We re in the ugly situation where we need to choose which of our greenhouse babies we should kill, so as to save the rest.
There is a human tradition exemplified by Captain Lawrence Oates, who hoped by sacrificing himself, he could save the rest of Scott's polar expedition. He stepped out of the tent, saying, "
I may be some time" and presumably froze to death.
Sometimes collegiality comes into it and people jointly agree on the way to solve the problem, like this sea shanty that I learned when I was seven or eight. It relates to shipwrecked sailors surviving in a small boat who have run out of food. They decided that, to survive, one of their number must agree to become food for the rest:
Poor cabin boy he drew the shortest straw,
Poor cabin boy he drew the shortest straw,
He'd never been, been, been to sea before,
He'd never been, been, been to sea before,
O aye, o aye
They served him up with white sauce in a pie,
They served him up with white sauce in a pie,
With juicy leaves, leaves, leaves of salsify,
With juicy leaves, leaves, leaves of salsify,
O aye, o aye.
Oh aye.
But, getting serious, in the case of the Severn estuary, we are being required to make decisions about peril to estuary dwellers as opposed to hard-to-pin-down land, air and sea life that will be damaged or even annihilated if human greenhouse gas emission is not rapidly curbed.
We have no obvious ethical framework to do this. Suggestions?