Die Moral der Energiewende by Jochen Ostheimer (Editor); Markus Vogt (Editor)Die angelaufene Energiewende ist mit vielschichtigen sozialen und wirtschaftlichen Konflikten verbunden. Unterschiedliche Interessen, Wertungen und Prognosen stehen sich gegenuber. Dieser Band untersucht die ethische Reichweite der verschiedenen Argumentationsmodelle und reflektiert dabei insbesondere die zentrale Kategorie des Risikos sowie die gesellschaftliche Einbettung der Energiewende in die "Grosse Transformation." Namhafte Forscher aus den Bereichen Ethik, Sozialwissenschaften und Physik erhellen in interdisziplinarer Zusammenschau die gesellschaftlichen Kontexte, analysieren die okonomischen und rechtlichen Risiken und untersuchen vor allem die moralischen Implikationen dieses Projekts. Ziel ist es, die unterschiedlichen Argumentationsebenen und Rationalitatstypen methodisch reflektiert aufeinander zu beziehen und so die national wie international hart aufeinandertreffenden Positionen diskursfahig zu machen.
ISBN: 9783170229334
Publication Date: 2014
Governance Gap by Georgette Gagnon (Editor); Audrey Macklin; Penelope SimonsThis book explores the persistence of the governance gap with respect to the human rights-impacting conduct of transnational extractive corporations operating in zones of weak governance. The authors launch their account with a fascinating case study of Talisman Energy's experience in Sudan, informed by their own experience as members of the 1999 Canadian Assessment Mission to Sudan (Harker Mission). Drawing on new governance, reflexive law and responsive law theories, the authors assess legal and other non-binding governance mechanisms that have emerged since that time, including the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. They conclude that such mechanisms are incapable of systematically preventing human rights violating behaviour by transnational corporations, or of assuring accountability of these actors or recompense for victims of such violations. The authors contend that home state regulation, while not a silver bullet, has a crucial role to play in regulating such conduct. They pick up where UN Special Representative John Ruggie's Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights left off, and propose an innovative, robust and adaptable template for strengthening the regulatory framework of home states. Their model draws insights from the theoretical literature, leverages existing public, private, transnational, national, 'soft' and hard regulatory tools, and harnesses the specific strengths of state-based governance. This book will be of interest to academics, policy makers, students, civil society and business leaders.
ISBN: 9780415334709
Publication Date: 2014
Energy Security, Inequality and Justice by Benjamin K. Sovacool; Sidortsov Roman; Benjamin R. JonesThis book applies concepts from ethics, justice, and political philosophy to five sets of contemporary energy problems cutting across time, economics, politics, geography, and technology. In doing so, the authors derive two key energy justice principles from modern theories of distributive justice, procedural justice, and cosmopolitan justice. The prohibitive principle states that "energy systems must be designed and constructed in such a way that they do not unduly interfere with the ability of people to acquire those basic goods to which they are justly entitled." The affirmative principle states that "if any of the basic goods to which people are justly entitled can only be secured by means of energy services, then in that case there is also a derivative entitlement to the energy services." In laying out and employing these principles, the book details a long list of current energy injustices ranging from human rights abuses and energy-related civil conflict to energy poverty and pervasive and growing negative externalities. The book illustrates the significance of energy justice by combining the most up-to-date data on global energy security and climate change, including case studies and examples from the electricity supply, transport, and heating and cooking sectors, with appraisals based on centuries of thought about the meaning of justice in social decisions.
ISBN: 9780415815192
Publication Date: 2014
The Energy of Slaves by Andrew NikiforukBy the winner of the Rachel Carson Environment Book Award Ancient civilizations relied on shackled human muscle. It took the energy of slaves to plant crops, clothe emperors, and build cities. Nineteenth-century slaveholders viewed critics as hostilely as oil companies and governments now regard environmentalists. Yet the abolition movement had an invisible ally: coal and oil. As the world's most versatile workers, fossil fuels replenished slavery's ranks with combustion engines and other labor-saving tools. Since then, cheap oil has transformed politics, economics, science, agriculture, and even our concept of happiness. Many North Americans today live as extravagantly as Caribbean plantation owners. We feel entitled to surplus energy and rationalize inequality, even barbarity, to get it. But endless growth is an illusion. What we need, Andrew Nikiforuk argues in this provocative new book, is a radical emancipation movement that ends our master-and-slave approach to energy. We must learn to use energy on a moral, just, and truly human scale.