A Perfect Moral Storm: The Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change [Paperback]

Climate change is arguablythegreat problem confronting humanity, but we have done little to head off this looming disaster. InThe Perfect Moral Storm, Stephen Gardiner illuminates our dangerous inaction by placing the environmental crisis in an entirely new light, considering it as anethicalfailure. Gardiner clarifies the moral situation, identifying the temptations (or storms ) that make us vulnerable to a certain kind of corruption, and urges us to wake up to our profound ethical failure, and demand more of our institutions, our leaders and ourselves.Climate change is arguablythegreat problem confronting humanity, but we have done little to head off this looming catastrophe. InThe Perfect Moral Storm, philosopher Stephen Gardiner illuminates our dangerous inaction by placing the environmental crisis in an entirely new light, considering it as anethicalfailure. Gardiner clarifies the moral situation, identifying the temptations (or storms ) that make us vulnerable to a certain kind of corruption. First, the world's most affluent nations are tempted to pass on the cost of climate change to the poorer and weaker citizens of the world. Second, the present generation is tempted to pass the problem on to future generations. Third, our poor grasp of science, international justice, and the human relationship to nature helps to facilitate inaction. As a result, we are engaging in willful self-deception when the lives of future generations, the world's poor, and even the basic fabric of life on the planet is at stake. We should wake up to this profound ethical failure, Gardiner concludes, and demand more of our institutions, our leaders and ourselves. This is a radical book, both in the sense that it faces extremes and in the sense that it goes to the roots. --Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews The book's strength lies in Gardiner's success at understanding and clarifying the types of moral issues that climate l³#