Director's Introduction: The Earth Charter and Climate Change

ECI is pleased to be inaugurating this important dialogue. Here, we hope to bring together many voices, from many disciplines, cultures, and perspectives, on the ethical dimension of climate change.

Those familiar with the film "An Inconvenient Truth" and the global awareness-raising campaign of former US Vice President Al Gore know that he consistently frames global warming as a moral issue. From the perspective of the Earth Charter, this could not be more true. While the Charter does not mention global warming or climate change -- or many other specific issues -- its language speaks forcefully, directly, and inspirationally to our responsibility to address them. If global warming is one of the "great perils" mentioned in the second sentence of the Preamble, the Earth Charter is one of the "great promises" that can guide us to solving this urgent problem.

But while the perceived urgency of global climate change has increased dramatically in the last two years, it is important to remember two things:

First, the crisis is not new. A growing chorus of respected voices in the global scientific, political, religious, and economic community have been warning humanity about global warming and greenhouse gases for decades. If there is an ethical imperative to respond to this crisis today, that imperative was also present in the past, even if fewer people understood, accepted, or acted on it. Now, with every passing day, the negative consequences of our greenhouse gas emissions become both more visible, and more dangerous. We cannot wait decades more before taking this ethical responsibility with the great seriousness it deserves, and acting with great speed and purpose to solve the problems we face. While everyone's circumstances (and responsibilities) are different, none of us is exempt. As the Earth Charter says in the "Preamble," "Everyone shares responsibility for the present and future well-being of the human family and the larger living world."

Second, while the climate crisis has finally captured much of the world's attention, it is not the only crisis we face. The world's biodiversity is in a process of rapid and accelerating decline (to site just one dramatic example, one of the world's two species of river dolphin has become extinct in the last year). Water is becoming a scarce resource for growing numbers of people, and is just one of the challenges threatening the achievement of the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals. It is important to bear in mind that the climate crisis is but one facet of an integrated global crisis -- one that the Earth Charter seeks to address with its integrated ethical perspective based on shared values and widely endorsed principles for action.

This site is dedicated to a global dialogue on a critical global issue. But the dialogue itself is dedicated to increased global action, so that coming generations of humanity and Earth's other living beings will not face the trial of collapsing climatic stability.

We look forward to your comments and submissions to this site.

- Alan AtKisson
Executive Director
Earth Charter International
 

Participating in the Dialogue

There are two ways to participate in this dialogue:

Post a Comment
After each paper, you will find a Comment section where you may enter a comment for submission and read the published comments of others. We will review all comments and will publish those that are most helpful in advancing the dialogue.

Submit a Paper
Research papers, essays, or short statements on issues of global ethics and climate change may be submitted (in English, Spanish, or French) to Earth Charter International for possible publication on this site. Papers should be submitted in .rtf or .doc format, and sent to this email address: editors AT earthcharterinaction.org. Comments or feedback on this site may also be submitted to this address.

Please Note:
We will review all papers submitted, but due to the volume of correspondence we receive, we cannot respond to each one. Be sure to include full contact information on submitted papers, and we will contact you if we are considering publication.