Climate change may be the most far reaching manifestation of white privilege and class privilege yet to face humankind. Caused overwhelmingly by high-consuming people, climate change is wreaking death and destruction foremost on impoverished people who also are disproportionately people of color. This presentation will first posit climate change as a
compelling moral matter of “race- and class-based climate debt” and “Global North climate-debt.” Part Two will draw upon the descriptive task of Christian ethics as a critical discourse to frame a moral response. A brief third section will suggest keys to accepting commensurate moral responsibility. Finally, drawing upon international environmental law, the presentation illustrates implications for climate-related policy. Along the way, I propose the concepts of “climate privilege” and “climate violence” as tools for demystifying our situation, and “climate citizenship” as a tool for moral identity.Cynthia Moe-Lobeda has lectured or consulted in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, Australia, and North America in theology; ethics; and matters of climate justice and climate racism, moral agency, globalization, economic justice, eco-feminist theology, and faith-based resistance to systemic oppression. Her most recent book, Resisting Structural Evil: Love as Ecological-Economic Vocation, won a Nautilus Award for social justice. She is author or co-author of six volumes and numerous articles and chapters. Moe-Lobeda is Professor of of Theological and Social Ethics at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, Church Divinity School of the Pacific, and the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley.
