IC27: What are the selfish arguments for climate action?

Show notes

If the moral argument of ‘doing the right thing’ is outdated, should we switch to differently appealing argumentation in the way we talk about climate change with some audiences? In this episode, we discuss ‘selfish’ arguments for climate action, i.e. effects on health and money.

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Sources

• Barnes et al.: Summer heat deaths in 854 European cities more than tripled due to climate change (2025). https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk/server/api/core/bitstreams/4d5b1a8a-c5ed-47fd-894c-f05ae31ae69d/content
• Health and Environment Alliance: False fix: the hidden health impacts of Europe’s fossil gas dependency (2022) https://www.env-health.org/false-fix/#:~:text=The%20briefing's%20authors%20note%20that:%20*%20The,the%20UK%2C%20France%2C%20the%20Netherlands%2C%20and%20Spain
• Carbon Brief: Five charts: How climate change is driving up food prices around the world (2024). https://www.carbonbrief.org/five-charts-how-climate-change-is-driving-up-food-prices-around-the-world/
• Kotz et al.: Global warming and heat extremes to enhance inflationary pressures (2024). https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-023-01173-x
• European Economic and Social Committee: The cost of climate change on households and families in the EU (2023). https://www.eesc.europa.eu/sites/default/files/files/qe-04-23-897-en-n.pdf
• European Energy Agency: Climate Risks to the Economy (Sept 2025) https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/europe-environment-2025/thematic-briefings/climate-change/climate-risks-to-the-economy
• UNDP (2022) https://www.undp.org/eurasia/blog/climate-security#:~:text=Globally%2C%20and%20in%20the%20Europe,water%2C%20food%20and%20energy%20security.
• Time: 143 Million People Could Soon Be Displaced Because of Climate Change, World Bank Says (2018). https://time.com/5206716/world-bank-climate-change-internal-migration/
• Concern Worldwide (2024)https://www.concern.net/news/climate-refugees-explained
• Choi et al.: Temperature, Crime, and Violence: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis(2024). https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11477092/#:~:text=We%20screened%2016%2C634%20studies%20with,4–6