Jeremy Moss

Harms unknown: health uncertainties cast doubt on the role of unconventional gas in Australia's energy future

There is a push to increase production of unconventional gas in Australia, which would intensify the use of the controversial technique of hydraulic fracturing. The uncertainties surrounding the health implications of unconventional gas, when considered together with doubts surrounding its greenhouse gas profile and cost, weigh heavily against proceeding with proposed future developments. The health and environmental impacts of hydraulic fracturing have been the source of widespread public concern. A review of available literature shows a considerable degree of uncertainty, but an emerging consensus about the main risks. Gas is often claimed to be a less climate‐damaging alternative to coal; however, this is called into question by the fugitive emissions produced by unconventional gas extraction and the consequences of its export. While the health effects associated with fracturing chemicals have attracted considerable public attention, risks posed by wastewater, community disruption and the interaction between exposures are of also of concern. The health burdens of unconventional gas are likely to fall disproportionately on rural communities, the young and the elderly. While the health and environmental risks and benefits must be compared with other energy choices, coal provides a poor benchmark.

Labour casualization and the psychosocial health of workers in Australia

This article presents the results of a qualitative study of 72 workers in regional Victoria, Australia. Against the background of the growing casualization of the workforce it demonstrates the impact on the health and well-being of these workers, focusing on the intersection between psychosocial working conditions and health. In particular it focuses on the detrimental impact on workers’ sense of self-efficacy and self-esteem. It emphasizes how the job insecurity characteristic of non-standard work extends beyond the fear of job loss to involve uncertainty over the scheduling of work, with debilitating consequences for workers’ autonomy, self-efficacy and control over their lives. Additionally, it is argued that the exclusion of these workers from paid leave and other entitlements in the workplace confers a lower social status on these workers that is corrosive of their self-esteem. It is these key socio-psychological mechanisms that provide the link between insecure work and workers’ health.

Health, Freedom and Work in Rural Victoria: The Impact of Labour Market Casualisation on Health and Wellbeing

Abstract This paper presents the findings of a qualitative study of the impact of casualised and independent contractor work place arrangements on the psycho-social health of 72 workers in regional Victoria. It contributes to our understanding of the crisis in rural Australia in its use of qualitative methods focusing on the impact of work on health and well-being. There is some evidence in the literature that casualised work arrangement enhance the health and well-being of workers by giving them a sense of autonomy and freedom to negotiate their conditions of work. On the other hand, these arrangements may make an already vulnerable group even more vulnerable to uncertain work conditions, poor pay and uncertainty for their future with a significantly negative impact on their health and wellbeing. The results of these interviews support this latter perspective and show that these workers do not experience freedom and autonomy, but rather lowered social status, insecurity and serious limitations to their ability to manage their health, psychological wellbeing and social relations.

Mining, morality and the obligations of fossil fuel exporting countries

ABSTRACT In this article I argue that countries exporting fossil fuels, such as Australia, have an obligation to bear some of the costs of the harms caused by the use of those fuels. I argue that there is an analogy between other harmful exports – medical waste, tobacco, unsafe jobs, uranium – and fossil fuels. If this is the case, then current methods for allocating emissions and responsibilities for their harms are inadequate and more complex than they appear. I consider several counter-arguments to this claim, such as that it does not recognise the benefits of coal and that exporters are not really responsible. Finally, I consider some of the consequences of this argument and claim that Australia and other fossil fuel exporters ought to have a higher ‘carbon budget’ if this argument is true and that exporters ought to bear a higher share of the costs of climate harms.

Climate change and justice

Introduction: climate justice Jeremy Moss 1. The legitimacy of international environmental institutions Thomas Christiano 2. Geoengineering in a climate of uncertainty Megan Blomfield 3. Climate justice and territorial rights Chris Armstrong 4. Exporting harm Jeremy Moss 5. Whats wrong with trading emission rights? Axel Gosseries 6. A just distribution of climate burdens and benefits: a luck egalitarian view Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen 7. Individual duties of climate justice under non-ideal conditions Kok-Chor Tan 8. Acts, omissions, emissions Garrett Cullity 9. Individual responsibility for carbon emissions: is there anything wrong with overdetermining harm? Christian Barry and Gerhard Overland 10. Climate change: life and death John Broome 11. What we have done what they can do Benjamin Hale 12. Empathising with scepticism about climate change Simon Keller Bibliography Index.

The Foundations of Well‐Being

This article considers the philosophical foundations of preference‐based and capability approaches to well‐being. I argue that standard preference‐based approaches face difficulties in providing a satisfactory account of well‐being and that the capability approach, developed by Amartya Sen, offers a superior account. In particular, I argue that subjective preference accounts of well‐being are philosophically difficult to sustain and utilise in a public policy context.

Disability, work and motivation

A common assumption in welfare reform debates is that a more generous benefit payment rate provides a disincentive for the unemployed to seek paid employment. In the Australian and international context this assumption has recently been applied to certain types of people with a disability. We argue in this paper that not only is the empirical evidence unconvincing, there are also strong moral reasons why the assumption and the policies based on it are misguided (Berkel and Moller 2002; Larsen 2005). We argue that, in fact, the reverse is more likely to be true; increasing benefits is likely to be a better way of helping people find a job and will avoid some of morally dubious outcomes associated with lowering payments. The article is in two parts. In section one, we describe some of the arrangements that are currently in place in Australia and overseas. We consider evidence from Australia and overseas on income support policies for people with a disability and qualitative accounts of barriers to employment for people with a disability. The international context challenges the idea that lowering income support payments increases the likelihood that people will secure paid work. In the second part we argue that not only is there little empirical evidence to support the policy of cutting benefits, it is morally dubious as well. What we call the ‘motivation model’ of welfare policy does not accurately reflect the situation of people with a disability who are unemployed. The motivation model focuses on one cause of disadvantage in particular – individual motivation – and then applies penalties where motivation is lacking, often with disastrous results. More fundamentally, we also claim that welfare policy, especially for the disabled, should not be guided by considerations of assigning blame and praise, especially where doing so may reduce benefits to groups who are already significantly disadvantaged.

Going to Alone: Cities and States for Climate Action

The first year of the Trump Presidency has been marked by regressive steps in US climate policy. Trump’s announcement on 1 June 2017 of his intention to withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement was...

Conclusion: Assessing the Prospects for Egalitarianism

This book has sought to reassess the contemporary debate concerning egalitarianism. I hope to have been able to clarify some of the major disputes and some overlapping themes of the recent debate. What I have also tried to demonstrate is that achieving substantive equality continues to be an important and meaningful goal. However, I have also tried to show that there remain difficult issues for egalitarians to confront. Chief among these is whether egalitarianism has identified the most important sources of inequality and whether the positions that have been advanced are substantial enough to achieve significant types of equality between people.

Equality of What

The “equality of what?” debate is concerned with articulating a “metric” or “currency” of equality that is part of a theory of justice. As we have seen, whereas we might have equality in terms of all kinds of things – equality before the law, basic moral equality, for instance – typically egalitarians are concerned with a substantive understanding of equality that relates broadly to how well people’s lives go, not just the formal equal freedoms that people may have, important though these are. A focus on equality of condition has traditionally been a defining feature of egalitarianism. More recently debate about which is the best metric has also occupied an important place in defining what egalitarianism stands for. The assessment of the “equality of what?” debate must contain at least two dimensions: (1) which metric is best able to achieve a valuable type of equality as part of a theory of justice; and (2) whether it does so in a substantial enough way. The latter question is particularly important.