《神州交流》Chinese Cross Currents

Editorial

Vol. 5, No. 1, January 2008

Climate Change, Global Awakening, Ethical Somnolence

The international and local mass media do not hesitate any more to carry news and data related to the coming of a general climate change. Not long ago, experts were discussing among themselves how to make sense of what was scientifically observed: the shrinking Antarctic ozone cap, the pollution of the high atmosphere by greenhouse gases, tropical deforestation, the changing patterns of oceanic currents, the frequency and force of hurricanes and typhoons, the prolonged droughts on continental countries, the melting of polar ice and mountainous glaciers, etc. Economic and political lobbies did try their best to dispel any alarming prognosis: it was in vain. Ten years after the signing of the Kyoto Protocol (December 11st 1997) that entered into force in February 2005, the necessity for a consensus has been accepted in the recent Bali Conference (December 2007) attended by “between 15,000 to 20,000 politicians, officials, activists, journalists” coming from all nations ( The Economist , 1st December 2007, p. 65). New technologies and more stringent regulations, as for a general “call to arms”, will be applied to the rescue. Some climate change is at everyone's doorstep, yet consequences are hard to evaluate. One only thing is certain: the change will be irreversible, at least for generations to come. Hence, the global urgency of the matter.

Rare are geophysical matters of such importance known to be soon approaching and to necessarily affect, yet diversely, the world community. Natural calamities, up to now, remained limited to natural geophysical units (earthquakes, tsunamis, typhoons, hurricanes, drought, epidemics—pandemics are rare). But human made calamities, twice in the last century (the two World Wars), have variously devastated many countries. Efforts to rebuild peace among nations have unfortunately not been able to heal past contentions deeply embedded, as some of its most severe wounds, in world history.

Will climate change awaken global solidarity? Even if technologies and regulations could mend the adverse consequences of global human activity and development, it is high time that the human community awakens itself from some ethical somnolence.

This world, this age are more and more tightly interconnected. But as the Roman deity Janus, globalisation has two faces, advantages and disadvantages: hence the difficult economic and political decisions to be taken by experts present at the Bali Conference. Even for ordinary citizens, advantages and disadvantages grow together in such a way that some value, some deplore as a whole this new context of human activity. Ethical somnolence at any level of decision-making and information-sharing should not be an excuse, still less a substitute, for responsibility or courage. Passivity covers itself easily under the veil of self-centred protection!

In this year 2008, Chinese Cross Currents presents to its readers its heartfelt wishes to make of the coming months a fruitful exploration of new endeavours. Under the coming climate change, other challenges await everyone. In modern societies, East and West, what worries many is the poor quality of the ethical climate, as some articles in this issue deplore: it is up to everyone to awaken to his or her own responsibility and to contribute to the change of the ethical climate and for the better. Geophysical climate will remain, for sure and for years to come, beyond human control: remedies could only be applied to slow down its degradation. But human dignity can state with assurance that ethical climate will never be globalised, as if it were imposed from beyond human control. Everyone has a share in it.

Worrying and deploring are not enough: the 192 signatories of the Bali Conference had not convened together for some obituary in memoriam of the soon to be defunct “natural climate” of the Earth! If there is a “call to arms”, as alluded to earlier, to “protect the environment” and salvage the degrading “climate change”, there also should be a “call to arms” to restore and foster the ethical climate without which no human education, progress, development, achievement, no civil society can be dreamed of. Out of somnolence, everyone has a share in it.


Yves Camus, Editor