Why worry about future generations?
Analysis
BBC
4.6 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 7 February 2022
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What do we owe future generations? Everyone who is alive, has rights. And governments have obligations to their citizens. But what about people who are not yet born? Should their interests be taken into account - even though they don’t yet exist? David Edmonds draws upon the thinking of the late philosopher Derek Parfit to address this vexing question, which has consequences for real-world policy now in areas such as climate change. Presenter: David Edmonds Producer: Nathan Gower Editor: Hugh Levinson
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:04.6 | My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds. |
| 0:08.4 | As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable |
| 0:14.3 | experts and genuinely engaging voices. What you may not know is that the BBC |
| 0:20.4 | makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars, |
| 0:24.6 | poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples. |
| 0:29.7 | If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds. |
| 0:36.0 | BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts. |
| 0:41.0 | We're used to headlines like this. |
| 0:44.0 | No time for delay, no room for excuses. |
| 0:48.0 | The words of the United Nations Secretary General today, |
| 0:50.0 | as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its latest report. |
| 0:55.0 | It details the impact of our industrialized lives upon the earth and warns that without a sharp change in direction, |
| 1:02.0 | our climate will be changed irreversibly. |
| 1:05.0 | A change that all may be... |
| 1:07.0 | What's the right way to think about climate change and it's potentially catastrophic impact? |
| 1:11.0 | That is one of the difficult challenges of this. How do you |
| 1:16.1 | balance future generations, even those not born yet, versus the realities of that people are living in. |
| 1:25.0 | Dozens of people in the Vancouver area of Western Canada have died in an unprecedented heat wave. |
| 1:32.0 | For the third day running, the country broke unprecedented heat wave. Police say that... |
| 1:33.0 | For the third day running, the country broke its temperature record yesterday. |
| 1:37.0 | It reached 49.5 degrees Celsius. |
... |
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