The title of Gardiner’s book alludes to The Perfect Storm, a true story about a fishing ship caught at sea during a convergence of three particularly bad storms, with dire results. He sees climate change as a perfect moral storm, and identifies three especially salient problems whose convergence may be disastrous for our planet.
The first problem, says Gardiner, is the global nature of climate change. No matter where greenhouse gases or carbon emissions originate, their impact is felt around the world. But while richer, more powerful nations are responsible for most emissions past and present, poorer nations—more vulnerable to the effects of climate change, due to lack of infrastructure—are badly situated to hold the polluters accountable.
Second, there is an intergenerational dimension. Given the time lag involved in climate change, our actions and decisions will affect future generations far more than they will affect our own generation. Climate change policies may require us to sacrifice while offering little or no direct benefit in the short-term—a problematic incentive structure. Conversely, the current generation might take modest benefits that could have severe costs for future generations. “This is a severe moral problem," says Gardiner. "We should have ethical guidelines for dealing with it, but we don’t. In fact, we don’t even talk about climate change in these terms.”
Gardiner adds that future generations will face the same incentive issues when they hold the reins of power, which might lead to cumulative effects of buck-passing over time. “This looks like a nasty problem, because it is iterative,” he says. “It is much worse than the traditional ‘tragedy of the commons’ problem in environmental affairs. Unfortunately, future generations are never around to hold those in power responsible for their actions or their inaction.”
A third problem factoring into the “perfect moral storm” is a lack of robust theories in areas of ethics related to climate change, such as intergenerational ethics, international justice and ethics, and scientific uncertainty. Given that there are already temptations to pass the buck, that lack of theory tends to facilitate inaction.
By identifying these three problems or “storms” that allow us to stray from ethical behavior, Gardiner hopes he can add another dimension to the climate change conversation. His book also touches on geoengineering, economics, and why the perfect moral storm threatens our public discourse. He explains the latter with the help of Jane Austen.
One chapter of his book is devoted to comparing the climate discussion to the beginning of Austen’s novel, Sense and Sensibility, using Austen’s case as a paradigm of moral corruption. “I’m an Austen fan,” Gardiner explains. “I was looking for a way to show that moral corruption can be a problem. I was watching an Austen movie and thought, ‘That’s it, right there.’ The chapter in this book is the first time I teased out those parallels. It’s unsettling, I think, in the right sort of way.”
Several chapters touch on ways that we can begin to address this moral challenge, but Gardiner warns that his book is not intended to provide answers. “My book is really setting out the questions and characterizing what the problem is,” he explains. “It’s a call to action.”
He hopes his message reaches policymakers, business leaders, and academics, but he also aims to reach the general public.
“I see climate change as a huge moral and political issue for all of us,” he says. “It raises a generational challenge. The question is, are we going to successfully address this challenge or not? It’s not at all obvious that our existing institutions and theories are equipped to deal with it. Future generations are not here to hold us to account, so we have to speak up on their behalf.”