ABSTRACT
Historically, the discourse of environmental ethics rested on the biocentric/anthropo-centric distinction: an environmental ethic was one that extended moral significance beyond the sphere of merely human interests to the interests of life at large. However, in the context of climate change, this biocentric/anthropocentric distinction is becoming blurred, since efforts to mitigate climate change in the interests of human survival also generally serve the interests of the larger biosphere. In the context of climate change, in other words, environmentalism is undergoing globalization: its object is now the biosphere as a whole rather than particular ecosystems or species. However, there are different ways the biosphere as a whole may be conceptualized, and from these different conceptualizations, very different mitigation strategies, with very different consequences for other-than-human life, flow. It is important then, in the interests of environmental ethics in its original sense, as an ethic inclusive of other-than-human forms and systems of life, to distinguish these different conceptions of the biosphere and track their ethical implications.
