ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the hyperindividualistic and rationalistic ethical paradigms—originating in the late eighteenth century and dominating moral philosophy, in various permutations, ever since—cannot capture the moral concerns evoked by the prospect of global climate change. Industrial governments might tax their citizens and pay into a global escrow fund in proportion to the aggregated carbon footprints of their citizens, and the fund might be distributed to governments of the countries most vulnerable to global climate change, with the presumption that the recipient governments spend the restitution payments for adaptation projects. The temporal scale of the proposed moral ontology-moral considerability for human civilization per se-is proportionate to the spatial and temporal scales of global climate change. The only moral agents commensurate with the spatial and temporal scales of global climate change are national governments, and for them to be effective in mitigating global climate change, they must act in concert.
