Climate Ethics - Earthling
This substack approaches the climate crisis through an ethical lens. It’s a complement to my book Earthling, available from Ethics Press. Earthling provides a complete summary of the many facets of climate change: ethics, science, sustainability, economics, law, and politics. It takes a broader look at climate change than any other book I know of. It also contains a chapter on the reforms we need to make to deal with the crisis.
I will post new articles on climate ethics here once or twice per month.
Who I am
I’m Dean Wallraff, an attorney and environmental activist living in Los Angeles, California. My practice as an attorney is focused on fighting climate disruption, mostly by suing under the California Environmental Quality Act to force warehouse projects to be net-zero for GHG emissions.
Earthling and this substack grew out of my long-term preoccupation with the long term. My most popular post on Medium was “Looking Back from the Year 3000.” It’s available on this substack, and provides a medium-term perspective. Basically, we need to stop doing things that degrade our planet, even a little, because those degradations will accumulate to the point of disaster. Folks in the year 3000 will point to this time at the beginning of the 21st century as the time when we irrevocably messed up the planet, leaving a much less hospitable planet for future generations. And we’re killing off many species, who also have a right to live with us on Earth. These are moral issues.
My father, Charles F. Wallraff, was a philosophy professor. Perhaps some of his interest in philosophy rubbed off on me. I’m also a Europhile, like my father; in many ways I feel more at home in Europe than in the US. But, mainly, I’m a generalist, and I think that’s helpful I the climate context, where there are many different aspects to the problem.
Please subscribe
For now, this substack is free of charge. Please subscribe, so you don’t miss any posts.
And please feel free to email me at dw@aenv.org with any ideas for future columns.
