October is fire safety month, so let’s add wildfires to our monthly climate issue list, including border security, air pollution, flooding, infrastructure, mental health, rising seas, food security, disease and hurricanes.
This year fire safety is focused on the danger of lithium batteries. In the US, 1/2 of fires are caused by cooking, followed by heating, wiring, and smoking. Candles cause far more fires than lithium batteries. But since lithium batteries are becoming more common, it’s worth it to unplug your charger after your device is charged.
A couple years ago, I wrote about forest wildfires, and I only have one point to add now. Reducing hunting and increasing the population of deer, elk and moose in the wild would also reduce forest density by creating wildlife corridors through forests and preserving natural meadows through grazing. This is a solution rarely proposed by those allied with the timber industry.
Inaction
Last night I was discussing the trolley problem with my daughter, the one where a trolley will either run over one or five people depending on whether it is diverted or not. Having previously defined rational and moral thinking as completely different in motive, method and results, I decided to take another look at the trolley problem.
The rational approach is to apply utilitarianism, which argues that—all things being equal—it is better to save five lives at the cost of one, if those are the only two choices.
The opposing approach often uses rule-based ethics, where a rule like ‘active killing is always wrong’ is invented, ending debate. This creates the unfortunate and false impression that the best course of action when lives are at stake is to do nothing, that inaction absolves you from blame.
Police officers are trained and tasked to solve trolley-like problems. A criminal prepares to execute five people immediately, but instead the police officer shoots the criminal dead. Society would not give police badges, guns and training to kill one criminal to save multiple innocent people if ‘active killing is always wrong’. So there is no ethical rule prescribing inaction as the sole appropriate solution in every case.
Moral thinking has a bias to act. If a half dozen people suddenly run into the street ahead of your car, you have an obligation to act, to try braking, honking or swerving. If you raise your hands in the air, continue ahead at the same direction and speed, believing that inaction will hold you blameless for the deaths of those in your path, then you are morally (and legally) wrong. Inaction in this case is gross negligence, open to charges of manslaughter.
If your best preventative actions result in the death of only one rather than five, then you may still be charged with manslaughter. But it will only be one count, and you may have five witnesses vouching for your actions. The driver, like the trolley driver, is understood to have responsibility for taking action to control the vehicle. Inaction in a fatal crisis is inexcusable.
The trolley problem is often manipulated or reimagined in different forms, such as a doctor or judge being presented with the terrible choice to take an innocent life to save more lives. But doctors and judges have different training and face different consequences than you or I. They have sworn to ‘first do no harm’ or to ‘uphold the law’, and if they take an innocent life, they would be in violation of their oaths, risking their reputations, licenses and careers.
So what is the innocent bystander to do? They might divert the trolley and later realize that they caused the deaths of many unseen trolley riders as the trolley derails. They might do nothing and then later realize that one of the five victims was their only child. The creators of these dilemmas appear more interested in creating quandaries of doubt, perhaps to promote inaction as a morally defensible choice.
Choosing to act results in consequences, both known and unknown. The innocent bystander is placed in a ‘no win’ situation. But that unfortunate fact does not affect the rational and moral calculus that the situation requires. Believing a false, imaginary rule that ‘active killing is always wrong’ may save decision-making time, but given that moral thinking has a bias to act, you are likely choosing unwisely.
Let’s raise the stakes. What if the trolley was loaded with explosives and being driven by a terrorist to blow up your town’s school? And what if the only way to stop it was to stand on the alternate track to throw the switch? Would you sacrifice your life to save five hundred lives, including your own children? Would believing in some rule—like ‘suicide is always wrong’—stop you? Even a doctor or a judge would be forgiven for making that ultimate sacrifice.
Rational thinking requires considering the consequences and risks. A rational bystander logically does not have enough information to make a perfectly informed decision, and that uncertainty may paralyze them.
But moral thinking compels one to act to save the many, even at the cost of the few. Even at personal cost.
In every scenario, both types of thinking are required.
Climate Crisis Inaction
We are not innocent bystanders in the climate crisis. The US has released more atmospheric carbon than any other country. We broke our natural climate, so now we own it. Every day we make choices that affect our carbon footprint, and every couple years we vote in ways that affect our future climate.
Inaction does not absolve you from blame.
Rational thinking considers the various consequences and risks of carbon pollution, including those I mention each month. Rationally, converting to renewable energy is worth the broad benefits both to our future economy and to live on earth. The sooner we act, the less costly the crisis will be.
Moral thinking requires us to act for the broadest long term good. Inaction on the climate crisis is not moral.
