Climate Actions and Climate Consequences

Change requires incentive. That’s one of the big problems with effective climate action. There are plenty of things that we, as individuals, can do to help mitigate the climate crisis. From driving less, to having smaller families, to giving up leaf blowers. But providing an incentive for people to make these changes is hard. While the world is undergoing a climate catastrophe, many of its immediate effects are highly localized – making it possible for vast swathes of the global population to comfortably ignore the problem.

But sometimes that isn’t the case. In the past few weeks, large portions of North America have experienced a trio of highly disruptive events – all of which can be attributed to the worsening climate crisis. The first is a series of “heat domes” that caused record high temperatures throughout the eastern – and now central – United States. This was followed almost immediately by Canadian wildfires that saw many eastern US states engulfed in smoke, with millions of residents told to remain indoors. Finally, an outbreak of cyclospora has made thousands of Americans ill, with the rest of us being warned to avoid many varieties of parasite-prone fresh fruit and vegetables. While this might appear as a separate phenomenon, it’s likely that the warmer temperatures caused by the climate crisis have created ideal conditions for this parasite to mature, easing its spread across the US.

These are highly distressing events. And doomscrolling through these headlines brings no small amount of existential dread. But as I read stories of how these events are impacting the lives of people – particularly people who are ordinarily somewhat nonchalant about the climate crisis – I find myself filled with a strange sort of satisfaction. There’s a part of me that finds a glimmer of hope: a hope that, now that real disruption is occurring, more people will be incentivized to engage in effective climate action.

Is it wrong for me to feel this way?

On initial introspection, I suppose this attitude is very utilitarian in nature. I see the widespread harms described above, and I tell myself it might all be worth it if it causes people to engage in more effective climate action, and – in doing so – avert even greater harms in the future. Put simply: the ends might justify the means. But this kind of reasoning is highly problematic. Firstly, it assumes that these harmful events are, in fact, sufficient to spur people into action. But that probably won’t be the case. Even if they were, that might not be sufficient to justify the initial harms. Why? Because this Utilitarian approach itself might be flawed. Immanuel Kant, for example, was very clear that it’s always wrong to use another person as a means to an end – even where that end is noble, or achieves some greater good. If this is true, then reveling in the small-scale harms suffered by those who are ordinarily nonchalant about the climate crisis (even if this might ultimately lead to a greater good) is wrong.

It’s worth noting that the Kantian approach might be slightly more nuanced than this, however. In addition to his prohibition against using people as a means to an end, Kant also required that we respect others as ends in themselves. This led Kant to make some fairly unintuitive claims about punishment. He was, for example, an avid proponent of capital punishment. This might seem very, well, un-Kantian. Can there be a clearer example of using someone as means-to-an-end than executing her? Not necessarily. On one (admittedly controversial) interpretation of Kantianism, the death penalty – indeed, all manner of punishment – is a way of being deeply respectful of a person as an ends. How so? Well, if someone rationally chooses a course of action – knowing full well the consequences of that action – then there is nothing wrong in ensuring that person receives precisely those consequences. Indeed, shielding a person from the foreseeable consequences of their rationally chosen action would – for Kant – be deeply disrespectful. So, when someone rationally decides to take the life of another, knowing full well that the penalty for murder is death, then we respect that person as an end by ensuring they receive that precise punishment.

All of this shows how a Kantian might go about justifying the attitude towards climate harms that I discussed earlier. When people remain nonchalant, and continue to knowingly engage in activities that contribute to the climate crisis, any climate-related harms they suffer are merely the foreseeable consequences of their rationally chosen actions. There’s nothing wrong, then, in taking satisfaction in those individuals suffering those harms.

Nevertheless, this justification doesn’t stand for long. And that’s because the category of individuals impacted by climate harms is so diverse. Sure, a healthy number of intensive emitters and climate-deniers might be affected. But so too are many others – from the excusably ignorant, to those who are already doing all they can to mitigate the climate crisis. Added to those are the myriad non-human animals who suffer without making any contribution whatsoever to the climate crisis. All of this means that while the attitude of satisfaction I described above might be a very human response, it’s most likely not an ethical one.