Moral geology must apply to the present too
Sir, Edward Jones, in his article, Towards a ‘moral geology’, (Geoscientist 25.10, November 2015) opines: “My only solution to this [problem of human-produced CO2 leading to climate change] is that we should not take any more oil out of the ground.”
His solution to the problem is not morally well thought-out. Assume that the World’s Grand Pooh-Bah existed and followed Jones’ solution forthwith. The catastrophic impact on the world’s population from immediately stopping the use of all petroleum-based products would far exceed the more gradual impacts of taking no steps to reduce greenhouse gases and allowing the most direly predicted impacts of global warming to occur.
Moral solutions to global warming must take both present and future impacts on society into account.
David M Abbott Jr.