Climate Adaptation Education

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How Do Ethics and Climate Change Overlap?

It’s important to learn about ethics through real stories.

Ethics is about standards for group behaviours in society.

In this module we will consider how ethical our society is by analyzing its standards to vulnerable populations as they relate to climate change.

A society is measured by how it treats the weakest members. (multiple attributions)

Ven diagram of ethics, vulnerable populations, and climate change.

Welcome! Say, "Hi," in the chat.

Include the following in the chat:

  1. Your preferred name and pronouns
  2. Where you’re joining from
  3. Land acknowledgement

For example:

Hello folks, Ingrid joining from Ottawa, she/her. I’m sitting along the tremendous Kitschissippi (Ottawa River) on unceded Algonquin lands in the southeast corner of Anishnabek territories.

Learning Outcomes

  • Consider ethics as it relates to climate change.
  • Use critical thinking strategies to assess society for ethical behaviours.
This is an illustrated line drawing of the sky, houses and the ground. A blue swirl represents the sky. A green-brown line represents the ground. There are three orange houses and two pines trees made out of geometric shapes. The word weather appears in the top left corner. The word "you" appears on the ground line. The word "ground" appears under the ground line.

Warm-up! Definitions & Experiences

The following section is intended to help you prepare for this ethics module on vulnerable populations and climate adaptation.

Definition: What is ethics?

Ethics refers to the relative “rightness,” “goodness,” and/or “appropriateness” of behaviours.

Ethical standards and behaviours can govern person-to-person interactions or broad group-to-group sets of behaviours.

Ethical standards are established in both formal and informal segments of society such as government and healthcare or schools and religions.

Made with Padlet

Definition: Who is vulnerable in our society?

A large portion of our society is considered vulnerable. Society has made some progress towards awareness and inclusion of vulnerable populations.

Key concept:

Many people have overlapping vulnerabilities. Vulnerabilities are a multiplier. The more vulnerabilities you experience, the harder life becomes.

Have we done enough?

Age and Well-being

  • Youth
  • Elders
  • Neurodivergent
  • Living alone
  • Sick
  • Invisible disability
  • Mental illness
  • Body size
  • Mobility access

Minoritized Communities:

  • Women
  • LGBTQIA2S+
  • Indigenous
  • People of colour
  • African-Canadians
  • Poor
  • Hungry
  • Religious minorities
  • Language barriers

Class and Immigration:

  • Low income
  • No income
  • Social housing residents
  • New immigrants
  • Climate migrants
  • War refugees

Experience: What is your personal experience of climate change?

Climate change refers specifically to the overall global increase in temperature and precipitation. This change is experienced differently in different places and is increasingly unpredictable.

Climate hazards refers to the results of the increased volatile weather, such as storms, landslides, droughts and wildfires.

Climate adaptation refers to how we prepare for and respond to climate hazards.

Click here to answer the questions below directly in Google Forms.

Vulnerable Populations & Emergency Preparedness

How would a climate hazard effect you differently if you were considered part of a vulnerable population?

Watch video

  • How does incorporating vulnerable populations into this video on emergency preparedness affect your perception of a climate hazard?
  • How does our inclusion of vulnerable populations as valuable members of our society reflect our shared ethical standards?

Physical evidence of ethical standards:

  • Inaccessible buildings and bathrooms
  • Websites that cannot be read by screenreaders.
  • Instructions that are not in your language.

Assignment: Vulnerable Populations Mapping

Make a map of your neighbourhood.

  1. Get a piece of paper, (preferably with a grid).
  2. Draw the buildings in your neighbourhood on the grid. Leave space for roads.
  3. Count how many vulnerable people you think live in each building.

Consider:

  1. Who should take care of vulnerable populations during a climate hazard?
  2. Is it societies responsibility to plan for vulnerable populations during climate hazards?
  3. How might our social ethics influence our personal behaviours?
This is an image of a grid with boxes that signify different buildings. The "Vs" signifiy where vulnerable populations live in this person's neighbourhood.

Reflection

References

Federal Emergency Management Agency. (2015). FEMA Emergency Kit. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/RKJ4gwcDI6w