I thought I'd point out the discussion on climate change on DailyKos today:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/7/28/214525/965 I especially think the comment "even if it is the seventieth generation" is worth considering. I am inclined to say "especially if it is the seventieth generation". The longer your horizon, the more absurd our behavior looks, and the more obviously morality gets into a terrtible tangle with the idea of conventional economic thought as a sensible guide. Consider David Archer's argument that our current behaviort is likely to commit ourselves to a clathrate release a couple of millenia hence. Admittedly this is somewhat speculative, but consider for the purposes of argument that it were a certainty. Economic arguments would discount the hunderds of generations in the future replay of the Paleocene/Eocene cataclysm to maybe fortyseven dollars and eighteen cents. Do we have a moral right to weight the distant future against a more or less arbitrary contemporary measure of value? mt --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change. Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
