Suchergebnisse

Discusses the nature & implications of the expanding political- & public relations (PR)-oriented character of environmentalism practiced within corporations & political institutions. It is suggested that the modern media age has positioned PR, not physics or even ecology, as the dominant scientific paradigm of the last decade. Corporate environmental positioning has become a vital component of local & global business relations, & the largest PR firms are actively pursuing a form of new environmentalism that falsely asserts that technological advance, development, & the free market will automatically save the environment. Corporate PR generally engages in "greenwashing," whereby environmental optimism is emphasized while structural change is avoided. After a brief discussion of the biotechnology debate, it is argued that increased funding & public acceptance of biotechnology came only after an intense PR campaign that stressed the environmental potential of this science. Further, the contemporary acceptance of scientific uncertainty has allowed governments, corporations, & scientists to challenge the validity of a modern environmental crisis & thereby maintain nonenvironmental practices. It is concluded that the minor changes & marginal concessions achieved in the past decade evidence a gross ignorance, underestimation, & conscious avoidance of real environmental problems. T. Sevier

This report provides evidence that the building of 1500MW of new coal power generating capacity – as specified in the 2019 Integrated Resource Plan for Electricity update (IPR 2019) – is inconsistent with South Africa's efforts to undertake its fair share of the global mitigation required to adhere to the Paris Agreement temperature goal. We draw on results obtained from the Climate Equity Reference Framework, a fair share analysis framework supported by a wide range of civil society groups, including several in South Africa. This framework presents an ethically coherent method by which one can dynamically calculate national fair shares for all countries, whatever their development status. It defines a country's fair share of the global effort in proportion to its share of global capacity for addressing the problem and historic responsibility for causing it. These are the two foundational ethical principles of the Rio Declaration and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. This analysis concludes that while South Africa has a strong claim to international financial, technological, and institutional support to undertake mitigation, it is also obliged to invest the necessary policy attention and material resources in reducing domestic emissions such that they fall below the 274 – 376 MtCO2eq range in 2030. In contrast, as shown in accompanying analysis (Merven et al, 2021), forcing 1500 MW of new coal capacity into an otherwise least-cost power sector future raises emissions to 455 MtCO2eq in 2030, which is 103 to 180 MtCO2eq above the emission range implied by South Africa's fair share of a global 1.5°C mitigation trajectory and 78 to 144 MtCO2eq above its fair share of a 1.8°C global trajectory. Thus, this report concludes that forcing in 1500 MW of new coal runs counter to efforts to achieve South Africa's fair share, introducing unnecessary emissions and raising energy costs.

ABSTRACTThe urgency of the climate problem seems to require that stringent emissions reductions begin under the political economic institutions that currently exist. Any global climate treaty must, however, at least not make global inequality worse, and ideally should embody desirable principles of justice. The Greenhouse Development Rights framework (GDRs), described briefly here, is a proposal for such a fair division of the burdens of emissions reductions and adaptation to climate change that won't be avoided, based on an assessment of capacity (ability to pay) and responsibility (contribution to the problem). The GDRs considers both inequality within countries and inequality between countries: national obligations are based on the exemption of poor individuals (under a 'development threshold') from global burdens. GDRs accepts the link between 'development' and the growth in consumption of the world's poor majority, an obvious requirement if it is to be taken seriously by Southern governments intent on 'development as usual'. It also does not directly challenge the institutions of capitalism or the sovereignty of nation states. Nonetheless, in its focus on poor and rich people it is consistent with a class‐based rather than nation‐based approach to economic justice. We conclude by raising a variety of questions both about the limits of approaches like GDRs, and the need for policies that address climate change even during or after a transition beyond the current global capitalist regime.

For decades, the field of bioethics has shaped the way we think about ethical problems in science, technology, and medicine. But its traditional emphasis on individual interests such as doctor-patient relationships, informed consent, and personal autonomy is minimally helpful in confronting the social and political challenges posed by new human biotechnologies such as assisted reproduction, human genetic modification, and DNA forensics. Beyond Bioethics addresses these provocative issues from an emerging standpoint that is attentive to race, gender, class, disability, privacy, and notions of democracy—a ";new biopolitics."; This authoritative volume provides an overview for those grappling with the profound dilemmas posed by these developments. It brings together the work of cutting-edge thinkers from diverse fields of study and public engagement, all of them committed to this new perspective grounded in social justice and public interest values