My paper “Going Fossil Free: A Lesson in Climate Activism and Political Responsibility” will appear in Handbook of Climate Change Research at Universities: Addressing the Mitigation and Adaptation Challenges, ed. W. Leal Filho (Spring, forthcoming).

Abstract   Colleges and universities already contribute significantly to the fight against climate change, but the UN has recently called upon them to do even more. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that institutions of higher education play a unique role in combatting climate change and other structural injustices, not only by conducting research and disseminating knowledge, but also by fostering a form of collective political responsibility. A philosophical analysis of different forms of collective responsibility, with specific attention to the Fossil Free divestment movement, reveals how social position facilitates this contribution more so in colleges than in other institutions.

Keywords  Climate change, collective responsibility, fossil fuel divestment, student activism

You can read a draft here. I’ll be presenting a version of this paper at a symposium in Manchester Metropolitan University this September.

I’m happy to announce that one of my articles has been accepted for publication in Environmental Values:

“Sharing Responsibility to Divest from Fossil Fuels”

Abstract: Governments have been slow to address climate change. If non-government agents share a responsibility in light of the slow pace of government action then it is a collective responsibility. I examine three models of collective responsibility, especially Iris Young’s social connection model, and assess their value for identifying a collective, among all emitters, that can share responsibility. These models can help us better understand both the growth of the fossil fuel divest movement and the nature of responsibility for collective action problems. Universities and colleges share a responsibility because they occupy similar positions of, among other things, power and privilege.

Keywords: climate change ethics; divestment; collective responsibility; Iris Young; social connection responsibility; group agency

Thanks to everyone who offered comments on drafts. You can read a version of the article here.