Philosophy and carbon emissions: what should you think?

This article was published in The Sydney Morning Herald 26 November 2009

We asked Australia's best-known philiosopher, Peter Singer, how people should think about carbon emissions and climate change. He was unequivocal.

He likened Australia's production of greenhouse gases to a country dropping bombs on Bangladesh.

Professor Singer, professor of bioethics at Princeton University in the United States, said the government had a moral duty to reduce Australia's emissions, no matter the cost to the country's energy-intensive industries, such as coal.

“Australia doesn't have a right to continue to harm other nations,” Professor Singer said.

“[We], along with other industrialised nations, [have] taken a far bigger slice of the pie than [we have] any claim to. The pie in this case being the atmosphere's capacity to absorb greenhouse gases.