Abstract
An appropriate climate ethic has to take into account the collective action problems inherent in most environmental problems affecting the Arctic, like global warming and increasing acidification of the Barents Sea. But as all the environmental degradation is taking place in and through human practices and institutions – especially by isolated individuals and corporations acting strategically in the market – it is the task of citizens of the different Arctic communities to think like an ocean. Thinking like an ocean means overcoming the alienation from our environment by taking responsibility for it, ethically and politically. I start by describing the dire consequences of climate change for the Arctic environment, focusing on ocean acidification, only to confront the supply side of fossil fuel production. After discussing some ethical issues lying at the core of resource governance beyond the state, I outline a critical environmental theory. The recent awakening of green populism, in the forms of school strikes and climate lawsuits around the world indicates environmental democracy having become radical democracy: citizens engaging in communal and democratic practices through which they can build their own environmental futures and energy futures. But it is also an epistemic democracy formed within the context of an epistemic Arctic consisting of different but related epistemic communities.
“This is the new climate democracy: Of the people, by the people, for the planet”
(Senator Edward J. Markey launching Green New Deal resolution with representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the U.S. Congress 7.02.2019.)
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Notes
- 1.
Habermas denotes this “cultural impoverishment”.
- 2.
In order to prevent us from benefiting our own generation, generational affiliation should be hidden in the negotiations about principles of distributive justice (Rawls 1999, p. 256).
- 3.
According to a report by the United Nations, 654 cases have been filed in the United States as of March 2017, with more than 230 cases being filed in all other countries combined. Outside of the United States, the majority come from Australia, the United Kingdom and the European Union (Climate Liability News: https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2018/12/26/legal-strategy-climate-lawsuits/).
- 4.
My discussion in this section draws heavily on Megan Blomfields excellent discussion of the just distribution of GHG emissions with regard to terrestrial sinks, see Blomfield 2013.
- 5.
Since 2018 the Arctic center for Sustainable Energy (ARC) at the Arctic University of Norway coordinates two projects implementing Carbon Capture and Utilisation (CCU) and Smart Renewable Energy Infrastucture respectively in two coastal communities.
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Stokke, Ø. (2020). Thinking Like an Ocean: A Climate Ethic for the Arctic Marine Environment. In: Pongrácz, E., Pavlov, V., Hänninen, N. (eds) Arctic Marine Sustainability. Springer Polar Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28404-6_2
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