A Perfect Moral Storm: Climate Change, Intergenerational Ethics and the Problem of Moral Corruption
@article{Gardner2006APM, title={A Perfect Moral Storm: Climate Change, Intergenerational Ethics and the Problem of Moral Corruption}, author={Stephen Gardner}, journal={Environmental Values}, year={2006}, volume={15}, pages={397-413} }
The peculiar features of the climate change problem pose substantial obstacles to our ability to make the hard choices necessary to address it. Climate change involves the convergence of a set of global, intergenerational and theoretical problems. This convergence justifies calling it a ʻperfect moral stormʼ. One consequence of this storm is that, even if the other difficult ethical questions surrounding climate change could be answered, we might still find it difficult to act. For the storm…
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