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Philosophers’ view of the climate change debate
Some comments on the ever-raging debate about global warming
When scientists struggle to convince the laymen with newfound truth backed by experiments and evidence, the path is rougher still for the philosophers whose quest of truth is merely founded on reason and argument. Nonetheless, as Hilary Putnam points out ‘Philosophers will never be popular, but the less popular we are, the more necessary we are’. Here are some of the views of the modern day philosophers including Hilary Putnam on the ever raging debate of climate change.
Hilary Putnam: American philosopher, Hilary Putnam sees it as a moral obligation of the human race to ensure that climate change does not cause the destruction of the planet. Putnam emphasises that, even if we were to survive global warming, temperatures rising to above 140 in the summer would result in a large part of the world in becoming inhabitable. According to Putnam it would be nothing short of immoral to jeopardize the lives of a huge part of the human population. Putnam says, global warming should not remain as an issue that we just mention, but rather an issue that all of us think about.
Paulo Coelho: Best selling Brazilian writer-philosopher Paulo Coelho, believes man’s activities are a serious threat to the climate and the environment. However, he is cynical about the ecological fundamentalisms and the crusades of many to ‘save the planet’. Paulo Coelho says, when the idea of ‘saving something’ would give us a sense of power, action and nobility and feed our ego, the real consequence of not caring for the planet would simply be the planet erasing us from its surface when it would continue its existence’. According to him, ‘what really is needed is a campaign to make people aware of how much there is to lose if the environment is not taken into account’, and not propagate more of the politically correct fundamentalist ideas in the name of the environment. Coelho says, for humanity to form a less destructive relationship with nature, it is important that we comprehend that it is more intelligent to respect that which has given us life.
Nicholas Maxwell: Philosopher Nicholas Maxwell, emeritus professor at the University College London drew much criticism when he commented in ‘the Guardian’ that the public and the climate change sceptics are not to be blamed for their irrational distrust in science, ‘as long as all that the scientists produce for public understanding is complicated ‘gobbledegook’ that not even scientist with in the same discipline can comprehend’. According to Maxwell, the basic reason why the scientific community fails to convince the public lies in the fact that they have continually been ‘deceiving’ themselves and others alike about the very enterprise of science. Maxwell says the real quest of science should be to bring out truth that is ‘presupposed to be unified or explanatory’, and the communication of the scientists should be in a way that is easily comprehendible to layman.
A C Grayling: As per the British philosopher Dr AC Grayling, even as heated debates continue on the issue of climate change, what is left out of the discussion is – even if the climate is not changing and what we are experiencing is a local historical phenomena in the planet’s history, we do no harm in taking an effort to diminishing the carbon levels and conserving the resources of the nature. The professor of philosophy says, even if we are sceptical about the changing climate despite, 95% of serious scientists recognising there are man made links to these phenomena; what needs to be done is take up the responsibility to ensure a long term future for the generations to come. It would indeed be a huge success for the philosophers if they can only prompt the complacent population to look at the whole issue as one of social justice demanding a moral obligation, even if one is not exactly concerned about the statistics of the melting of the pine island glacier or the size of one’s carbon footprints Photos show: Hilary Putnam (with glasses) and Paulo Coelho (without glasses)
More information: users.ox.ac.uk/~worc0337/philosophers.html
One Response to “Philosophers’ view of the climate change debate”
ecoadmin says:
Even if you are not convinced that the planet is warming up, you should take a leaf out of the philosophers’ book and go through the motions of saving carbon emissions. It all makes a lot of sense!