Anthropomorphism And Climate Change Essay
Jonah Harig, Environmental Ethics Phil 229, March 5, 2017, Paper #1
Climate Change and Anthropomorphism According to NASA, for hundreds of thousands of years the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere has risen and fallen between 180 and 300 parts per million. But just in the past 67 years, we have seen an incredible rise to over 400 parts per million and still rising. Scientists contribute this from the industrial revolution and the amount of fossil fuels we burn into our air. This has caused global climate change to include the average global temperature to rise 1.7 degrees since 1880, arctic ice to melt by 13.3% per decade, the sea level to rise 3.4 millimeters per year and there’s more tragic evidence out there too. This is clearly a problem, and a potentially catastrophic one. If we take a look at this problem with a Consequentialism framework, we will see that continuing down this path of destruction will not ultimately bring about the greatest good for the greatest number. Brian Wolff frames consequentialism, or utilitarianism as “acts that promote the greatest good are morally right”. He says that the most traditional form of …show more content…
We know that the major problem is the amount of heat trapping gas emissions we as humans produce. We also know that if we do not stop emitting so much carbon dioxide into our atmosphere the problems we are already seeing will get considerably worse. According to NASA, droughts and heatwaves, like we’re already seeing in California, would worsen. Hurricanes will become stronger and gain intensity after each passing season. And sea levels will rise to a point where our ocean based cities would start flooding. All of these things bring about only more pain and suffering for massive amounts of human and non-human beings. Therefore, we need to see a change in what we value the
Climate Change and Anthropomorphism According to NASA, for hundreds of thousands of years the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere has risen and fallen between 180 and 300 parts per million. But just in the past 67 years, we have seen an incredible rise to over 400 parts per million and still rising. Scientists contribute this from the industrial revolution and the amount of fossil fuels we burn into our air. This has caused global climate change to include the average global temperature to rise 1.7 degrees since 1880, arctic ice to melt by 13.3% per decade, the sea level to rise 3.4 millimeters per year and there’s more tragic evidence out there too. This is clearly a problem, and a potentially catastrophic one. If we take a look at this problem with a Consequentialism framework, we will see that continuing down this path of destruction will not ultimately bring about the greatest good for the greatest number. Brian Wolff frames consequentialism, or utilitarianism as “acts that promote the greatest good are morally right”. He says that the most traditional form of …show more content…
We know that the major problem is the amount of heat trapping gas emissions we as humans produce. We also know that if we do not stop emitting so much carbon dioxide into our atmosphere the problems we are already seeing will get considerably worse. According to NASA, droughts and heatwaves, like we’re already seeing in California, would worsen. Hurricanes will become stronger and gain intensity after each passing season. And sea levels will rise to a point where our ocean based cities would start flooding. All of these things bring about only more pain and suffering for massive amounts of human and non-human beings. Therefore, we need to see a change in what we value the