Within the academic community, a great deal of new work focusing on the ethics of climate change is emerging. This page offers links to a number of these projects, currently underway across the country, and email links to several of the scholars who are working in this area. For an excellent introduction to this burgeoning field, see the Daedalus issue titled, “Religion and Ecology: Can the Climate Change?” This volume focuses on climate change as a moral issue from the perspective of the world’s religions. In addition, the articles of several scientists and policy makers are also included in this work.

  • First National Committee on “Coping with Climate Change.”

    University of Michigan Natural Resources and Environment
    Rosina M. Bierbaum, dean of the School of Natural Resources and Environment, will host the nation’s first summit to address coping with climate change at the University of Michigan in 2007. The purpose of the U-M summit is to help the United States prepare for likely impacts of global warming and to handle more effectively the changes that are now occurring. Delegates to the summit, called “Coping with Climate Change,” will evaluate the country’s progress to date and set the agenda for a series of five to 10 workshops to be held the following year. The workshops will focus on regions of the country such as the Great Lakes, Pacific Northwest and Mississippi Basin as well as industry sectors, including energy, agriculture, health and insurance.

  • Master of Arts Program on Climate and Society

    Columbia University
    The Columbia M.A. in Climate and Society is designed to give students the knowledge and skills to meet the need for professionals who understand the links between climate and society. Columbia University is home to many researchers in the fields of climate change, climate prediction, and earth and atmospheric sciences. It has experience in training policymakers, leaders, and thinkers in the heart of New York City, home to the United Nations and the seat of world politics.

  • The Values in Nature: Role of Ethics in Environmental Policy

    University Center for Human Values, Princeton University
    The University Center for Human Values supports teaching, research, and discussion of ethics and human values throughout the curriculum and across the disciplines at Princeton University. In 2005, the Center for Human Values put on a conference on ethics and environmental policy that included many interesting speakers on ethics and climate change. Transcripts of these lectures are available on this site.

  • EcoEquity

    EcoEquity is a research and advocacy organization dedicated to the promotion of a just and adequate solution to the climate crisis. Through its participation in domestic and international networks of both activists and scholars, it argues for a precautionary approach to the prevention of dangerous climate change, and for a global policy architecture that would protect the right to sustainable development. EcoEquity seeks to contribute to a just solution to the climate crisis by emphasizing the importance of equity principles in all aspects of the policy response, by producing political and economic analyses that highlight equity issues, and by developing practical proposals for equitable climate policies. This Web site offers links to several books on climate and climate equity, as well as relevant news postings and an e-archive of issues of the Climate Equity Observer.

  • Ethical Dimensions of Climate Change

    Rock Ethics Institute, Penn State University
    The program on the Ethical Dimensions of Climate Change was created to address the profound ethical questions raised by human-induced climate change, such as: The notion that an equitable approach to climate change may be practically necessary to achieve a globally acceptable climate change solution, given that those most responsible for climate change are not the same people those most vulnerable to adverse climate change impacts; the fact that climate change policy options are often discussed exclusively in the languages of science and economics that frequently hide or ignore important ethical questions; and knowing that an ethical analysis of climate change policy options must be mindful of the scientific, economic, and social contexts that frame the ethical inquiry. The program on the Ethical Dimensions of Climate Change seeks to encourage and facilitate express examination of ethical dimensions of climate change; identify and facilitate the analysis of ethical issues entailed by specific positions taken by governments, businesses, NGOs, organizations, or individuals on climate change policy matters; create better understanding about the ethical dimensions of climate change among policy makers and the general public; assure that people around the world, including those most vulnerable to climate change, participate in any ethical inquiry about responses to climate change; maintain a bibliography of books, papers, and other writings that examine the ethical dimensions of climate change; and develop an interdisciplinary approach to inquiry about the ethical dimensions of climate change. This Web page offers white papers, news, and reports on the ethics of climate change, as well as a comprehensive bibliography of ethics and climate change sources (also linked below).

  • Climate Change and Energy Committee

    Pennsylvania Consortium for Interdisciplinary Environmental Policy
    The Pennsylvania Consortium For Interdisciplinary Environmental Policy is an organization comprised of environmental policy makers and universities and colleges devoted to improving environmental policy and understanding through government and academic cooperation that encourages interdisciplinary analysis and discourse. The Consortium has been created in the belief that the environmental problems of the 21st Century will challenge both decision makers and academic institutions in new ways, making greater cooperation between government and higher education incredibly urgent.

  • Climate Ethics and Equity Working Group

    Environmental and Social Impacts Group, National Center for Atmospheric Research
    On 22-23 March 2001, the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Office of Global Programs held an informal planning meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico, to explore the topic of “Climate, Ethics, and Equity.” Fifteen participants from various disciplines identified aspects of climate and climate-related issues. Also considered were the value of prospects for and constraints on the availability and/or use of climate-related information in decision-making at all levels of society. This Web site contains a general description of this working group’s concerns.

  • Individual Ethicists Working on Climate Change

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