Read and answer questions:
We tend to think of the issue of climactic change due to human activity in one of two ways:
1) Either climactic change is happening or it is not really happening.
2) If it is happening and we are the cause of the problem then if we stop acting as causes of global warming then the global climactic changes will return to normal.
The first proposition is not accepted anywhere in the established scientific community. Even Exxon Mobile and Chevron representatives have come out in the last few years affirming that global climactic change is happening and it is due to human activity. Fossil fuel consumption in the forms of oil, coal and natural gas along with methane production from industrialized livestock production are causing climactic change. But if we accept proposition #2 then it should follow that were we to change our behaviors and rearrange our industries then that will avert the dramatic changes scientists are now predicting. If, at this point, we can’t do anything about climate change EXCEPT experience its effects then does it make sense to make any changes in the ways we are living our lives? If ethics is an area of philosophy concerned with things human beings can actually do something about then is global warming even an ethical issue anymore?