Climate Traps: What Good are Virtues when there are No “Working” Solutions?
Climate Traps: What Good are Virtues when there are No “Working” Solutions?

Summary/Abstract: This article focuses on three “traps” that must be addressed in the conversation concerning the creation, justification, and implementation of policies aimed at managing the adverse consequences of climate change. The first trap is terminological, involving the frequent conflation within climate research of the concepts “environment” – which is material, sensory, and local – and “climate” – which is abstract, statistical, and global. The second trap is transactional, characterized by the subordination of moral actions to the requirements of utilitarian logic: ethically right is only that which produces a measurable effect on emissions. The third is the teleonomic trap, highlighting one of the most evident contradictions of the contemporary world: climate sustainability comes into conflict with the pursuit of development and prosperity, both at the individual and societal levels.

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