ANTHROPOGENIC SEA-LEVEL RISE: ETHICAL TRANSGRESSIONS

The impacts of anthropogenic climate change are already widespread and are increasing. The costs of these impacts in human lives, injuries, illness and property damage have risen dramatically during the last four decades. As the planet’s human population approaches 7.5 billion, negative impacts on food production, water supply and living space are increasingly problematic. Elevated survival stresses engender unrest and political instability. The most universal and relentless impacts derive from anthropogenic sea-level rise forced by increasing temperature through thermal expansion and glacier melting. These oceanic effects in turn increase the probabilities of flooding and erosion of coastal zones and low-lying islands by enhanced precipitation events and storm surge.

Recent projections of sea level rise have been repeatedly revised upward to account for accelerated Arctic warming and contributions of outflow glaciers not included in IPCC AR4. A maximum of 1.5 to 2.0 meters by 2100 is likely; this would be dangerous to disastrous for more than one hundred million individuals. A high proportion of those affected reside in relatively undeveloped countries. Because combustion of fossil fuels is the principal cause of the current rapid rise in atmospheric CO₂, the developed and developing countries whose energy policies produce the problem have primary responsibility for mitigation.

All human activity necessarily encompasses a moral dimension. This dimension is delineated by codes of ethics rooted in recognition of and respect for the dignity and human rights of each individual as expressed in the concept of justice. Enterprise that ignores or disdains justice for present or future generations commits ethical transgressions that are inimical to humanity and human progress. Inaction is the great enabler of this fundamental problem. Responsible public policy must be knowledge-based. Censoring or proscribing science for political reasons is unethical and unconscionable. Scientists assess reality; it is their duty to communicate it clearly and emphatically to the public and to public policy makers!