NSF awards philosophy professor Raymond Anthony funding to host climate science and ethics conference at UAA

Associate Professor of Philosophy Dr. Raymond Anthony has been award a National Science Foundation, Arctic Social Science Division Grant to host a Climate Ethics Works-in-Progress Conference at UAA. The award is for $48,303. The conference dates are Sept. 8-9, 2011.

Abstract:
This award supports the University of Alaska Anchorage to host a two-day workshop on climate science and ethics to draw attention to the social and ethical discourses of climate change. The conference will bring together an interdisciplinary group of scientists and philosophers in order to improve understanding both of climate science and its philosophical terrain. The conference will bring together graduate students and senior scholars working in the areas of climate science and ethics to give presentations on social and philosophical perspectives on climate change. The presenters will be invited to consider implications of their arguments and conclusions for Alaska and the circumpolar region.

In addition, the conference seeks expanded opportunities for students to receive invaluable feedback from senior scholars in the fields of environmental bioethics and environmental ethics and the conference organizers anticipate that one of the outcomes will be to increase the profile of the developing field of climate ethics within the field of environmental ethics.

The conference will be open to the public and presentations will canvass issues related to research ethics, health, animal ethics, scientific uncertainty and risk, concepts of social, distributive and intergenerational justice related to global climate change, indigenous rights, the well-being of human and non-human communities in the Arctic, eco-technologies and the moral status of mitigation and adaptation strategies.

The conference and resulting publications will also offer the public insight into the complexities of climate change science and philosophy. The organizers anticipate that the conference will assist the public in identifying gaps in their knowledge and hopefully gain insights into social and moral responsibilities in the wake of environmental challenges.

For more details, the project summary can be found here.

For more information, please call Dr. Raymond Anthony, Department of Philosophy, at (907) 786-4459 or email at ranthon1@uaa.alaska.edu.