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Preface to the Third Edition

In 2007 when I was a senior research fellow at the Center for American Progress, a progressive policy think tank in Washington, DC., I spent some time on the Environmental Policy Team. This team had as it goal the creation of various papers that would be listed on the Center’s website and be distributed to appropriate committees in Congress to influence public policy.

At the time it did seem like the country and the world was on the way to combatting the causes of global warming: CO₂ and other chemical emissions that were creating a “greenhouse” effect that was moving us to climate disaster. In 2009 there was the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in which plans were laid for creating a cooperative international structure for implementing some of the policy recommendations of the Kyoto Protocol (1997).¹ Progress was made to identify options for various countries to play their part in this project (the details to be negotiated later) and a goal was set to respond to climate change in the short and long term. To this end, a “red line” was established to avoid allowing the average global temperature to rise 2° Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Procedurally, developed countries like the United States (US) promised certain levels of funding so that the goals might be achievable for poorer countries. Methods of measurement were agreed upon and finally there were new agencies created under the auspices of the United Nations to help administer and monitor these goals.

At the Center for American Progress there was general hope that we were finally on the road that would lead us to our goal of halting global warming and thus averting the climate disaster that we all saw as imminent.

Not everything worked out as planned, so in 2015 a new gathering of nations in Paris tried to address means of getting to the goals of the Copenhagen Conference more effectively. Each nation was to work on a 5-year plan that would be evaluated in 2020 and be legally binding (though voluntary). Benchmarks were to be set out at first provisionally and then in a more binding format.

The Paris Agreement provides a framework for financial, technical, and capacity building support to those countries who need it. I was no longer at the Center for American Progress, but from those former colleagues there was even more general hope that we had fixed the difficulties involved with Copenhagen and that this time things would be different. The new short-term targets were “zero-net-emissions.”² This mindset could be achieved by each unit of national organization: individuals, communities, businesses, and the nation. Everyone could get on board to avoid the 2° Celsius red line.

Then came the 2016 US presidential election of Donald J. Trump. Trump believed that the climate crisis was all a hoax. It would cost the US (one of the leading polluters in the world) lots of money and be bad for business by creating onerous regulations. (Little regard was given to how catastrophic climate disaster would affect US business—but if the whole thing is a hoax, then there will never be a disaster.) Such assertions were not backed up by science. Indeed, science has been behind the international summits that have been regularly occurring since 1972 in Stockholm.

Trump played upon an “anti-science” sector of the country that has been around and popular among many at least since the “Scopes Trial” in 1925. There are various theories behind why this is the case. Often, the answer reverts back to the 400-year antagonism between Christianity and Science.³ Another possible source of skepticism is the rise of public paranoia about political forces stronger than themselves that are “taking over.”⁴ Some of these folks become anti-vaccination people (some who believe that Bill Gates is injecting micro-probes into their arms when they get COVID-19 shots in order to get control of them).

Certainly, the anti-science folk (for whatever reason) are the foot soldiers that Donald Trump used to walk away from the Paris Accords and to eliminate automobile emission guidelines and manufacturing emission guidelines. These actions moved the US and the world away from responsible climate policy.

Now that Trump is no longer president, we may move back in the other direction and once again regain the justified hope that I (and others at the Center for American Progress) once felt. We have still got a chance to get this under control, but there isn’t much “wiggle room” left.

Notes

Michael Boylan

1 ¹ For details on this conference see: https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/conferences/past-conferences/copenhagen-climate-change-conference-december-2009/copenhagen-climate-change-conference-december-2009 (accessed 18 May 2021).

2 ² For details on the Paris Climate Agreement see: https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement (accessed 18 May 2021).

3 ³ One account of the modern versions of “anti-science” sentiment in the United States can be found in Sahotra Sakar, Doubting Darwin: Creationist Designs on Evolution (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007).

4 ⁴ One contemporary account set primarily in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic explores several versions of anti-science and public paranoia: John Bodner, Wendy Welch, and Ian Brodie, Covid-19 Conspiracy Theories, QAnon, 5G, The New World Order, and Other Viral Ideas (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2020).

Details on the Third Edition

Environmental Ethics is one of my three texts on applied ethics (the other two being Business Ethics and Medical Ethics). The idea behind each book is to begin with theoretical material about ethics, in general, and then some comments on the underpinnings of this particular direction of applied ethics. Next, the texts take up important issues in the practice of the given area of practice (the environment, the business community, the practice of medicine). Finally, are chapters on contemporary issues in public policy.

What is new to this third edition:

 Eight new chapters focused mainly on public policy.

 A new theoretical chapter by the author, “What is ‘Nature,’ and Why Should I Care?”

 The inclusion of Garrett Hardin’s “The Tragedy of the Commons” in the theoretical section.

 The inclusion of Steve Vanderheiden’s “Globalizing Responsibility for Climate Change” in the Sustainability section.

 A new student feedback piece in the online instructors’ manual that will assist professors and students in achieving the skills to address challenging cases that correspond to the sections of the book. This includes the new public policy section that guides students into creating a personal manifesto that they can share with policymakers.

I am hoping that this third edition will be even more action-oriented and meet the needs of “active education.” As time goes on, we must heed the cries of Greta Thunberg seeking action on the frontlines of environmental change. Perhaps, this book will nudge students forward in seeking action in this critical area of public policy that aims at saving the planet.

I would like to thank all the new contributors to this volume along with the referees and their helpful comments. I would also like to thank Marissa Koors, Charlie Hamlyn, Will Croft, and the rest of the Wiley-Blackwell team for helping to bring forth this third edition. Their dedication to this project has helped immensely. Finally, I’d like to thank my family: Rebecca, Arianne, Seán, and Éamon. They sustain me in my life.

Michael Boylan