Psychological Perspective

  • And this is the video that Linda Steg refers to in her talk 

• Martjin van Zomeren, Social Psychology: Four core motivations to engage in social protest

• Rachel Howell, Geography and Earth Sciences: It's not just "the environment, stupid!": Values, motivations and formative influences of climate change mitigators

• Julia Steinberger, Earth and Environment: Climate Change and a New Approach to Economics

Publications so far:

• "Rejecting Machin’s Complacent Democracy (and Defending the Importance of Truth, Consistency and Moral Argument)", Environmental Ethics, 2017

• "Climate Change and Professional Responsibility: A Declaration of Helsinki for Engineers" with Helen Morley, Science and Engineering Ethics, 2017.

• “The Absurdity of Economists’ Sacrifice-Free Solutions to Climate Change,” Ethics, Policy & Environment, 19, no. 3, 2016.

• "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.)

• "Delaying Obsolescence", Science and Engineering Ethics, 2015

• "Freezing Eggs in a Warming World", in Utiltas 2015

• Citizens taking governments to court over climate change

• An interesting approach to business and obsolescence

• A very short summary of the academic consensus on climate change

• A history of how Holland's bike-friendly roads developed. 

• An interesting website about climate science, with responses to climate sceptics

• Is economic growth sustainable? George Monbiot, "If we can't change our economic system, our number's up."

• Could rationing be used in response to climate change: Mark Roodhouse, "Rationing Returns: a solution to global warming?" History and Policy

• A very interesting, and accessible, book on rationing: Stan Cox, Any Way You Slice It

• 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

• A moral philosopher's involvement with the IPCC: John Broome at the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)

• Rationing plastic: San Francisco ban bottled water

• Obsolescence and premature scrapping: Why washing machines are no longer built to last

• Conflict between science and politics: Nafeez Ahmed, "IPCC reports 'diluted' under 'political pressure' to protect fossil fuel interests"