Challenges posed by climate change: is environmental protection an ethical issue? |
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Authors: | Silvana Kuhtz |
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Institution: | 1.Earth Sciences and Geography,Keele University,Staffs,UK;2.DIFA Università della Basilicata,Matera,Italy |
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Abstract: | Climate is one of the more complex physical systems in nature, its behaviour being fundamentally non-linear and chaotic. In
assessing the potential risks from climate change and the costs of averting it, researchers and policymakers encounter pervasive
uncertainty. Sceptics demand to get rid of the inherent uncertainties, and some experts, on the other end, keep sending out
messages of catastrophic scenarios hoping that this will increase people’s awareness of the danger we face. The recent admission
of a mistake in IPCC’s Climate change 2007 report (promptly broadcast by all the major media groups and newspapers from Jan. 20th 2010 onwards) made by the head of
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—that Himalayan glaciers could melt away by 2035 (the IPCC claim of 2035 is wrong
by over 300 years.)—has already brought a damage to the IPCC’s reputation that is likely to be considerable. But in this paper,
perhaps risking being provocative and paradoxical, instead of looking for the right answers to what we think are inevitable uncertainties, we intend to search for new questions that may lead to a new way of
thinking and may bring about new lifestyles and behaviour for citizens and firms. |
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