Philosophy Written Assignment 2

Assignment 3, Topic 3: Paying for Climate Change Due date: May 10th, 10 PM, through uLearn. You may turn it in earlier. Length: 2-3 pages, not including a Works Cited page

 

Topic: Since the Earth is the largest public good available, climate change could be the largest tragedy of the commons in history. While most experts and leaders agree that something must be done about climate change, no clear majority seems to be in perfect agreement on what to do.

Probably one of the most difficult problems is actually simple to state: who pays? Or more exactly, which nations are the most responsible for addressing climate change? And what is the fairest method to divide the costs? Are there currently nations that are “free riders,” not paying their fair share for the social cost of climate change?

Your essay will address these closely related questions.

Your response:

1) Read pages 232-248 in Chapter 10 of your textbook (“Global Environmental and Climate Change”), with special attention to pages 241-247 (“Possible Solutions”).

2) Also read Chapter 3 (“Responsibility,” 57-77) from The Ethics of Climate Change by James Garvey, which you can find in a PDF under the “Other Readings” tab on the left-hand side of uLearn.

3) Review the concepts of “free rider,” “tragedy of the commons,” and “negative externality.”

4) Using the readings in (1) and (2) and the concepts in (3), write a brief response of 2-4 pages on the question of responsibility for climate change. While your essay may include a proposal of your own, your main task is to evaluate which distribution of costs is the fairest and of course, to explain why it is the fairest.

5) Include a Works Cited page in addition to the 2-3 pages of the essay.