Environmental Ethics - Science topic

I think it's necessary to consider ecophobia within the conversation, and debate, of environmental ethics. Being related to the 'fear' and/or indifference towards natural enviroment, ecophobia should be studied under the presumption that there's a social issue around the consideration that nature is beneath human value, there for, it has to be part of the discussion of environmental ethics.

Yes, environmental ethics are important for guiding space mining operations in the solar system to ensure that they are conducted in a responsible and sustainable manner that protects the integrity of the space environment and its resources. This can include ethical considerations related to minimizing harm to the natural environment, preserving the ecological balance of the solar system, and ensuring that space mining does not compromise the ability of future generations to use and benefit from space resources.

Dear Abdelhafid Jabri,

The level of environmental ethics depends on society-wide pro-environmental awareness. The formation of society-wide pro-environmental awareness is an important factor in the formation of people's habits in the field of nature protection, protection of the planet's climate and biosphere, protection of the biodiversity of natural ecosystems. If the business and political spheres slow down the processes of pro-environmental transformation of the economy, including pro-environmental transformation of the energy sector, development of renewable and emission-free sources of energy, then the key role in this issue, including in the issue of shaping the general social pro-environmental awareness is played by non-governmental organisations, grassroots social movements, science institutions and environmentally conscious citizens. Therefore, due to the accelerating process of global warming, the importance of NGOs, grassroots social movements in shaping ethical, pro-environmental attitudes of citizens is steadily increasing. Environmental ethics is a concept closely related to the issue of the environmental social responsibility of economic entities, including companies, businesses, corporations, etc., whose activities affect the environment and the planet's climate in specific, including often negative, ways. This happens when certain economic entities, noticing the increase of general social awareness of customers in order to improve their image, add pro-environmental issues, sustainable development, green economy, implementation of eco-innovations etc. to their company mission and development strategy. Then, in advertising campaigns, they present their product and service offerings and their corporate mission as green, sustainable, pro-environmental, closed loop economy, etc. If this is factually correct, then the specific economic entity is acting in an environmentally ethical manner and complying with the principles of social environmental responsibility. In view of the above, the issue of the general social environmental awareness of citizens and the social environmental responsibility of businesses and institutions are important factors in the smooth implementation of a pro-environmental transformation of the economy in order to build a sustainable, green, zero-carbon, zero-growth economy and a closed loop economy. How quickly and efficiently this pro-environmental transformation of the economy is carried out, on the other hand, is a key determinant of the possibility of slowing down the progressive process of global warming and reducing the scale of any future climate catastrophe.

Best regards,

Dariusz

You don't need to have experienced things to have an informed opinion about them through reading. So yes, you can write about anything you like. Einstein wrote about relativity, but never experienced it for himself, so :)

Es necesario que las Universidades amplíen@ el conocimiento del medio ambiente a sus educandos

Many thanks for letting me know, and for your appreciation. Please consider recommending these to a relevant Library. Best wishes, Robin

Good question

Full animal rights

Environmental ethics attempts to develop theories based upon three major concerns: preservation of natural environment; development of inter-generational ethics; and recognition of the Earth as a unique, indispensable environment.

Vice can only be contained and kept under controllable limit if the laws are clear and well-enforced.

No virtue can be instilled by norms and regulation.

Environmental protection demands both, control and containment of the vice by regulation and prevalence of the virtue in society.

Virtuous environmental behaviour can stem only from civic solidariety and social cohesion, besides magico-religious traditions (usually, the most archaic tribal communities display superior environmental ethics compared to modernites).

Leaving aside the magioc-religious source of environmental ethics, people's ethical environmental behaviour depends on civic solidariety and social cohesion which, in turn, require a widespread perception of secruity and fairness in the economic system and in the politico-administrative apparatus.

Therefore, in contemporary societies, environmental ethics depends on a welfare state and a progressive economic governance.

This is evident from the differences in environmentally ethical mass behaviour among the contemporary societies, nations and regions.

I would recommend the books below:

Which approach to climate change could help: technological innovation, institutional change, or individual repentance

I think your hesitation is perfectly reasonable. However, I consider it a straightforward example because, originally coming from "the Global South," I have observed countless times how littering often renders land and water resources both as unusable, to live in or even live near to. For people who are at subsistence level incomes and with governments who cannot pay for clean-up, it is a tragedy.

There is no one answer to this question. Specific uses must be considered, since a scientific find that cures a horrible disease does not carry the same moral weight as things like testing makeup brands on animals. Further, the moral weights given to animal rights vs. scientific discovery differ by moral universe. In the ethics of more biocentric religions, such as Buddhism, one often finds moral dismay regarding the uses of animals in science, like one sees in the work of the current Dalai Lama. The rights of animals not to suffer outweigh considerations of human benefit. Within religious universes that tend more toward anthropocentric outlooks, such as with ethics stemming from the Abrahamic religions, harming animals in science for human benefit remains more tolerated and pursued. Of course, things are not neat and tidy regarding this, since one still may find a Buddhist who supports experimentation on animals and a Christian who does not. You might check out Tom Regan's classic work, <Animal Sacrifices: Religious Perspectives on the Use of Animals in Science>, and the work that he, Jeff Masson, Lisa Kemmerer, and others have done since. You might also look into the essays found in <A Communion of Subjects>.

The concept “love” can refer to different types of relationships. We use it when talking about our family, friends, romantic partners, pets, god(s), pieces of art, ideas, etc. and refer to love as if it happens to us, like a feeling, or as an action or behavior that we conduct, like an emotion or special deed, or even as a type of relationship that is had between two things. No matter what manifestation that love takes on or how it is described, the phenomenon that occurs is always the same. Of course we express love in different ways with different objects, but the process for giving our mothers and fathers, kids , pets, plants and flowers and everything else a special importance is the phenomenon of love . I only and simply mention that love is a way of responding to an object through a process of appraising it for its subjective, intrinsic value and then bestowing the experience of that appraisal back onto the object as an extrinsic quality whereby the object becomes valuable and irreplaceably important.

We have to be very careful before introduction of any GM food. It is directly against the way and direction of evolution. Our previous experience with BT brinjal and BT Cotton (not food) is very bad in India.

The yellow colored fruits and vegetables, egg yolk, liver of cord fish etc. are very good source of vitamin A. The Vit. A deficient poor people may be given those food item. Why they should be thrown in the risk zone ?

Justice...the fair and equal treatment of all the things in nature and the respect for their legal right of existence is the most powerful virtue to motivate humans in protecting the very environment that pivots our life sustainance.

Dickson Adom

Definitely an interesting question. I, too, have no political or economic background and typically would not comment. But expert or not I have thought a lot about the seeming death of compromise over the last decade or so and I feel a real urge to reply. I think every politician would say they are all for optimal economic development and political justice. The problem is no one has the only or right answer as to how to achieve that end. And if neither side listens to the other and there is no true exchange of ideas and generation of new ideas because a simple majority rules, the answer to your topic question is no. I would love to see a viable third party, not because I haven't found a party or want one that fits all my views (registered non-partisan since age 18 simply because I didn't understand why I should have to chose when I don't agree entirely with either platform) but because it might force the compromise that is so significantly lacking right now in US politics. People say that requiring a two-thirds majority on everything would grind congress to a halt, but I doubt that. Both parties would still be just as worried that if they don't get something done they will be voted out of office. So sure, they kick the can down the road quite often, but ultimately we end up with a budget, more or less annually. And I"m not sure, but I think I'd rather have that than the plutocracy that is slowly being shaped as I write this. Whether or not compromise comes in the form of a viable third party or requirement for two-thirds majority on all legislation, I don't think we can move forward in any good way without it. Before I step down from my soapbox, can we please eliminate riders?

Moving from environmental economics to ecological economics and strong sustainability gives a glimpse about how green we need to go and thereby need to transform our current economic system rather than treating symptoms with the same thinking we applied to create these problems in the first place. Rather than aiming at "good enough" we should first acknowledge "enough is enough" and that consumerism wont be the panacea

Dear Dr kumar

we need to move beyond talking about the environment, as this leads people to experience themselves and Earth as two separate entities and to see the planet in terms only of what it can do for them.

Change is possible only if there is a recognition that people and planet are ultimately one and the same.

"You carry Mother Earth within you,"

"She is not outside of you. Mother Earth is not just your environment.

"In that insight of inter-being, it is possible to have real communication with the Earth.

In that kind of relationship you have enough love, strength and awakening in order to change your life.

"Changing is not just changing the things outside of us. First of all we need the right view that transcends all notions including of being and non-being, creator and creature, mind and spirit. That kind of insight is crucial for transformation and healing.

"The earth are two separate entities, the Earth is only the environment. You are in the center  and you want to do something for the Earth in order for you to survive. That is a dualistic way of seeing.

"So to breathe in and be aware of your body and look deeply into it and realise you are the Earth and your consciousness is also the consciousness of the earth. Not to cut the tree not to pollute the water".

Best regards

Humanities are influence by the planets so to say planets play an important part where humanity join with the nature.It is a fact that humanities cannot ignore planets as all the 7 major planets have its influence all humanity both in the positive & negative traits .

With this humanities cannot afford to close their eyes on the nature as nature is Omni present & quite often planets & nature go hand in hand .

Human beings have to understand the influence of planets & nature initially as an observed but with the influence they have to take a right course of action so as to receive favorable environment both of planets & nature.

This is my personal opinion 

Dear Helen

, I am very much interested in this research , as I am doing LLM Environmental Law , at University of Sussex- United Kingdom

Thank you for providing further details . 

The rise of 'environmentalism' can, I think, present both positives and negatives to dominant economic practices.

For instance, the idea of dominant economic practices making---realistically--least negative environmental impact, is to be welcomed.

And this is where social research can help; for when it comes to accommodating a really big issue into our dominant economic practices---e. g. Global Warming--we really need to explore how this  issue is evidenced, and how this evidence is interpreted and presented to the world.

Essentially, are we presented with critical environmentalism with realistic options tied to realistic, sustainable economics?

Or, are we presented with naïve environmentalism, with unrealistic options tied to unrealistic, unsustainable economics?

This, to me, is, 'in a nutshell', one of the great---perhaps the greatest---environmental-economic debates engaging us today.

I use following three books only for deep ecology teaching

(1) The Deep Ecology Movement: An Introductory Anthology

Edited by: Alan Drengson and Yuichi Inoue

(2) Deep Ecology and World Religions: New Essays on Sacred Ground

Edited by David Landis Barnhill and Roger S. Gottlieb

And of course

(3) Silent Spring by Rachel Carson

Roman-

With all due respect, I've been studying this particular problem for a decade, included much of the past three years in the field, and you've both conflated and oversimplified several issues.

(1) Yes, the Awhar - the region of freshwater marshes at the confluence of the Tigris and Euhrates - was poldered and drained 1991-2001 by Saddam Hussein. This was a multi-billion dollar engineering effort that cut km-wide, 100m-wide, 10m-wide, and 2m-wide drainage channels in a gridded pattern over 20,000 sq km of the marsh region.

(2) During drainage, those waters were diverted directly to the Gulf.

(3) Meanwhile, over the past two decades, major hydroelectric and agricultural irrigation dam projects have come on line in Turkey, Syria, northern Iraq, and Iran. These are cornerstones of national economic development schemes. They are not going away.

(4) Once drained, the marsh soils were subjected to desiccation, oxidation, and aeolian (wind) transport. This mobilized many pollutants that had been sequestered in plant roots and the marsh soils. It also profoundly altered the soil geochemistry. Dumping polluted water back into that mix forms toxic sludge, not a marsh.

(5) Because of the damming, PLUS ongoing drought upstream (due to shifting of the Mediterranean storm track) and downstream (which may be partly accounted for by the lowered humidity over the now-dried marshlands), the total water budget for the Awhar district is now 10% of its former volume.

(6) So it is NOT just a matter of "reflood and recover."

(a) there is not enough water,

(b) if there was, you'd have to "unengineer" the poldering, which would require a national mobilization of virtually every piece of earth moving equipment in the country, at a cost of billions. That was possible only in very small patches.

(c), even with scheduled dam releases, there is no longer a flood pulse cycle, essential for marsh ecology health.

(d) re-flooded areas are severely polluted with the mobilized toxicants, are too saline and/or alkaline to support most plant life, and have dissolved oxygen levels too low to support fish.

This is why, after multiple national studies after Hassan Partow's excellent call to action over a decade ago (I can give you quite a long bibliography if you are interested), the decision was taken to use best-available water to support the healthiest remnants of the Awhar (the Central and Hawiza marshes). These discontinuous areas have been nominated as a National Park and World Cultural Heritage site. This is a wonderful effort, but it has little or no impact on downstream conditions around Basra.

I, too, would prefer "to let things go back to what they were," but that wish is both politically and ecologically naive. Neighboring countries are not going to end their hydroelectric and agricultural irrigation projects. There is no political entity with the backing and resources to undo the massive engineering program, executed by fiat under the deposed regime. Downstream from the Hawiza and Central marshes, soil and water chemistry, and plant and animal communities, have been too profoundly disrupted to "go back to what they were," and over the past decade, they have not done so. We've been their. We've measured water quality. We've seen the dead and dying livestock, poisoned by drinking what's there.

If you read the abstract at the link I provided, and read my answer to the previous question, you will see that we are NOT calling for addition of salinized water to existing fresh-brackish marshes (e.g. in the Hammar district). These areas are ALREADY suffering from unmonitored addition of irrigation return water. What they need, instead of the direct dumps from the Main Outfall Drain and Third River that they now receive, is intermediary bioremediation wetlands, to clear the pollutants before they are dumped into the moderately healthy Wet Hammar marsh. But negotiating among four Governorates to accomplish that is beyond our reach.

So, we've turned to what we think we can do (or at least want to test). One of the impacts of the collapse of the Awhar, virtually ignored by all, is that it ALSO resulted in collapse of downstream salt marshes -- which were essential as fish- and shellfish-nurseries. Canalization and direct shunting of irrigation return water into the Gulf also resulted in wild fluctuations in sea water salinity at the head of the Gulf.

Therefore, BECAUSE there simply is no longer an adequate fresh water supply, we propose constructing NEW salt marshes, in areas which are already characterized by significant subsidence, salt cone intrusion, and hypersaline groundwater. This area actually supported salt marshes for many centuries over the past millennium. We know that drilling return water is not ideal for this purpose, but that's what we have to work with. It will no doubt require considerable pre-treatment. But by constructing the right microbial and plant communities, and determining the correct admixture of other contaminated sources (irrigation and urban wastewater), we can use nature's own best services to bioremediate most contaminants -- AND restore other environmental services performed by a salt marsh community.

To say this is "not sustainable" is to say that we should leave things the way they are:

(a) drawing fresh water from the rivers, using it for drilling injection, and then re-injecting the return water, thus removing a scarce resource from the water cycle.

(b) drawing fresh water from rivers far upstream, using it to flush agricultural fields, drawing off the salty, polluted return water, and then dumping it directly into fresh marshes, or directly into the Gulf.

So, the reality is, at this point, whatever is done must include "engineering." Salt marshes are extremely important as fish and shellfish hatcheries, sources of animal fodder, for erosion control, and as sediment traps and storm surge buffers. Rather than continuing to engineer ecosystem collapse, we propose to recapture and use nature's own systems to remediate all available water, rather than simply polluting it and dumping underground or it into the sea.

There are a number of ethical issues involved especially in the field of research. As a research consultant and analyst, my way of maintaining ethics is not to manipulate the data for some "targeted" purpose. And believe it, not doing so gives immense opportunity to learn - because clients want the results they perceive them and they pressurize you. By the way, an independent consultant like me, who makes his living only by practicing independent without any institutional support - it is very difficult yet interesting that in order to make my clients understand the "actual results", I have to delve into their subject - reading, studying and learning it to explain why a particular result has come up. This way not only do I maintain my ethical practice but at the same time get an opportunity to learn a lot of things that I would have otherwise not have learnt.

They would keep their own deliverable, but I would repeat the assessment/mock training for future classes. I'd like to have students practice the skills/content learned by completing assessments (for course grading purposes), which they can also use as examples for job applications, internships, etc. So, instead of a paper or exam to demonstrate their understanding, they produce something that they can use later in a portfolio or professional capacity.

Since my professional and personal life experiences have decidedly influenced what I share with you on this topic, by way of introduction, I am a 61+ year old American trained as a lawyer in the tradition of the English common law. From that, certain perspectives arise. One, is that my first-hand social and political experiences extend to the early 1960s; the second is that since the mid-1970s, I have spent the overwhelming part of my career as a New York State government attorney actively participating in developing environmental protection policy, in convincing the legislature to enact legislation to implement that policy, in creating programs designed to clean up hazardous waste contamination, in drafting regulations implementing the statutes enacted to provide that protection. I also personally have enforced the law in administrative and judicial contexts; in my supervisory capacity over other attorneys, I referred for criminal prosecution environmental law infractions that violated my state’s criminal laws.

I firmly believe that government exists not to benefit itself but to benefit those subject to its authority. Thus, ideas flowing from those governed that seek to promote the general welfare have as much validity as ideas flowing from the government itself; and the statute enactment process provides the primary vehicle to consider, weigh, and either accept or reject various policy, such as those related to environmental protection.

At least in those jurisdictions having a tradition of governmental upholding and enforcement of judicial decisional precedent and of public respect for the legitimacy of, and subsequent conformity with, that precedent, there is another governmental means available to promote environmental protection, namely, judicial decisional precedent. However, that means can promote environmental protection in a manner much focused and restricted than that which the legislative process affords since judicial decisions must flow from interpretations of previously enacted legislation and from certain time-honored principles of – as it is called in jurisdictions having English law as its basis – the “common law.”

That said, judicial decisional law certainly provides a powerful tool for those wishing to promote environmental protection if that decisional law can base itself upon extant statutory enactments and precedential decisions. Indeed, advocacy can take advantage of the force of law’s respect, resulting in policy change – change powerful enough to change social mores. I witnessed this phenomenon in my own lifetime in my own country: we had legally authorized racial segregation until litigation started to crack in the late 1940s, litigation based upon reconciliation of constitutionally-mandated equality of the races with the reality of inequality, that eventually led to its elimination and that, allied with legislative action, literally changed social policy in favor of actively trying to promote a color-blind society.

Judicial decisional law can promote environmental protection on a number of levels; and I know that this is true from personal experience. Litigation brought by individuals or by non-governmental organizations can force government to faithfully carry out mandated actions (for example, to study a particular environmental problem and then to promulgate regulations designed to address the problems found). It also can force individual defendants engaged in practices violative of environmentally-protective statutes or violative of the peaceful enjoyment of one’s own property (as through use of trespass and nuisance theory). It can force whole industrial sectors to change their modes of operation in order to avoid liability to those potentially harmed (as was done under various hazardous waste contamination laws that imposed strict liability upon generators of hazardous waste released into the environment in an uncontrolled manner and that encouraged various manufacturing organizations to adopt “best management practices” for their membership designed to minimize their liability exposure). Allied with public information campaigns, it can help effect social policy change in favor of enhanced environmental protection. Al the above has been successfully tried in the United States and in many of its states; thus, there is abundant precedent. If you wish, I could explore this with you further.