From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
If morality is the science of the good, ethics is the study of that science, and bioethics is the study of that science as it relates to biosphere.
In the end, what happened is I climbed Everest, I came back, and inadvertently I had transformed everyone that works at Arçelik literally from people who are working to earn money and live their lives, to people who are working to do their best they possibly could in terms of mitigating this climate crisis.
We are the master race. We are the creatures who impose our will on virtually everything that lives and breathes. It's deeply shocking when you start to think about the scale of it.
It was her death that actually made us say 'right, that's it – we've talked a lot but we haven't done anything. Now we've got to do something'. And that's when Zoo Check began which is what we were called in those days.
In the 21st century, there are cameras everywhere except for where our food and energy come from, and where our waste goes. We are the most powerful species in the world, but we remain blind to the fundamentals that allow us to survive. How are we blind to our life support system?
It's sad that we don't immediately see the profound injustices embedded in climate change. It is precisely those people who have no responsibility for having caused climate change who are the most vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate.
For the first time since life began, a single animal is utterly dominant: the ape species Homo sapiens. Evolution has equipped us with huge brains, stunning adaptability and brilliantly successful technical prowess.
It is difficult to imagine a graver threat; or an area of human endeavour or global ecology in which the profound consequences of runaway climate change would not be disastrous. Already, it is estimated that around 300,000 people die every year as a direct result of climate change.
We can only solve our ecological problems by linking ecology and economy. If we can create the right economic environment, change will happen. If it's more profitable to be efficient than wasteful, we will be efficient.
Today, policies are sold to us largely on the basis of fear, or fear mitigation: from immigration to climate change, from health services to defence. It's less about promoting a progressive vision of the future and more about playing to our fears of what might happen if we don't toe a particular line.
What we give to alleviate the need, suffering and sorrow of others, whether we know them or not, is charity. What we give to prevent and correct social and environmental problems and improve life and living conditions of people and creatures we don't know and who have no claim on us is philanthropy.
A lot of governments and corporations have made pledges to be carbon neutral by 2050 without having any way to do it. They don't know how to do it. They don't have the tools to do it. We have found over 1000 solutions that can help.