Living now in the Anthropocene comes with a number of conditions and decisions that will guide us to the future in which we want to live. Moving away from fossil fuels is one of those conditions. Hopefully that will be a future we have chosen, even designed rather than a de facto one that just happened. Designing a future assumes knowing where you want to be and how you will get there.
We are at a critical time economically and existentially. What should we do with our current energy system, the continued use of some will compromise the future we have designed. Enter the ethical dilemma, decisions of a moral nature guiding our conduct. Can there really be “ethically produced” oil and gas?
Rationalization provides a convenient marketing tool although the ethics there come into doubt. The product itself is basically the same wherever it is produced. Claiming your product is less bad does not qualify as good. Devising self-serving explanations for corporate and even government behavior brings ethical back into the picture.
We hold governments accountable for duty of care, the well-being of the population. In a corporate context, whose well-being is served? Is corporate “best practice” limited to the well-being of shareholders or do duty of care and ethics demand greater corporate and indeed government accountability?
Governments and the corporate world are very literate and yet knowing what we know and have the data to prove it, they seem unwilling to act in a meaningful and measurable way in response to the writing on the wall.
Ron Robinson
Nelson
