summary of Thermodynamic ethics of Climate Change from an Neo-thomist perspective

The laws of thermodynamics from the perspective of a Neo-thomist
environmental ethics of climate change

Rainier A. Ibana

Ateneo de Manila University

Philippines

Summary:

This paper is anchored on St. Thomas’ fundamental insight that only
the most perfect being exists as pure act of being.  The activities of
finite existents, on the other hand, are bound by the limitations
imposed on them by their particular modes of being. The actions and
interactions among finite existents, although bound by the
potentialities imposed on them by the natural world, however, can
share and receive the activities of other beings, by means of the
principle of causality, in the same manner that the first law of
thermodynamics states that energy is neither created nor destroyed but
merely transformed from one entity to another.   This system of
interaction can be kept in balance for as long as the total energy
consumed from one transformation to another are received and consumed
by other beings.  The cyclical laws of nature demonstrate such cosmic
harmony in their acting, receiving, and interacting with one another.

Modern linear and vertical production and consumption patterns,
however, are extending the cyclical patterns of nature to the extent
that she can no longer regenerate herself and instead produces systems
of complexity that lead to drastic climatic changes that lead to a
more chaotic world.  Biology?s ten percent law demonstrates the second
law of thermodynamics when it shows that only ten percent of energy is
retained by one tropic level to the next.  As levels of consumption
are increased, however, more energy is expended that heat up the
environment especially if these excess energies, in the form of non-biodegradable
entities, cannot be absorbed or received by other beings.

These laws of nature question whether there can be technological
solutions to technological problems related to climate change if these
solutions merely increase levels of production and consumption
patterns that threaten the life-carrying capacity of planet earth.  An
environmental ethics, therefore, must be built on lifestyles that
rest on the primacy of the act of existing and not on the consumption
of entities that produce excessive energies that cannot be received
and transformed by other beings.  The human being, as dominus sui,
cannot abdicate its responsibility for the current state and future of
the environment.  The type of human being that we are and will become
is reflected by what we have done or not done to our surroundings.