EAST LANSING, Mich. -- It's not enough to simply know the environmental impacts of climate change, according to Michigan State University ethicist Michael Nelson. Instead, we must do something and getting from knowing to acting is the challenge.
That's the crux of "Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril," a book Nelson co-edited, which will be released Sept. 1. He is associate professor with joint appointments in MSU's departments of Fisheries and Wildlife and Philosophy as well as the Lyman Briggs College.
The collection of essays was also edited by Kathleen Moore, distinguished professor of philosophy and writer laureate at Oregon State University.
Nelson authored the essay, "To a Future without Hope" for the book, in which he argues that virtue and integrity, rather than hope for solving climate change, should be our motivation for climate action.
"We, each of us, right now, at this exact moment in time, have the power to choose to live the moral life, to live a life that is indeed worth living," Nelson wrote.
"The book is a call to people to honor their moral responsibility to the future to strive to avert the worst consequences of environmental emergencies," Nelson and Moore wrote in the book's introduction, "and leave a world as rich in life and possibility as the world we live in."
The ethical conversation is one that Nelson said is ripe, but requires some serious thought.
"We're having the whole environmental conversation in a different way now," he said. "We have the facts; we need to act. What we need, however, is a reason to act. We contend, as do many of the essayists, that our moral obligation to the future and the planet is a reason to act."
Contributors to the book include politicians such as President Barack Obama, former vice president Al Gore and Iran's first female vice president Massoumeh Ebtekar; writers such as Terry Tempest Williams, Wendell Berry and Daniel Quinn; and religious leaders including Pope John Paul II and the Dalai Lama. Additionally, "Moral Ground" features essays from journalists, including Thomas Friedman and Alan Wiesman, business leaders and leading philosophers.
Michigan authors include John Vucetich, Rolf Peterson, Stephanie Mills and Paul Thompson, W.K. Kellogg Chair in Agricultural, Food and Community Ethics at MSU.
Published by Trinity University Press, all the proceeds from "Moral Ground" will support climate action or other organizations that do work relevant to the project.
Nelson will host a reading and book signing 7 p.m. Sept. 7 at Schuler Books in Eastwood Towne Center in Lansing. He will read his essay, and several MSU faculty members will read other essays from the book.
Nelson and Moore will also host a town hall meeting at Grand Rapids Community College in October.
For more information, visit the "Moral Ground" website.
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