American Heat: Ethical Problems with the United States' Response to Global Warming

(Paperback)

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An examination of the United States' responses to global warming negotiations through an ethical lens. The text's conclusions are often harshly critical of those responses over the last decade and a half of the 20th century. In fact, it concludes that many of the United States' positions in global climate change negotiations are ethically bankrupt no matter what ethical theory is used in the analysis. The volume claims that because there is so much at stake - because the poorest people around the world are likely to suffer most from human-induced climate change, and because the USA is the largest producer of greenhouse gases and has been least willing to reverse the global warming threat - the United States' response to global warming is problematic.

Reviews

Drawing on his own deeply American conscience, Don Brown has put America's indifference to the climate crisis into its most essential contexthuman ethics. As American Heat illustrates, our response to global warming is corroding our most cherished values. With so much of the debate focused on science and economics, Brown forces us to confront what we are doing to our poor neighbors around the world, to our species at home and, ultimately, to our own children. -- Ross Gelbspan, 1984 Pulitzer Prize Winner and author, The Heat Is On.
I found American Heat an excellent read. Don Brown examines ethical issues embedded in policymaking and science as they relate to the failure of the United States to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. Readers of American Heat will understand how, when it comes to the issue of global warming, ethics is often a silent but potent driver of political and scientific voices. -- Edward Wells, Environmental Studies Department, Wilson College
Donald Brown is uniquely placed to make and defend the arguments in American Heat, the first book of its kind to clearly and convincingly connect the questions surrounding climate change with their ethical consequences. -- Laura Westra, University of Windsor
In American Heat, Donald Brown shines a harsh light on one of the tawdriest chapters in recent American policy: our unwillingness to own up to our obvious obligation to help in the process of repairing the climate we have done so much to damage. If our leaders are capable of shame, this book should do the trick. -- Bill McKibben, Founder of Third Act and author of The Flag, The Cross and The Station Wagon
The criticisms in American Heat flow from the intellectual tour de force of Brown's analysis and his deep belief that Americans will help lead the world to combating global warming fairly and justly once they understand how ethically troubling our current stance actually is. This book is a must read. -- John Lemons, University of New England
A convincing case, made by a gutsy insider, that the history of the U.S. response to global warming is ethically intolerable. American Heat is informative, provocative, and passionately argued. It deserves widespread public attention and discussion. -- William Aiken, Chatham College

Author Bio

Donald A. Brown is senior counsel on Sustainable Development for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources. He has over 25 years of experience in senior environmental legal and management positions in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and for the United States Environmental Protection Agency.