Global Justice and Climate Change: How Should Responsibilities b torrent

AUTHOR: David Miller

ABSTRACT:
The Tanner lectures have been given in an unbroken series stretching back to 1980 and many eminent philosophers and intellectuals have delivered them. They were established to explore human values in a broad sense, but many of my predecessors have wanted not just to explore the meaning of values in themselves, but to consider their practical implications for how we should live, as individuals, or collectively together in societies. My aim is to follow in their footsteps by addressing one very big practical issue that faces us collectively, namely humanly induced climate change and the steps we must now take to combat it. I should say at once that I come to this issue neither as a scientist nor as policy-maker but as a political philosopher. In other words, I shall not be entering into the many important and detailed debates about, for example, the rate at which global warming is currently occurring, or about the reduced level of greenhouse gas emissions that we need to achieve in order to halt the process. Nor shall I be discussing the advantages and disadvantages of various practical proposals that have been made for bringing about that reduction – the relative merits of different forms of energy generation, for instance. It would be wrong for me to claim any kind of expertise on these matters, and I would be wasting your time if I tried to pronounce on them.