Art, science and love.

The maximizing principle… it is central to the ethical theory of utilitarianism. Egalitarian principles care not only about the total good an act produces, like the maximzers, but about the distribution also. The “humans-here-and-now-ers” only consider the consequences of people here…in the now. The “people-of-all-times” consider future generations. The “people-everywhere” consider those in other countries. The “people-everywhere-all-the-time” consider everybody, all the time…and you guessed it…everywhere. The non-human-centraled thought - or the environmental-centered view directs us to care for the natural world around us. An individualist extends this to give intrinsic value to nature, as to maintain “ethical consistency” and resulting in “speciesim” if we don’t.  Consequentialists are going to tell you that consequences are all that are relevant to any athical evaluation. Throw in some rights and compensation and you have a nice big fucked up mess.

What does that mess look like? Have to do the most good for the most people on the entire planet for the longest period of time possible. Not only humans, but also animals…well, the sentient ones at least because “they feel pain too”. And NOT ONLY humans and “sentient” animals, but also the environment as a whole because it has value in and of itself. (The whole “you can’t cut down the last tree on earth even if you are the last person on earth because that tree has value beyond human appreciation” argument.) Then to top it all off, we’re going to have consequences that we need to deal with, and any of those consequences that involve trampling the rights of any of the aboved mentioned “important” organisms has to be compensated.Therefore we need to find a solution to climate change that benefits as many people as possible (avoiding it), for a cheaply as possible (or sticking the bill to the rich guys), not wrecking any environment or animal while doing it (but it’s okay to stop on ants), and we need to compensate those who get screwed over it not occuring (like farmers in Saskatchewan).

Fuck.

Or at least that’s what my classes tell me.

You know what I say? We need a “shut-the-fu)k-up-and-think” ethical view point. The world is warming, and yes, it’s warming faster than it ever has in 10 000 years, I’ll admit that. It’s gettin’ hotter out there! And some of it may be because of humans. But lets me honest here folks, we’re not going to stop it. We just won’t. For a few reasons: a) we won’t change in time, fuck that. b) our economy loves growth, the “powers that be” aren’t going to stop growth just because it’s getting warmer c) those that are going to feel the hit the hardest, are the poorest of the people. And the people who are in charge of the decisions, don’t care about the poor people, they care about themselves. So really, there is nothing we can do about it. We’re not going to get some cultural revolution where the hippies of the now take over the government. It didn’t work 30 years ago either.

To make matters “worse” (so to speak) climate change science is just a baby. … we haven’t been doing it for very long. We only have a teeny tiny fraction of the earth’s climate history stored up to go off of. But what we do know is that a) the anthropocentric effects of climate change become noticeable in the environment long after we actually do them, so we’ve already like way more damage than what we can tell currently b) the earth’s temperatures have been going up and down for the entire life of the earth c) who cares if humans die? the earth will be better of without us anyway. Any REAL earth loving hippy would want the world to end so that the earth could stop being pillaged by us horrible beasts. *sigh*

It’s times like this, when I finish a reading and just want to slap a hippy that I think to myself “geez, maybe I’m in the wrong program, I should probably switch to economics”. But then I remember economics in highschool and come to my senses…

Anyway - my real point is that we have bigger issues than climate change. There isn’t going to be some radical change in our lives, the best option that we currently have is nuclear energy, and the hippies won’t let us use it. …I hate how easily people are sucked into believing things……. I am reminded of this every time I watch that show Bullshit with Penn and Teller. …People don’t think, they just passively watch. I love it when someone believes the total opposite of the arguement P&T are making, but by the end of the show they totally agree. They’re like…missing the point - GO DO SOME GODDAM RESEARCH. And then go save a child in Africa. Because they’re cute and need hugs. <3