Vulnerable Manipur's Cultural Warming
- Bali summit on Global Warming -
- Part 3 -
By Dr DS Sharma *
Bali summit on Global Warming:
So long global warming couldn't have been thrashed out for want of a consensual (carbon-emission responsibility) sharing-in formula.
Rather, USA and Canada – two most developed and industrialized countries responsible for emitting huge carbon dioxide CO2 in the earth's atmosphere – were dissenting since the 1st Conference of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change held at Rio in 1992.
Their main plea then was that two developing countries with increasingly CO2 emitting industries viz. China and India be also fixed a higher carbon emission share, and did not therefore sign the on-going Kyoto Protocol.
Now at Bali of course, all summiting nations have reached a landmark consensus by morally persuading even economic superpower US and of course exclusivist Australia to agree on a new (post Kyoto-Protocol) global sharing roadmap to 2050.
Due credit for the convergence goes to the Aristotelian logic, as since adapted by Benito Muller and his team towards apportioning moral responsibility for climate change among nations.
Coincidentally, India is now adjudged at the very bottom of all other nations while fixing moral responsibility for global warming.
The application of the Aristotelian precept to fostering a solution to climate change is no doubt superbly innovating, but can also be extended to solution of yet other problems such as population rise, rural-urban disparity, health care, microcredit administration and whatever.
If at the international level, developed countries need to share greater economic burden, in the same way at home it is the rich and the middle class who have to take energy cuts.
In fact, India can be hit hard by climate change as it is densely populated and is affected by energy scarcity, depleting resources and biodiversity. Whereby India need rely more on CFL, public transport, eco-friendly technology and stop mindless consumerism and conserve water and power.
Aristotelian Innovation on Climate Change:
What merits special mention is of course the analytical framework or the Aristotelian theory underlying the consensual sharing-in of the moral responsibility for climate change or global warming.
For Aristotle recognized that
(i) blame and praise for actions with either harmful or beneficial consequences are deserved by only those who are in control of their actions and are aware of the immediate and delayed consequences their actions might have.
Global warming problem is addressed by Muller & colleagues by distinguishing between contributions to climate change from the responsibility thereto.
Tracing to the very ancient (1628 BC) eruption of the Santorini volcano in the Aegian Sea – then causing global cooling by 1.5 degrees for a full hundred years since and literally freezing the Minoan civilization of the bronze period, they argued that in particular that suffering was because of natural calamities (a la modern tsunami).
Further, the question of awareness also does not arise as the cause was natural and not caused by human action. Obviously, for present day CO2-pollution problem the moral responsibility can not be so easily detached from its impact and deservingly shared-in among nations.
In the realm of retrospection, the Aristotelian logic next proceeds to enunciate that
(ii) delayed consequences involve intervening time and need therefore be discounted as per responsibility attached thereto. This was precisely the crux of the global warming issue hitherto.
To sort out tough myopia and its resultant confusion among negotiating nations, the Muller team innovates two basic concepts:
(a) basic allowance of harmless emissions and
(b) subsistence allowance.
So analysed they could facilitate smart negotiations for wider acceptance. One understands what the other seeks to convey in crystal clear terms. Thus they could arrive at the least carbon.
Finally the Aristotle theorem states that
(iii) the consequences might not be universally harmful or beneficial. A parallel example – far more commonly experienced – is that of an irregular or a pre-monsoon (March) rainfall, which may immensely benefit jhumias but bring calamity to rabi (winter crop) farmers in the valley.
Farmers have only their luck to either praise or blame. If for instance, the Trans-Asian Railway (TAR) or the Asian Highway (AH) need pass in the periphery of (and benefit) a settlement, rather than another, it's all a matter of sheer technological question and viability.
To be continued...
* Dr DS Sharma wrote this article for The Sangai Express. This article was webcasted on June 11, 2008.
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