Brazil is to host the global climate conference Cop30 in November. Fifty thousand people will come to the city of Belém for this event. The state government is thinking ahead.
They’re building an eight-mile, four-lane highway through the Amazon rainforest to ease traffic. Thousands of trees have already been felled, slicing this important ecosystem in two, as well as destroying parts of it.
This looks like short-sightedness and hypocrisy, sacrificing some of the forest for the sake of outsiders, many of whom will have flown there, and all in the name of concern for the environment. That’s how it has been widely reported.
Yet this road-building project had been discussed for 20 years, long before the summit was announced. Critics point out, however, that it only got the green light once Belém had been chosen as the Cop30 site.
Previously the environmental impact of the proposed road was a decisive factor. Now, ironically, it seems concern for the environment is what has led to the arrival of workers with chainsaws. Promises of wildlife crossings and solar lighting won’t appease environmental protesters, who are rightly concerned about the size of the event’s carbon footprint, as well as its immediate effects on the forest.
Yet the official story is of the importance of holding a meeting about the Amazon rainforest within the forest area itself, and also of the social renewal that this new road will bring to Belém. These are arguments about balancing the consequences of actions.
The sacrifice of yet another section of the rainforest is deemed a price worth paying because of likely benefits to rainforests in general, to the global climate, and to the residents of the city. This cost-benefit analysis is characteristic of a utilitarian ethic that allows that some destructive action can be morally appropriate if it brings about good consequences: the end justifies the means. Allegedly.
The classic ethical dilemma of whether it’s ever permissible to sacrifice one person to save many is relevant here. Bernard Williams illustrated it with a famous thought experiment known as “Jim and the Indians”.
Jim is on a botanical expedition and gets lost. He finds himself in the central square of a small town in an unspecified South American country. In front of him are 20 Indians – they are being held by a small group of men in sweat-stained khaki uniforms and carrying guns. One of the captors turns to him and explains that their prisoners were chosen randomly and he is about to kill them as a warning to locals thinking of protesting.
However, as guest of honour, Jim may have the privilege of killing one of them himself. And if he does that, the other 19 will be released to mark the special occasion.
This puts Jim in a terrible dilemma. He doesn’t want to kill anyone, but he also doesn’t want to see 20 people die. How can he resolve this?
For a utilitarian though, this isn’t a dilemma at all. It’s so clear-cut that killing one person would bring about better consequences than refusing to do so.
But many philosophers, including Bernard Williams, think that is precisely what is wrong with a utilitarian approach: it neglects the ethical commitments of the person in question (in this case Jim) for the sake of an impersonal calculation about likely outcomes and overall benefits.
Jim doesn’t want to kill anyone. That’s part of his value system. But he’s supposed to override it for the greater good. But even in the contrived example, it’s not that simple.
Shifting back to Belém, if we could show that Cop30 would halt the destruction of rainforests, a utilitarian calculation would support the sacrifice of eight miles of forest for the sake of the greater good. But for those who value rainforests, the destruction of any of these habitats is a terrible evil and never justified morally.
Outside the realms of thought experiments, calculations about what is likely to happen as the result of our actions are extremely difficult. Thinking about this now, we can’t be sure that a summit held in Brazil in November will have greater overall benefit to the climate than the cost to the local ecosystem of felling those trees, and to the atmosphere of all that jet fuel used to bring delegates to the Amazon.
I suggest, though, that we can be sure that holding Cop30 as a virtual conference would have been a safer bet than sacrificing even a small part of this extraordinary terrain for a presumed greater good.
