The issue of climate change is an incredibly multivariate phenomenon. Consequently, it has in recent years become increasingly evident that understanding and responding to it requires a highly interdisciplinary effort. We see, for instance, physical science providing future climate projections predicated upon sociological hypotheses about the large-scale trajectories of human behavior, but we need also the study of individual human psychology in order to most efficiently create the motivation needed to avert such trajectories.

Perhaps the most recognized connection between philosophy and climate change has been environmental ethics, which, drawing on the tradition of ethical theory, has been a vigorous, ongoing field of labor for half a century. But the intersections between philosophy and climate change are more wide-ranging.

For instance, climate science raises questions of what we can know and accurately predict about the future due to increasingly sophisticated scientific methods, such as measurement of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, analyses of satellite imagery, and climate modelling. In turn, epistemological as well as ethical considerations presuppose agents, relations, and domains, inviting ontological enquiry.

The ambition of this conference is to facilitate discussion of the ways in which philosophy can fruitfully engage with the issue of climate change.