Sr Margaret Atkins, a member of the Augustinian community at Boarbank Hall, Grange-over-Sands, Cumbria, writes about virtue in considering the ethics of global warming.
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| Virtue and climate change |
She says that focusing on virtues rather than on goals requires a general grasp of and alertness to key issues, but not detailed expert knowledge. Moreover, as the virtues are important for their own sake, nothing is lost if the experts turn out to be wrong. if we concentrate on moving towards a simpler lifestyle, we will focus on what is appropriate for us (a 'decent sufficiency') rather than on an abstract notion of global justice. Therefore we do not need to be anxious about the detailed distant consequences of our actions; nor, conversely, can we see the way we live as unimportant.
To possess a virtue is to have your mind and emotions ordered and educated so that you are easily able to act in a good and reasonable way. For this, two further things are also needed. The first is a serious and clear sense of what the virtue in question involves…to be able to think about the Christian life primarily in terms of virtues rather than overall consequences depends upon an unanxious trust that if you yourself act well, the rest can be left in the hands of Providence.1
The legacy of Scottish immigration to Canada exists today in education, engineering, finance, and religious guidance that is in harmony with the cardinal virtues. In terms of achieving climate change mitigation goals, Scotland is forecast to reach 100% renewables in 2020. Sophie Vorrath reports that the Scottish government has set itself a legally-binding target to cut greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2045, five years ahead of the UK, and leagues ahead of countries like Canada and Australia.
The BBC points out, Scotland also doesn’t rely on international credits or any other sort of tricky accounting to disappear emissions. All told, this will provide great inspiration for COP26, which is being billed as one of the most important international climate conferences since Paris in 2015.2
Virtue and inspiration are part of Scotland’s climate action.
Scotland's greenhouse gas emissions only account for 10% of the UK's emissions,[1] in 2003 when figures were published. 37% of Scottish emissions are in energy supply and 17% in transport. Between 1990 and 2007, Scottish net emissions have reduced by 18.7%.[2] The industrial processes sector had the largest decrease, of 72% with a reduction of 48% in the public sector trailing closely behind.3
Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser report some CO₂ and Greenhouse Gas Emissions in a contribution to Our World in Data and the SDG-Tracker, collaborative efforts between researchers at the University of Oxford, who are the scientific editors of the website content; and the non-profit organization Global Change Data Lab.
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| Our World in Data |
However, Asia’s rapid rise in emissions has only occurred in very recent decades. The annual share of global CO2 emissions in 2017, puts Canada and the UK in approximately the same contribution range. Scotland, at 10% of UK emissions, is a country with global emissions one tenth that of Canada.
Many of the world’s largest emitters today are in Asia. This too has been a by-product of massive improvements in living standards: since 1950 life expectancy in Asia has increased from 41 to 74 years; it has seen a dramatic fall in extreme poverty; and for the first time most of its population received formal education.
Some of the persuasion directed at the largest emitters to change will come from countries like Scotland not as “virtue signalling” but as virtuous action. Canada has always “punched above its weight” in leading other nations. Now is the time to join Scotland in working to achieve GHG emission and “net zero” targets.
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