Climate Change and Us

The shift from the notion of weather to the notion of climate involves a shift in social and political terms. Talk about the weather as the immediate condition of our physical existence is a sociable activity; it unites people in agreements about how hot or cold or turbulent the weather is or has just been. Talk about climate, however, occasions sharp disagreement—particularly when it comes to assigning blame for the causes of climate change and responsibility for remedies. Climate change poses challenges for our most familiar ways of thinking about ethical action in that it both distributes blame generally and exceeds the capacities of experts to provide remedies.