ABSTRACT
This chapter examines why intertemporality is both critical to the concept as well as problematic for some. By extension, we will obviously be responsible if we transgress, and current and future victims may suffer. The chapter talks about sustainability in terms of how we and other societies should act in our own fairly current, present interests. That motive cannot be imputed to all the economists who argue that Stern and others are misguided, but if it applies to some that could contribute to some of the fuzziness that we experience when we try to see the economic issues clearly. They simply maintain that we cannot be absolutely certain that anthropogenic global warming is real, or how much damage we will do if it is real, or that we will not eventually develop technologies that will reverse the warming and its effects. The moral reality clear in the World Commission on Environment and Development's thinking in Our Common Future.
