Business, Ethics, and Global Climate Change

Abstract

In years past, there was substantial debate over the existence of global warming. Today, the debate is largely over. A consensus has emerged in the global scientific community that global climate change (GCC) is occurring and that it will have a dramatic and adverse impact on ecosys tems, nonhuman species populations, and human populations.1 In a recent review essay in Ethics, Stephen Gardiner notes that despite the fact that GCC is widely regarded by scientists, policy analysts, and politicians as an ethical issue, the philosophical literature on the ethics of GCC is surpris ingly underdeveloped.2 The primary subjects of ethical analysis identified by Gardiner are states, and the primary ethical issues he identifies are the fair distributions of burdens among states in reducing emissions.3 However, what ethical obligations, if any, the business organizations that produce these emissions?either directly or indirectly?have regarding GCC is not addressed. This is not surprising, for the possibility that business organiza tions can have ethical obligations concerning GCC is almost entirely absent from the existing literature on the ethics of GCC.4 The organization of this essay is as follows. First, an overview and brief history of the discovery of GCC is provided. Second, the influential position that holds that free markets and responsive democracies relieve business organizations of any special obligations to protect the environment