Moral Imperative

Economics is one aspect of preventing catastrophic climate change, but there are arguments for the ethics as well.  David Roberts paraphrases the choice outlined by White House science advisor John Holdren:

We will respond to climate change with some mix of mitigation, adaptation, and suffering; all that remains to be determined is the mix.

Suffering is, of course, the "do nothing" path.  And Roberts makes the case that while mitigation efforts benefit the entire world, adaptation only helps in a local sense.

[F]or every day mitigation is delayed, the need for adaptation grows, most especially in places that will depend on the ongoing largesse of wealthier nations to pay for it. That’s not a recipe for egalitarian outcomes.

In an interview, Naomi Klein sees the need to combine morality with self-interest:

It’s immoral to allow countries to disappear beneath the waves when we have the power to prevent that from happening. It’s immoral to leave our children a world that is depleted of life and fraught with intense dangers that are also preventable. But I also make the argument that the things we need to do to stop catastrophic warming, they underline how interconnected we all are. If you look at relationships between the global north and the global south for instance, you can make moral arguments for why we should have more aid going to developing countries, and those are good arguments. But what climate does is it also adds a self-interest to that, where it’s not only that there needs to be more equity between the global north and the global south, it’s that unless we do this, them we can be pretty much guaranteed countries like China and India will continue developing on a path that is going to destabilize the global climate system. So unless we embrace principles of climate equity, we’re all cooked. It’s both moral and it’s self-interested.

Joe Romm discusses the essential points from her book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs The Climate.

Because we have ignored the increasingly urgent warnings and pleas for action from climate scientists for a quarter century now, the incremental or evolutionary paths to avert catastrophic global warming that we might have been able to take in the past are closed to us. 

Humanity faces a stark choice as a result: The end of civilization as we know it or the end of capitalism as we know it. 

Choosing “unregulated capitalism” over human civilization would be a “morally monstrous” choice — and so the winning message for the climate movement is a moral one.

Update (September 24):  Lindsay Abrams investigates how inequality impacts international adaptation efforts.

Update (September 29):  Robert Jensen reviews Klein's book.

Update (October 24, 2015):  Jonathan Chait thinks Klein is offering dangerous advice.