Environmental Ethics:
Personal Choices
About the
“Good” Life
1. From last lecture
- Ecofeminism
- Social ecology
- Deep ecology
- Environmental pragmatism
- Environmental aesthetics
- Animal rights/welfare
- Why did Great Wolf discharge pollution into Scotrun?
2. This lecture segment
Covered on pages 27 - 35
3. What are governments doing about environmental problems?
- Things to remember about legislation/legislators
- Governments are made of people
- Regulations are expensive for business
- Business gives money to elected official’s campaigns
- Some philosophical aspects of political parties think that
government should not make decisions about private property: “wise use
movement”
- Soil, water and air are connected -- they don’t respect
boundaries: private, county, state or country
4. Wise Use Movement
- Rise of anti-environmental attitude in 1980s
- Funded by timber, oil, coal industries, real estate developers
and ranchers
- Claimed that extinction is a natural process and some species are
not meant to survive
- Simplified issues: Jobs verses Owls in PacNW
5. National Legislation
- Formation of EPA and NEPA laws
- Other Environmental Agencies
- US Army Corps of Engineers
- US Geological Service
- US Department of Agriculture
- US Natural Resources Conservation Service
- States have their own environmental agencies
- PA DEP, PA DCNR, Health Department
- Monroe County Conservation District
- Endangered Species Act
- US Fish & Wildlife Service
- US National Marine Fisheries Service
6. Table 2.1: Major International Environmental Treaties and
Their Impact
7. Individual Environmental Ethics
- Each bears responsibility for the quality of the environment
- If you want it fixed: you have to fix it
- Governmental fixes: policies, regulation, fines
- Corporate fixes: market economy solutions when problem is bad
enough to inspire technology
- Individual fixes
- Point of view?
- Its not my fault.
- What can I do, the globe is so big.
- Hey, your generation caused it, it’s your problem.
8. Rampant Consumerism: I want it and I want it NOW!
- Overpopulation or Over-consumption?
- 1994: International Conference on Population and Development
meeting
- Developing countries: a baby born in the USA consumes 20X
one born in Africa or India.
- North America
- 5% of world’s population
- Uses 1/4 of world’s oil
- UNESCO Definition of a developing country:
- Low- and middle-income countries in which most people have a
lower standard of living with access to fewer goods and services than
do most people in high-income countries.
- There are currently about 125 developing countries with
populations over 1 million; in 1998, their total population was more
than 5.0 billion.
- PRB World population estimate: 6.625 billion
9. Food
- Why no world-wide famine with 6.625 billion? So far, human
ingenuity has outpaced population growth
- What inventions have doubled production?
- Fertilizers
- Pesticides
- High-yield crops
- Problem: social, economic, political conditions keep the food
from the hungry
- 850 million hungry/day
- 6 million children die/year from hunger-related causes
- Stats show that in 2000, worldwide, # overweight = #
malnourished
10. Future Food: Will there be enough?
- New Technologies
- Genetic engineering
- Problems with GE?
- Decreasing soil fertility
- Affected by pesticides?
- Desertification and salinization
- Erosion
- Climate Change - problems if “bread basket” areas are hotter
and drier
- Cropland conversion to housing, other development
- 1000 to 2000 hectares of farmland & natural areas lost to
development yearly
- 2000 hectares= 4,942 acres
11. Energy
- Oil: at the current rate of consumption, will not last until 2100
- Natural gas & other fossil gases (propane, butane) - all
non-renewable
- New technologies
- Coal gasification
- Replace fossil fuels
- Nuclear
- Solar & wind
- Biomass: ethanol
- Hydrogen fuel cells
12. Water
- Currently use 1/2 of accessible supply
- Double agricultural production -> use 85%
- No substitute
- Tecno-fix?
- Desalination: expensive, energy intense, can’t be used
everywhere
- Dams & aqueducts?
- Prediction: future wars will be fought over water
13. Ecological footprint: comparison between less and more
developed (Figure 2.8)
14. What can an individual do?
- Reduce
- Reuse
- Recycle
- Consume less
- Consume wisely
- Plan your life
- Change out those light bulbs to compact fluorescent
15. Extreme footprint reduction
- Go to iTunes and download: 30 days: Off the Grid - cost:
$1.99 - view with friends
- Description from FX: Two 30-year-old professionals who are
friends and typical Americans - i.e., ravenous consumers of fossil
fuels such as gas and electricity - go "back to the future" and learn
to live without the natural resources that will be depleted from our
earth in the not-too-distant future. To do this, they'll uproot
themselves and move to an "eco village" in Missouri to live 100% Off
the Grid. As they set up house in a former 3,000 bushel grain bin, they
will sustain themselves on clean power such as solar and wind, recycle
all their waste (both food and human), live in a car-free culture, grow
and eat only organic foods and conserve their water use with solar
showers and rain-catch systems. Can these fossil fuel addicts wean
themselves from their consumptive habits without their lives falling
apart? Will they thrive in a community that is the total opposite their
New Jersey neighborhood? And will the ecological solutions they learn
stick once their Thirty Days are up?
16. For the next class, after watching “Off the Grid”
- What is “humanure” and how is it processed at the
eco-village? For what is it used? What are the
benefits? What are the drawbacks?
- What kind of diet do most of the villagers follow? How is
that a problem for the visitors?
- What does “off the grid” mean in general? To the villagers?
- Where do the villagers get their energy?
- Why do the villagers regularly go dumpster diving?
- What aspects of the villagers lives are actually eco-friendly and
which are philosophical?
- With what aspects did the visitors have most problems?