Peter Singer and Climate Changes

Trevor Craig

Energy Science 110

Peter Singer’s One World.

9/15/11           

            The book “One World” by Peter Singer confronts the United States, and the world, to many ethical and environmental issues, which need to be addressed. The main ethical question that this paper will focus on addressing is whether we are truly one world, and if we are one world, than should we help others of the world that are less fortunate than ourselves and should we be concerned with the rest of the world or stay focused on our own problems?

            The ethic that this paper will be focused on is whether the United States should focus more on itself or care about the rest of the world.  Singer discusses this ethic on pages 3, and multiple other times within this book, “To what extent should political leaders see their role narrowly, in terms of promoting the interests of their citizens, and to what extent should they be concerned with the welfare of people everywhere?” In other words should nations focus more on themselves or on the good for the world?  Singer argues for both sides of the argument but finally lands on the welfare of people everywhere. He gets to this conclusion by saying that we are now one world.

Peter Singer tries to make it very obvious that we are now one world instead of many separate nations and states. On page 1 of “One World”, Peter Singer tries to grab a hold of his audience and show how we are one world in a powerful, meaningful, way, he does this by saying that 9/11 shows that we are one world. He says that the fact that different countries, even countries that are across the world from each other, can affect each other countries so easily proves that we are one world. But he is not done yet, he goes on to say that although many people died in 9/11, more will die as a result from sports utility vehicles, from their carbon dioxide emissions and gas guzzling capabilities. He claims on page 1 “when people in rich nations switch to vehicles that use more fuel than the cars they used to drive, they contribute to changes in the climate of Mozambique or Bangladesh- changes that may cause crops to fail, sea levels to rise, and tropical diseases to spread.” This is due to global warming and the effects that will happen if nothing is done to prevent global warming.

Many people still have their doubts about global warming but on page 16 Paul Singer addresses this lack of faith, “Those of us who have no expertise in the scientific aspects of climate change and its causes can scarcely disregard the views held by the overwhelming majority of those who do possess that expertise. They could be wrong- the great majority of scientists sometimes are- but in view of what is at stake to rely on that possibility would be a risky situation.” If global warming is not real, but we still take the precautions against it, we will be a better cleaner society. But if global warming is real and we do nothing to do to prepare for it and we continue to burn large amounts of fossil fuels and emit larger numbers of carbon dioxide a year, then the world will soon change from the earth we know today to something less pleasant. The earth will be a completely different thing than what we know it as now.

So back to the ethical issue of worrying about ourselves or the world, if we refuse to do anything about our carbon dioxide emissions it will eventually affect us. The United States may not initially be affected by climate change, but we will feel the effects due to the world now moving towards a world trade market, instead of the old single nation trading. On page 10 it highlights the point of a world trade market, “As technology has overcome distance, economic globalization has followed. In London supermarkets, fresh vegetables flown in from Kenya are offered for sale alongside those from nearby Kent.” In this new world economy we often purchase many of our goods from other countries. But if global warming continues and crop lands decrease, water levels rise taking farmers land, and diseases spread, this could greatly affect our economy.

As we move more towards a world trade system, we move closer to a global economy. So the people that are struggling with poverty and don’t have enough food right now become our problem. Peter Singer on page 152 says ““Charity begins at home”, people say, and more explicitly, “we should take care of poverty in our own country before we tackle poverty abroad.” They take it for granted that national boundaries carry moral weight, and that it is worse to leave one of our fellow citizens in need than to leave someone from another country in that state.” So are the people in the United States taken care of as well as the rest of the world? On average, the citizens of the United States have much better lives than other places in the world suffering with great poverty, for example India. But now we are back to the original ethical question, due to the fact that our nation is becoming part of the one world, their problems will soon become our problems in one way or another, should we help them?

Before this one world became so connected, people looked at their surroundings to see what was concerned poverty and rich, but Singer says on page 173-174 “But today it is a mistake to think that people compare themselves only with fellow citizens(or will all their fellow citizens)…Mexicans obviously look longingly north of the border…and the same can be true for people who are not in close geographic proximity,…not because they are being politically persecuted, but because  they already have enough of an idea about life in those far away countries to want to live there.” So other people look now to the world instead of their surroundings to dream of a better life for themselves.

People in countries that contain extreme poverty will not take much to help them out of their poverty. We are willing to help poverty in our own nation but are sometimes reluctant when it comes to other countries, Singer touches on this on page 156 in an extremely visual picture of what it is like to help someone with a little cost to ourselves, “On my way to give a lecture, I pass a shallow pond. As I do so, I see a small girl fall into it and realize that she is in danger of drowning. I could easily wade in and pull her out, but that would get my shoes and trousers wet and muddy. I would need to go home and change, I’d have to cancel the lecture, and my shoes might never recover. Nevertheless, it would be grotesque to allow such minor considerations to outweigh the good of saving a child’s life.” Singer uses this argument to emphasize that we should help the poor in other countries and also help avoid major tragedies like genocides, even with small cost to ourselves. Singer argues that all lives are equal when it comes to saving lives, on page 157 “it makes no moral difference whether the person I help is a neighbor’s child ten yards from me or a Bengali whose name I shall never know, ten thousand miles away.” That statement may not be shared the majority of the people in the United States, but in general we can agree that poverty and genocide is bad and that anything we can do to reduce or eliminate those sort of problems would be a good thing, even if there was a small cost to ourselves.

Although the general population of Americans believes that we should help other nations and not just focus on ourselves they are greatly misinformed on the amount of aid that is actually being provided right now. It is almost comical looking at the guesses of the amount of foreign aid Americans think we provide, by percentage of our Gross National Product. On page 182 it says only .14% of our GNP is for foreign aid, and that is including nongovernmental aid. The guesses of Americans were not even close they ranged from 20% to 1%. Singer claims that all it would take to save a child’s life is a donation of $200 on page 188 “So it seems that we must be doing something serious wrong if we are not prepared to give $200 to UNICEF or Oxfam American to reduce the poverty that causes so many early deaths.” If all it took was $200 to save someone’s life, as Singer suggests, many Americans could save many lives with the extra money they have. On page 193 it says if we were to give 1% of our yearly income to the poor, we could eliminate world poverty in 1 year. That would be quite the accomplishment.

One of the problems about giving money to poverty right now is our government. We often give to countries that we want something from or want some sort of advantage, as Singer states on page 191 “The United States , France, and Japan- direct their aid, not to those countries where it will be most effective in fostering growth and reducing poverty, but to countries where aid will further their own strategic or cultural interests.” So now the problem comes to how we are supposed to get the money to the people who need it with our government giving how it is. When we give money to some governments the dictators or corrupt leaders keep the money instead of giving it to the people who really need it, holding us back from ending world poverty.

Obviously our world has gotten more connected with the internet and other new technologies; this makes us more and more one world, instead of a bunch of separate nations. Other nations have made the ethical decision to focus on the good of the world, instead of focusing so much on the good of their own nation. The United States is currently focusing on itself, Singer thinks that the answer to the ethical question is not to focus on us but the world, on page 198-199 “One can only hope that when the rest of the world nevertheless proceeds down the right path, as it did in resolving to go ahead with the Kyoto Protocol, and as it is now doing with the International Criminal Court, the United States will eventually be shamed into joining in.” So now we must make our ethical decision, should we as the United States care more about helping ourselves and fixing the problems with our own country, like our debts and wars, or should we give most of our attention to the environmental issues and pressing problems of the world?  I agree with the view of Peter Singer and believe that we should care more about the people of the world and not so much on ourselves, but I also believe we need to make sure our own country is working so we can carry out the tasks of helping others. We need to find the balance between helping your own country and helping the world, that is the key to finding a brighter tomorrow.

ENSC110 Craig Peter Singer