Responsibility: Who is Accountable and What Does it Mean When We take Responsibility for Environmental Problems?

This chapter is about responsibility, which is essential for solving environmental problems. These are often so urgent, and the conditions and dangers associated with them so unbearable, that people must be found who take (or must take) responsibility for solving the respective problem. Applying the concept of responsibility first of all means posing necessary questions to penetrate the complexity of environmental problems and develop practical approaches to their solutions. The three central questions are: To answer these questions the concepts individual, moral and political responsibility have to be introduced.