CREDIT: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/arrqh/4209387142/" target="blank">Arrqh</a> (<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/deed.en">CC</a>).
CREDIT: Arrqh (CC).

Garrett Cullity on Climate Change

Jul 18, 2012

Since there is very little any given individual can do to address climate change, there is a problem drawing a line from collective responsibility to individual responsibility. Fortunately, philosopher Garrett Cullity has a solution for morally motivating individuals.

How do we assign moral responsibility for climate change? We can all probably agree that as a country, the United States is responsible to some extent. After all, it emits a lot of carbon, has the ability to pay for solutions, and knows it should be doing something about it.

But what about individual American citizens? Climate change is a collective phenomenon. It's going to happen—or not—regardless of what any particular person does. Individuals may not want to emit carbon, but they don't have much choice about their participation in the overall system.

Our guest today, Garrett Cullity, sees a paradox here. Although it's easy to trace the empirical relationship between individual carbon emissions and systemic climate change, he thinks it's not so easy to track the moral relationship between individual and collective responsibility for climate change.

You may also like

MAR 29, 2023 Podcast

Reframing the Refugee Crisis, with Sana Mustafa

In collaboration with Marymount Manhattan College and their Social Justice Academy: Great Migrations, "Doorstep" co-host Tatiana Serafin speaks with Sana Mustafa, CEO of Asylum Access, ...

MAR 27, 2023 Podcast

C2GTalk: How should policymakers address the risk of climate tipping points? with Jo Tyndall

Climate tipping points are points of no return, beyond which the Earth's systems would reorganize beyond the capacity of socioeconomic and ecological systems to adapt, ...

MAR 22, 2023 Podcast

How Feminist Foreign Policy Can Reshape the Globe, with Kristina Lunz

In the second conversation of our Women's History Month podcast series, Kristina Lunz, co-CEO and co-founder of the Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy, joins "Doorstep" ...