Nice article.
Brings up thoughts about "Natural Law" and the Declaration of Independence. "...All men are created equal and endowed ... with unalienable rights...". Those rights apply to every human on the globe - not only US citizens.

AsI had posted elsewhere.

This is all so sad. As a nation, we no longer know what it means to be fully human. We no longer recognize the spiritual nature of our own humanness. We have relinquished the power of democratic citizenship to corrupt egomaniac leaders. As a consumer nation, we have been on a unsustainable consumer treadmill, incapable of spiritual discernment. The middle class ignored the poor. Because of this indifference, the vast majority of Americans may become one
step above the poor, as corporate surfs. As a nation, we have been totally entrenched within our own selfishness. We are mesmerized by new technology but remain the Planet of the Apes. Our complete reliance on technology to heal a broken world has taken away our ability to think. Our most important institutions, our churches and universities have been corrupted by the love of money and the dysfunctions of the human ego. This is what the monster of consumer capitalism feeds upon.

Recognizing the evil of the love of money and the dysfunction of the human ego goes to the root tenants of all the major religions of the world. But the institutions of religion have failed humankind because they are more concerned with the perpetuation of the exclusive nature of the institution rather than coming together in humility to heal the world. Religious Institutions, like most institutions, have an ego of their own

In a nutshell, Capitalism has made America stupid.

Hopefully, the OWS movement from below is part of a evolutionary shift in human consciousness, waking America up from our national delusions of greatness and empire. Our evolution as a species requires the recognition that we are truly spiritual beings waking up in our material bodies that has been imprisoned by the human ego.

Corporate/government power and greed trump morality. It would take an enormous and overwhelming mass of very motivated people to change that, and most AmeriKans are so ambivalent or ignorant about catastrophic climate chaos (CCC), due very much to corporate media, that any mass movement to reverse CCC is impossible to even imagine.

what is morally required?

searched the whole article for the word 'sacrifice'...

not there...

infinitesimal wonder...

This was a travesty. I know it's all in a day's work for the almighty USA... Ulcered Sphincter of Ass-erica. Any one that followed the talks in Durban should be disgusted and alarmed at the rate and the chicanery with which the US is leading the world to destruction. If Capitalism doesn't kill us, Imperialism will and if that doesn't do the job, Mother Nature will sure finish us off. I wish I could say that we haven't earned it but I can't. Let the Righties or the Democrats or any and all other forms of flag-waving idiots try to fool her on that.

That was the fun part, pointing out the foibles of others. The hard part is to make a difference, the part left out. What's needed is a critical mass working for sane economic policies -- but that's work, not fun. So, to show real concern for Earth, balance the blathering with advocating the green tax shift and green subsidy shift. Check out geonomics. Then keep working.

You left out one of the strongest moral arguments I know; in the 70s, we were exhorted to "save the whale", or the elephant, or some other great mammal on the point of extinction.
Now WE are on the point of extinction. This is a shame, as we are the only species we know, or are ever likely to know, which exhibits some evidence of intelligence.
If we also add in the debt we owe to future people and to other species, the moral case is unassailable, other than by the utterly moral-less.
You're right, though; without the moral case, the science means next to nothing.

I'm going to make an uncomfortable suggestion in answer to this question. What is needed is direct, full spectrum resistance to the ongoing omnicide. There is no longer enough time to organize mass movements to demand change from within the system. Mass movements working within the system have had little or no success in stopping the destruction anyhow.

The omnicidal action of industrial civilization needs to be met head on, with force. By all means we need to keep trying above ground strategies such as lawsuits, propaganda, electoral action and civil disobedience. Perhaps they might actually, one day, perhaps, work, if only as focal points of organization for committed envronmentalists seeking a more ethical way of life. And perhaps, given an underground resistance committed to armed struggle, the goals of
aboveground groups might suddenly seem more acceptable to the ruling elite.

But we have reached the point where to construe the climate movement as implicitly non-violent is largely to accede to the murder of every living thing on the planet, including billions of people, in the name of profit and economic growth. Non-violence is a tactic. It's not a religion. If the climate movement wants to save the earth, and the billions of people who will die from a business-as-usual approach to carbon-based energy, we need to employ the full range of tactics for creating social and political change.

This is not a comfortable thing to suggest on a national venue under my own name. But it's a conclusion that should be well-nigh irresistible to anyone who's paying attention..

I think 'moral being' is key. It's a power only humans have, and it's mostly discarded in favor of ideology or corrupted by the darkness of greed and authority.

When will we ever learn? Gerard Manley Hopkins, long before the word ecology was invented, mourned the mistreatment of the environment in his moving poem, Binsey Poplars:

Felled 1879

MY aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled,
Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,
All felled, felled, are all felled;
Of a fresh and following folded rank
Not spared, not one
That dandled a sandalled
Shadow that swam or sank
On meadow and river and wind-wandering weed-winding bank.

O if we but knew what we do
When we delve or hew—
Hack and rack the growing green!
Since country is so tender
To touch, her being só slender,
That, like this sleek and seeing ball
But a prick will make no eye at all,
Where we, even where we mean
To mend her we end her,
When we hew or delve:
After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.
Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve
Strokes of havoc únselve
The sweet especial scene,
Rural scene, a rural scene,
Sweet especial rural scene.

"the War of Independence, the emancipation of the slaves, the mobilization during World War II, the civil rights movement"

The war for independence, thriggered by tax-dodging, slave-owning plutocrats who tortured and abused those loyalist civilians who opposed them.

The emancipation of the slaves; William Wilberforce beat the USA to it by about 70 years and the British Navy was attacking slaver strongholds in Africa in the early 1800s.

The mobilisation in WW2. Only when Japan forced the USA into it, after the USA had bled the UK dry for 2 years and 4 months.

Civl Rights movement. A bit slow there too, if I recall.

Just another view of the USA's history. Sorry. But you have a nice Constitution. Pity it doesn't work any more, as its destruction will lead others elsewhere to do the same with our civil liberties.

The data indicates that we are experiencing global warming. And I believe that increased levels of Carbon Dioxide have contributed to it.
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What I am not sure about is whether elimination of fossil fuels will be sufficient to stop the increase in Carbon Dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere. Farm land does not sequester carbon to the same degree as natural habitat. A significant portion of our current population is starving or suffering from malnutrition and it is estimated that we will have 3 billion more by 2050. Certainly we will need more farm land to adequately feed all these people.
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If we attempt to replace fossil fuels with bio-fuels even more natural habitat will be destroyed. A shift towards organic farming to eliminate agricultural pollution would require even more land because of decreased yields. I mention this because of recent articles about agricultural pollution killing off coral reefs and other aquatic life that converts carbon dioxide into limestone.
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The other question I have has to do with how much more serious the problem is going to get. I have seen charts on the web that seem to indicate that 100% of the energy, in the wavelengths associated with carbon dioxide, is already being absorbed. If true, this would mean that higher levels of carbon dioxide would not increase global warming. I have uploaded one of these charts and you can see it at https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1I7g2POBssZ2lPfc-XyjyWKT-N7B7cLENm5wIkPGOky4
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I would really appreciate it if somebody could direct me to a site where scientists who are proponents of global warming and the reduction of fossil fuels have addressed these two issues and taken them into account.

I would like to add a fourth reason to complete this powerful moral and ethical statement:

Fourth: To honor our responsibility to our planet Earth and to the myriads of other beings who share it with us. Humans own neither the Earth nor its creatures. We are fellow passengers with our evolutionary destination unknown. We all benefit from this beautiful world and have a responsibility to it and our fellow creatures to not degrade, but to maintain it.

it's 3:23 in the morning
and I'm awake
because my great great grandchildren
won't let me sleep
my great great grandchildren
ask me in dreams
what did you do while the planet was plundered?
what did you do when the earth was unraveling?

surely you did something
when the seasons started failing?

as the mammals, reptiles, birds were all dying?

did you fill the streets with protest?
when democracy was stolen?

what did you do
once
you
knew?...

- Drew Dellenger, "Hieroglyphic Stairway"

'Morality' can be a sticky wicket. In my experience, it's the courageous stuff of folks who, similar to Abigail Borah, exercise deep sincerity and the courage of one's convictions. You know: "If [you] don't stand for something, [you'll] fall for anything." Status quo is easy.

MK Gandhi's seven human 'blunders' that cause all violence in the world come to mind. My sense is that if one agrees with Gandhi, 'ethics' would be non-participation in these human blunders--which would be both a choice and commitment:

wealth without work
knowledge without character
worship without sacrifice
science without humanity
commerce without morality
pleasure without conscience
politics without principles

Grandson Arun Ghandi added an 8th: rights without responsibilities

Not content with throwing Christian preachers at us to claim OWS as their own about once/week, we're now getting a teaspoonful of Dalai Lama to wash it down.

Is there anyone is this forum with enough cash to buy the carbon offsets for the DL's jetsetting lifestyle? Is anyone remotely familiar with the educational and gender-based opportunities available to Tibetans under the Chinese as opposed to under the monks? Is anyone remotely familiar with the the violent history (even recent) of the intra-monk jockeying for position to be the feudal lords of Tibet, the top 10% of that society who reserved literacy and most other rights for themselves (screw the peasants), who hold women to be unclean and a lower form of life? Is anyone remotely familiar with the ongoing monk sex abuse scandal which mirrors the Catholic one to an absurd degree?

Is there any religious leader who isn't totally and completely full of it? And yet in article after article even on the liberal sites we get religion and morality conflated.

How does the spiritual leader of the following group get the parting word in what is morally necessary? http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html

I'm an average guy who barely understands right from wrong, but I see a country that sends robot-planes to bomb women and children. I see the ineffectual liberal elite who sit in their ivory towers and want a piece of the 99% action to feel relevant, but they don't actually like the smell and uncouthness of the poor. In their isolated splendor they speak of duty and honor, the common words of war. If you want to change the world, you have to reach the average man -- and you just ain't cutting it. Now that I've had my say, I can't even recall what you said, that's how pointless you are. I hate the smell of superiority in the morning, it reeks of false victory.

Homo Sapiens had become to strong for its own good ;-)! WE are over 7 billions and growing even more... However, Gaia will self-regulate and we may eventually become a species to be rid of ;-)!

Stop bitching about AMERICA! US is still a GREAT country where even morons who suggest its dismissal are free to express their inane opinions ;-)! EVERYBODY wants to live like Americans and China is now number ONE CO2 emissions producer with India catching up! So stop bitching about US and see what you can do for your country IF you are an American.

For starters you can stop driving your car, if it is not electric and if you get your electricity from a power plant that burns fossil fuels. For second, get off the grid, by collecting solar and wind energy that falls on your roof or back yard.

Third, collect your rain water which can supply over 90% of your water needs. Do not expect government to make US sustainable, but YOU can do your part by doing rather then talking about global climate change and bitching about US government.

"Scientists have spoken clearly about what steps are necessary to prevent catastrophic climate change. What we need are equally clear and insistent ethical voices, telling why immediate action to prevent climate catastrophe is required of us as moral beings and as a moral nation."

We do have ethical voices telling us that. But they're not being listened to. One reason is that scientists have told us there's a big problem, but not "clearly" what possible steps will prevent catastrophic climate change. Moreover, exactly what will happen if the steps aren't taken isn't clear, either. This lack of clarity or certainty is part of the problem. The War of Independence, emancipation of the slaves, World War II, and the civil rights movement all involved objectives, and means toward accomplishing those objectives, that were clear and easy to understand.

I'm optimistic. The scientific consensus isn't that our world will come to an end in the next decade or two if certain steps are not taken. If scientists knew that, they wouldn't be conducting further studies and debating the nuances of climate change. When the scientific consensus tightens, with regard to both what will happen and what steps humans can take to meliorate the damage, the ethical arguments will take hold. To that end, strong support for study of climate change is imperative. Also, because the progress of science isn't as rapid as we would like, patience, not panic, should prevail.

She mentioned where your reasoning is wrong: "There is grave scientific consensus.". That includes defining the problem and as to what the solutions are.

Though, must add, denial is not a form of reasoning. Denial can only be maintained with the suppression of conscious reasoning.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the corporate states of America. And to the conglomeration, for which it stands, one nation, under many CEOs, always divisible, with liberty and privilege for some.

Nice article but corporations, althought they are persons, still have no capacity for moral and ethical reasoning.