Climate Collapse and Biophilic Eco-ethics: The COVID-19 Pandemic at the Door

Abstract

This article shows the importance of addressing the global warming crisis from an eco-ethical perspective. Relevant data on the climate crisis are shown in order to leave behind the idea of a mere climate change and understand that we are facing the possibility of an irreversible collapse whose prelude is being the COVID-19 health crisis. From an ethical point of view, we locate the cause of this situation in inbred anthropocentrism, which has centered us on the exercise of power and the development of a technology that alters complex systems such as climate and loses control over them. We suggest as an antidote an eco-ethic from Aldo Leopold capable of incorporating (in this first approach) the observations and ethical approaches of contemporary authors such as Jared Diamond and Dale Jamieson. What is common to all of them is the importance they give to the construction of a biophilic subject that faces life as a whole humbly, and autonomously decides to contribute to the improvement of the planet despite the adverse reality.