Conferences, Calls for Papers & Workshops

Death by a Thousand Coasts: The Ethics of Climate Change

Inter-Research Symposium

Abrupt and devastating changes in climate have occurred in the past destroying human habitats, economies and civilizations. The speed of climate change is now matched to rates of economic transformation important for human survival and prosperity (30 y bonds, mortgages, etc.). Much of this world is of human making and the consequences of human action or inaction are now predictable to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty. We are ethically responsible for our ecosystems, our economies and our selves. We must act honorably.

Inter-Research Symposium # 1 will provide best available evidence on 6 topics related to climate change.

  1. Statement of probable effects of climate change over the next 100 years along with a statement of climate effects that may be less probable but are large in their consequences (for example, rapid ice melt on Greenland), and evidence of patterns and rates of polar ice formation during the late Miocene cooling of Earth to see how the system might unravel during warming.
  2. Evidence of the effects of short and long term climate change on the fates of earlier human civilizations and on the fates of present day agriculture and animal husbandry.
  3. Evidence of habitat loss, degradation/alteration and the processes by which species become endangered by climate change.
  4. Economic changes and complex risk assessment/management required by climate change.
  5. Structural changes in civic infrastructure/architecture and governments needed to respond effectively to climate change.
  6. Substantial changes in geopolitics are necessitated by climate change. "Realpolitiks" lies dead in the jaws of climate change, its assumptions (of anarchical international systems, sovereign state actors, paramount interests of nationalism, security and survival, and guarantees of state survival through relative--zero sum--military power) have been rendered a selective disadvantage.

Symposium dates: November 24-27, 2006

Registration closes: November 24, 2006

Location: The Melrose Hotel 2430 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20037

Phone: 1 800 MELROSE or 202 955 6400 Fax: 202 955 5765

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