ABSTRACT
The Anthropocene and the Holocene are coeval. Preserving the Holocene/Anthropocene climate is the overarching concern of twenty-first-century environmental philosophy and ethics. The second wave of the environmental crisis—ozone thinning, biodiversity erosion, and climate change—crested in the mid-1980s and is global in scale. The land ethic is local in scale. Therefore, an earth ethic is needed. Leopold sketched several in 1923: a three-pronged virtue ethic, a care ethic for posterity, an ethic of respect for the living planet. An individualistic ethic for distant future generations falls afoul of the non-identity paradox. Fiduciary care for global civilization can serve as a surrogate.
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Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. I am indebted to Dale Jamieson for sharing this gem with me.