Grapevine

Viewpoint: Climate science needs to talk more about 'justice'—here's how philosophy can help

Climate scientists have all kinds of language to discuss their scientific theories. But when it comes to values and justice, scientific language is less helpful. This matters, because when scientists claim a climate policy or scenario is "just," they sometimes can't or don't explain what they actually mean.

This leads to confusion. Consider by how much a given country should cut its emissions. If I say a plan is fair and you say it's unfair, but we don't have an explanation of what our underlying assumptions are, we'll just end up talking past each other.

As a philosopher, I helped answer this challenge by contributing to recent research which lays out justice language for climate scientists. Although it is intended for climate scientists, it can also be used in climate policy or by anyone trying to think more rigorously about climate change.