Ben, actually CO2 offsetting suffers from some similar problems, but obscures the fact. When you emit carbon dioxide those emissions will go on to harm particular people. When you buy offsets that will avert emissions that would have harmed different people.
So it’s analogous in that way to shooting randomly into a crowd, and then offsetting by paying others not to shoot into the crowd. Some reasons we react differently for CO2 are that the victims are distant, aren’t identifiable, and the mechanism is further from direct physical force.
When you emit carbon dioxide those emissions will go on to harm particular people. When you buy offsets that will avert emissions that would have harmed different people.
That only seems to show that emissions do harm. Not that the harm is so finely individuated.
fwiw there are reasons to doubt the butterfly effect works in the same way given quantum mechanics
CO2 offsetting is an ex ante pareto improvement, whereas killing one person then paying someone else not to kill more than 1 person isn’t. I was trying to say the meat offsetting example could be seen as more like the second. You could think both are problematic though.
Interesting. Nonetheless, people buying carbon offsets don’t think that their pollution is seriously harming certain people which they’re making up for by helping otherwise. So they see buying carbon offsets as very different from buying the sort of ‘murder offsets’ that Ben mentions.
Ben, actually CO2 offsetting suffers from some similar problems, but obscures the fact. When you emit carbon dioxide those emissions will go on to harm particular people. When you buy offsets that will avert emissions that would have harmed different people.
So it’s analogous in that way to shooting randomly into a crowd, and then offsetting by paying others not to shoot into the crowd. Some reasons we react differently for CO2 are that the victims are distant, aren’t identifiable, and the mechanism is further from direct physical force.
What’s this claim based on?
Harm from weather events: heat stroke, storms, crop damage. Plus the butterfly effect.
That only seems to show that emissions do harm. Not that the harm is so finely individuated. fwiw there are reasons to doubt the butterfly effect works in the same way given quantum mechanics
I’d be interested to hear Carl’s response, since this is an interesting test case for the harm-avoidance moral principles at issue.
CO2 offsetting is an ex ante pareto improvement, whereas killing one person then paying someone else not to kill more than 1 person isn’t. I was trying to say the meat offsetting example could be seen as more like the second. You could think both are problematic though.
Interesting. Nonetheless, people buying carbon offsets don’t think that their pollution is seriously harming certain people which they’re making up for by helping otherwise. So they see buying carbon offsets as very different from buying the sort of ‘murder offsets’ that Ben mentions.