Ethics and the economist: What climate change demands of us

Julie Nelson

Ecological Economics, 2013, vol. 85, issue C, 145-154

Abstract: Climate change is changing not only our physical world, but also our intellectual, social, and moral worlds. We are realizing that our situation is profoundly unsafe, interdependent, and uncertain. What, then, does climate change demand of economists, as human beings and as professionals? A discipline of economics based on Enlightenment notions of mechanism and disembodied rationality is not suited to present problems. This essay suggests three major requirements: first, that we take action; second, that we work together; and third, that we focus on avoiding the worst, rather than obtaining the optimal. The essay concludes with suggestions of specific steps that economists should take as researchers, teachers, and in our other roles.

Keywords: Climate change; Ethics; Catastrophe; Uncertainty; Interdependence; Enlightenment; Responsibility; Embodied reason (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800911003041
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Ethics and the Economist: What Climate Change Demands of Us (2011)
Working Paper: Ethics and the Economist: What Climate Change Demands of Us (2011)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:85:y:2013:i:c:p:145-154

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2011.07.029

Access Statistics for this article

Ecological Economics is currently edited by C. J. Cleveland

More articles in Ecological Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().