Climate change combat needs to prefer imaginative over evidence-based legal approach
Global institutions have raised alarming concerns regarding the Earth’s rising temperature. In these dire times, legal recourse to combat climate change requires imaginative thinking rather than conforming to cumbersome procedures of law.
Published on: 4 December 2023, 11:00 am
Global institutions have raised alarming concerns regarding the Earth's rising temperature. In these dire times, legal recourse to combat climate change requires imaginative thinking rather than conforming to cumbersome procedures of law.
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SHOULD lawyers, judges and lawmakers decide or form their opinion on imagination?
Out-of-box thinking defying the status quo is not unknown to the legal community, however, they are constrained by reasoning and logic as part of due process and the rule of law.
But in the present fast-moving world, particularly where movement is driven by technology, the imagination as a sixth sense is necessary to catch up with threats that loom large.
It is apt to recall what Albert Einstein said, "Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere". Hence, the legal response to the threatened climate change and its likely impact on the environment needs an imaginative approach.
Place of imagination in epistemology
Epistemology is a branch of philosophy that recognises justified true belief as knowledge. Among sources of knowledge, perception has more authenticity.
“Parliamentarians do consider the studies and reports and listen to the people before deciding to act. However, they are known to capture imaginatively the danger posed by certain activities and acts.
Pure reasoning based on logic is expected to supplement perception in refining ideas, concepts, and principles. Imagination, therefore, is often employed in the hunt for knowledge.