Discounting, Climate Change, and the Ecological Fallacy

Rendall, Matthew

Abstract

Discounting future costs and benefits is often defended on the ground that our descendants will be richer. Simply to treat the future as better off, however, is to commit an ecological fallacy. Even if our descendants are better off when we average across climate change scenarios, this cannot justify discounting costs and benefits in possible states of the world in which they are not. Giving due weight to catastrophe scenarios requires energetic action against climate change.

Citation

Rendall, M. (2019). Discounting, Climate Change, and the Ecological Fallacy. Ethics, 129(3), 441-463. https://doi.org/10.1086/701481

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Sep 12, 2018
• Publication Date: 2019-04
• Deposit Date: Oct 3, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 30, 2020
• Journal: Ethics
• Print ISSN: 0014-1704
• Electronic ISSN: 1539-297X
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 129
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 441-463
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/701481
• Keywords: Intergenerational justice; discounting; climate change; aggregation; risk
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1145321
• Publisher URL: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/701481
• Contract Date: Oct 3, 2018