We Can’t Help Ourselves

Recently, Donald Brown, the force behind http://climateethics.org, published an excellent post on Climate Progress called Ten reasons why examining climate change policy through an ethical lens is a practical imperative.   Actually, it was not only an excellent post, it was a necessary one.  Because ethics, let’s face it, is generally considered to be irrelevant to the hard realism that, it’s endlessly implied, will make or break the climate battle.

Bill McKibben, himself a force of nature, then did us the great favor of quickly adding this to the article’s comment thread:

“This is very smart and important. Readers who wish a better sense of how those ethical principles translate into policy might want to look at Tom Athanasiou and Paul Baer’s powerful work at EcoEquity (http://www.ecoequity.org/) and Greenhouse Development Rights (http://gdrights.org/).  This is a crucial frame – and also quite politically useful for those of us trying, among other things, to do work in faith communities and on campuses, where these arguments resonate with particular power.”

He forgot Sivan and Eric, but we forgive him.