Environmental ethics
Encyclopedia
Environmental ethics is the part of environmental philosophy
which considers extending the traditional boundaries of ethics from solely including humans to including the non-human world. It exerts influence on a large range of disciplines including law
, sociology
, theology
, economics
, ecology
and geography
.
There are many ethical decisions that human beings make with respect to the environment. For example:
The academic field of environmental ethics grew up in response to the work of scientists such as Rachel Carson
and events such as the first Earth Day
in 1970, when environmentalists started urging philosophers to consider the philosophical aspects of environmental problems. Two papers published in Science had a crucial impact: Lynn White's "The Historical Roots of our Ecologic Crisis" (March 1967) and Garrett Hardin
's "The Tragedy of the Commons" (December 1968). Also influential was Garett Hardin's later essay called "Exploring New Ethics for Survival", as well as an essay by Aldo Leopold
in his A Sand County Almanac
, called "The Land Ethic," in which Leopold explicitly claimed that the roots of the ecological crisis were philosophical (1949).
The first international academic journals in this field emerged from North America in the late 1970s and early 1980s – the US-based journal Environmental Ethics
in 1979 and the Canadian based journal The Trumpeter: Journal of Ecosophy in 1983. The first British based journal of this kind, Environmental Values
, was launched in 1992.
are two recent examples of this, as cited by Peter Vardy
in "The Puzzle of Ethics". For Marshall, three general ethical approaches have emerged over the last 40 years. Marshall uses the following terms to describe them: Libertarian Extension, the Ecologic Extension and Conservation Ethics.
(For more on Marshall's environmental ethics, see also: A. Marshall, 2002, The Unity of Nature, Imperial College Press: London).
Andrew Brennan was an advocate of ecologic humanism (eco-humanism), the argument that all ontological entities, animate and in-animate, can be given ethical worth purely on the basis that they exist. The work of Arne Næss
and his collaborator Sessions also falls under the libertarian extension, although they preferred the term "deep ecology
". Deep ecology is the argument for the intrinsic value or inherent worth of the environment – the view that it is valuable in itself. Their argument, incidentally, falls under both the libertarian extension and the ecologic extension.
Peter Singer
's work can be categorized under Marshall's 'libertarian extension'. He reasoned that the "expanding circle of moral worth" should be redrawn to include the rights of non-human animals, and to not do so would be guilty of speciesism
. Singer found it difficult to accept the argument from intrinsic worth of a-biotic or "non-sentient" (non-conscious) entities, and concluded in his first edition of "Practical Ethics" that they should not be included in the expanding circle of moral worth. This approach is essentially then, bio-centric. However, in a later edition of "Practical Ethics" after the work of Næss and Sessions, Singer admits that, although unconvinced by deep ecology, the argument from intrinsic value of non-sentient entities is plausible, but at best problematic. We shall see later that Singer actually advocated a humanist ethic.
This category includes James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis
; the theory that the planet earth alters its geo-physiological structure over time in order to ensure the continuation of an equilibrium of evolving organic and inorganic matter. The planet is characterized as a unified, holistic entity with ethical worth of which the human race is of no particular significance in the long run.
in 1997 and three agreements reached in Rio in 1992.
which relies on the ability to reason. This was Singer's solution to the problem that arises when attempting to determine the interests of a non-sentient entity such as a garden weed.
Singer also advocated the preservation of "world heritage sites," unspoilt parts of the world that acquire a "scarcity value" as they diminish over time. Their preservation is a bequest for future generations as they have been inherited from our ancestors and should be passed down to future generations so they can have the opportunity to decide whether to enjoy unspoilt countryside or an entirely urban landscape. A good example of a world heritage site would be the tropical rainforest, a very specialist ecosystem or climatic climax vegetation that has taken centuries to evolve. Clearing the rainforest for farmland often fails due to soil conditions, and once disturbed, can take thousands of years to regenerate.
that should not be understood as a call for action.
What Anthropocentric theories do not allow for is the fact that a system of ethics formulated from a human perspective may not be entirely accurate; humans are not necessarily the centre of reality. The philosopher Baruch Spinoza
argued that we tend to assess things wrongly in terms of their usefulness to us. Spinoza reasoned that if we were to look at things objectively we would discover that everything in the universe has a unique value. Likewise, it is possible that a human-centred or anthropocentric/androcentric ethic is not an accurate depiction of reality, and there is a bigger picture that we may or may not be able to understand from a human perspective.
Peter Vardy
distinguished between two types of anthropocentrism. A strong thesis anthropocentric ethic argues that humans are at the center of reality and it is right for them to be so. Weak anthropocentrism, however, argues that reality can only be interpreted from a human point of view, thus humans have to be at the centre of reality as they see it.
Another point of view has been developed by Bryan Norton, who has become one of the essential actors of environmental ethics through his launching of what has become one of its dominant trends: environmental pragmatism. Environmental pragmatism refuses to take a stance in the dispute between the defenders of anthropocentrist ethics and the supporters of nonanthropocentrist ethics. Instead, Norton prefers to distinguish between strong anthropocentrism and weak-or extended-anthropocentrism and develops the idea that only the latter is capable of not under-estimating the diversity of instrumental values that humans may derive from the natural world.
Only after 1990 did the field gain institutional recognition at programs such as Colorado State, the University of Montana, Bowling Green State, and the University of North Texas. In 1991, Schumacher College of Dartington, England, was founded and now provides an MSc in Holistic Science.
These programs began to offer a masters degree with a specialty in environmental ethics/philosophy. Beginning in 2005 the Dept of Philosophy and Religion Studies at the University of North Texas offered a PhD program with a concentration in environmental ethics/philosophy.
Environmental philosophy
Environmental philosophy is a branch of philosophy that is concerned with the natural environment and humans' place within it. Environmental philosophy includes environmental ethics, environmental aesthetics, ecofeminism and environmental theology...
which considers extending the traditional boundaries of ethics from solely including humans to including the non-human world. It exerts influence on a large range of disciplines including law
Environmental law
Environmental law is a complex and interlocking body of treaties, conventions, statutes, regulations, and common law that operates to regulate the interaction of humanity and the natural environment, toward the purpose of reducing the impacts of human activity...
, sociology
Environmental sociology
Environmental sociology is typically defined as the sociological study of societal-environmental interactions, although this definition immediately presents the perhaps insolvable problem of separating human cultures from the rest of the environment...
, theology
Ecotheology
Ecotheology is a form of constructive theology that focuses on the interrelationships of religion and nature, particularly in the light of environmental concerns. Ecotheology generally starts from the premise that a relationship exists between human religious/spiritual worldviews and the...
, economics
Ecological economics
Image:Sustainable development.svg|right|The three pillars of sustainability. Clickable.|275px|thumbpoly 138 194 148 219 164 240 182 257 219 277 263 291 261 311 264 331 272 351 283 366 300 383 316 394 287 408 261 417 224 424 182 426 154 423 119 415 87 403 58 385 40 368 24 347 17 328 13 309 16 286 26...
, ecology
Ecology
Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...
and geography
Environmental geography
Integrated geography is the branch of geography that describes the spatial aspects of interactions between humans and the natural world. It requires an understanding of the dynamics of geology, meteorology, hydrology, biogeography, ecology, and geomorphology, as well as the ways in which human...
.
There are many ethical decisions that human beings make with respect to the environment. For example:
- Should we continue to clear cut forests for the sake of human consumption?
- Should we continue to propagate?
- Should we continue to make gasoline powered vehiclesInternal combustion engineThe internal combustion engine is an engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer in a combustion chamber. In an internal combustion engine, the expansion of the high-temperature and high -pressure gases produced by combustion apply direct force to some component of the engine...
? - What environmental obligations do we need to keep for future generations?
- Is it right for humans to knowingly cause the extinctionExtinctionIn biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or of a group of organisms , normally a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point...
of a species for the convenience of humanity?
The academic field of environmental ethics grew up in response to the work of scientists such as Rachel Carson
Rachel Carson
Rachel Louise Carson was an American marine biologist and conservationist whose writings are credited with advancing the global environmental movement....
and events such as the first Earth Day
Earth Day
Earth Day is a day that is intended to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth's natural environment. The name and concept of Earth Day was allegedly pioneered by John McConnell in 1969 at a UNESCO Conference in San Francisco. The first Proclamation of Earth Day was by San Francisco, the...
in 1970, when environmentalists started urging philosophers to consider the philosophical aspects of environmental problems. Two papers published in Science had a crucial impact: Lynn White's "The Historical Roots of our Ecologic Crisis" (March 1967) and Garrett Hardin
Garrett Hardin
Garrett James Hardin was an American ecologist who warned of the dangers of overpopulation and whose concept of the tragedy of the commons brought attention to "the damage that innocent actions by individuals can inflict on the environment"...
's "The Tragedy of the Commons" (December 1968). Also influential was Garett Hardin's later essay called "Exploring New Ethics for Survival", as well as an essay by Aldo Leopold
Aldo Leopold
Aldo Leopold was an American author, scientist, ecologist, forester, and environmentalist. He was a professor at the University of Wisconsin and is best known for his book A Sand County Almanac , which has sold over two million copies...
in his A Sand County Almanac
A Sand County Almanac
A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There is a 1949 non-fiction book by American ecologist, forester, and environmentalist Aldo Leopold. Describing the land around the author's home in Sauk County, Wisconsin, the collection of essays advocate Leopold's idea of a "land ethic", or a...
, called "The Land Ethic," in which Leopold explicitly claimed that the roots of the ecological crisis were philosophical (1949).
The first international academic journals in this field emerged from North America in the late 1970s and early 1980s – the US-based journal Environmental Ethics
Environmental Ethics (journal)
Environmental Ethics is a peer-reviewed academic journal devoted to the study of philosophical aspects of environmental problems. Since 1979 the journal has published over 1,400 articles, reviews, and discussions in this field. The journal is edited by Eugene Hargrove, and produced at the Center...
in 1979 and the Canadian based journal The Trumpeter: Journal of Ecosophy in 1983. The first British based journal of this kind, Environmental Values
Environmental Values
Environmental Values is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal of ecological economics. Subjects covered are philosophy, economics, politics, sociology, geography, anthropology, ecology, and other disciplines, which relate to the present and future environment of human beings and other species....
, was launched in 1992.
Marshall's categories of environmental ethics
There have been a number of scholars who've tried to categorise the various ways the natural environment is valued. Alan Marshall and Michael SmithMichael Smith (philosopher)
Michael Andrew Smith is an Australian philosopher who teaches at Princeton University . He taught previously at the University of Oxford, Monash University, and was a member of the Philosophy Program at the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University...
are two recent examples of this, as cited by Peter Vardy
Peter Vardy (theologian)
Dr. Peter Vardy is a British academic, philosopher, theologian and author. Since 1999 he has held the post of Vice Principal at Heythrop College, London....
in "The Puzzle of Ethics". For Marshall, three general ethical approaches have emerged over the last 40 years. Marshall uses the following terms to describe them: Libertarian Extension, the Ecologic Extension and Conservation Ethics.
(For more on Marshall's environmental ethics, see also: A. Marshall, 2002, The Unity of Nature, Imperial College Press: London).
Libertarian extension
Marshall’s Libertarian extension echoes a civil liberty approach (i.e. a commitment to extend equal rights to all members of a community). In environmentalism, though, the community is generally thought to consist of non-humans as well as humans.Andrew Brennan was an advocate of ecologic humanism (eco-humanism), the argument that all ontological entities, animate and in-animate, can be given ethical worth purely on the basis that they exist. The work of Arne Næss
Arne Næss
Arne Dekke Eide Næss was a Norwegian philosopher, the founder of deep ecology. He was the youngest person to be appointed full professor at the University of Oslo....
and his collaborator Sessions also falls under the libertarian extension, although they preferred the term "deep ecology
Deep ecology
Deep ecology is a contemporary ecological philosophy that recognizes an inherent worth of all living beings, regardless of their instrumental utility to human needs. The philosophy emphasizes the interdependence of organisms within ecosystems and that of ecosystems with each other within the...
". Deep ecology is the argument for the intrinsic value or inherent worth of the environment – the view that it is valuable in itself. Their argument, incidentally, falls under both the libertarian extension and the ecologic extension.
Peter Singer
Peter Singer
Peter Albert David Singer is an Australian philosopher who is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and Laureate Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne...
's work can be categorized under Marshall's 'libertarian extension'. He reasoned that the "expanding circle of moral worth" should be redrawn to include the rights of non-human animals, and to not do so would be guilty of speciesism
Speciesism
Speciesism is the assigning of different values or rights to beings on the basis of their species membership. The term was created by British psychologist Richard D...
. Singer found it difficult to accept the argument from intrinsic worth of a-biotic or "non-sentient" (non-conscious) entities, and concluded in his first edition of "Practical Ethics" that they should not be included in the expanding circle of moral worth. This approach is essentially then, bio-centric. However, in a later edition of "Practical Ethics" after the work of Næss and Sessions, Singer admits that, although unconvinced by deep ecology, the argument from intrinsic value of non-sentient entities is plausible, but at best problematic. We shall see later that Singer actually advocated a humanist ethic.
Ecologic extension
Alan Marshall's category of ecologic extension places emphasis not on human rights but on the recognition of the fundamental interdependence of all biological (and some abiological) entities and their essential diversity. Whereas Libertarian Extension can be thought of as flowing from a political reflection of the natural world, Ecologic Extension is best thought of as a scientific reflection of the natural world. Ecological Extension is roughly the same classification of Smith’s eco-holism, and it argues for the intrinsic value inherent in collective ecological entities like ecosystems or the global environment as a whole entity. Holmes Rolston, among others, has taken this approach.This category includes James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis
Gaia hypothesis
The Gaia hypothesis, also known as Gaia theory or Gaia principle, proposes that all organisms and their inorganic surroundings on Earth are closely integrated to form a single and self-regulating complex system, maintaining the conditions for life on the planet.The scientific investigation of the...
; the theory that the planet earth alters its geo-physiological structure over time in order to ensure the continuation of an equilibrium of evolving organic and inorganic matter. The planet is characterized as a unified, holistic entity with ethical worth of which the human race is of no particular significance in the long run.
Conservation ethics
Marshall's category of 'conservation ethics' is an extension of use-value into the non-human biological world. It focuses only on the worth of the environment in terms of its utility or usefulness to humans. It contrasts the intrinsic value ideas of 'deep ecology', hence is often referred to as 'shallow ecology', and generally argues for the preservation of the environment on the basis that it has extrinsic value – instrumental to the welfare of human beings. Conservation is therefore a means to an end and purely concerned with mankind and intergenerational considerations. It could be argued that it is this ethic that formed the underlying arguments proposed by Governments at the Kyoto summitKyoto Protocol
The Kyoto Protocol is a protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change , aimed at fighting global warming...
in 1997 and three agreements reached in Rio in 1992.
Humanist theories
Following the bio-centric and eco-holist theory distinctions, Michael Smith further classifies Humanist theories as those that require a set of criteria for moral status and ethical worth, such as sentience. This applies to the work of Peter Singer who advocated a hierarchy of value similar to the one devised by AristotleAristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
which relies on the ability to reason. This was Singer's solution to the problem that arises when attempting to determine the interests of a non-sentient entity such as a garden weed.
Singer also advocated the preservation of "world heritage sites," unspoilt parts of the world that acquire a "scarcity value" as they diminish over time. Their preservation is a bequest for future generations as they have been inherited from our ancestors and should be passed down to future generations so they can have the opportunity to decide whether to enjoy unspoilt countryside or an entirely urban landscape. A good example of a world heritage site would be the tropical rainforest, a very specialist ecosystem or climatic climax vegetation that has taken centuries to evolve. Clearing the rainforest for farmland often fails due to soil conditions, and once disturbed, can take thousands of years to regenerate.
Applied theology
The Christian world view sees the universe as created by God, and humankind accountable to God for the use of the resources entrusted to humankind. Ultimate values are seen in the light of being valuable to God. This applies both in breadth of scope - caring for people (Matthew 25) and environmental issues, e.g. environmental health (Deuteronomy 22.8; 23.12-14) - and dynamic motivation, the love of Christ controlling (2 Corinthians 5.14f) and dealing with the underlying spiritual disease of sin, which shows itself in selfishness and thoughtlessness. In many countries this relationship of accountability is symbolised at harvest thanksgiving. (B.T. Adeney : Global Ethics in New Dictionary of Christian Ethics and Pastoral Theology 1995 Leicester)Anthropocentrism
Anthropocentrism simply places humans at the centre of the universe; the human race must always be its own primary concern. It has become customary in the Western tradition to consider only our species when considering the environmental ethics of a situation. Therefore, everything else in existence should be evaluated in terms of its utility for us, thus committing speciesism. All environmental studies should include an assessment of the intrinsic value of non-human beings. In fact, based on this very assumption, a philosophical article has explored recently the possibility of humans' willing extinction as a gesture toward other beings. The authors refer to the idea as a thought experimentThought experiment
A thought experiment or Gedankenexperiment considers some hypothesis, theory, or principle for the purpose of thinking through its consequences...
that should not be understood as a call for action.
What Anthropocentric theories do not allow for is the fact that a system of ethics formulated from a human perspective may not be entirely accurate; humans are not necessarily the centre of reality. The philosopher Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch de Spinoza and later Benedict de Spinoza was a Dutch Jewish philosopher. Revealing considerable scientific aptitude, the breadth and importance of Spinoza's work was not fully realized until years after his death...
argued that we tend to assess things wrongly in terms of their usefulness to us. Spinoza reasoned that if we were to look at things objectively we would discover that everything in the universe has a unique value. Likewise, it is possible that a human-centred or anthropocentric/androcentric ethic is not an accurate depiction of reality, and there is a bigger picture that we may or may not be able to understand from a human perspective.
Peter Vardy
Peter Vardy (theologian)
Dr. Peter Vardy is a British academic, philosopher, theologian and author. Since 1999 he has held the post of Vice Principal at Heythrop College, London....
distinguished between two types of anthropocentrism. A strong thesis anthropocentric ethic argues that humans are at the center of reality and it is right for them to be so. Weak anthropocentrism, however, argues that reality can only be interpreted from a human point of view, thus humans have to be at the centre of reality as they see it.
Another point of view has been developed by Bryan Norton, who has become one of the essential actors of environmental ethics through his launching of what has become one of its dominant trends: environmental pragmatism. Environmental pragmatism refuses to take a stance in the dispute between the defenders of anthropocentrist ethics and the supporters of nonanthropocentrist ethics. Instead, Norton prefers to distinguish between strong anthropocentrism and weak-or extended-anthropocentrism and develops the idea that only the latter is capable of not under-estimating the diversity of instrumental values that humans may derive from the natural world.
Status of the field
Environmental ethics became a subject of sustained academic philosophic reflection in the 1970s. Throughout the 1980s it remained marginalized within the discipline of philosophy, attracting the attention of a fairly small group of thinkers spread across the world.Only after 1990 did the field gain institutional recognition at programs such as Colorado State, the University of Montana, Bowling Green State, and the University of North Texas. In 1991, Schumacher College of Dartington, England, was founded and now provides an MSc in Holistic Science.
These programs began to offer a masters degree with a specialty in environmental ethics/philosophy. Beginning in 2005 the Dept of Philosophy and Religion Studies at the University of North Texas offered a PhD program with a concentration in environmental ethics/philosophy.
See also
- Environmental designEnvironmental designEnvironmental design is the process of addressing surrounding environmental parameters when devising plans, programs, policies, buildings, or products...
- Environmental engineeringEnvironmental engineeringEnvironmental engineering is the application of science and engineering principles to improve the natural environment , to provide healthy water, air, and land for human habitation and for other organisms, and to remediate polluted sites...
- Environmental managementEnvironmental managementEnvironmental resource management is “a purposeful activity with the goal to maintain and improve the state of an environmental resource affected by human activities” . It is not, as the phrase suggests, the management of the environment as such, but rather the management of the interaction and...
- Environmental studiesEnvironmental studiesEnvironmental studies is the academic field which systematically studies human interaction with the environment. It is a broad interdisciplinary field of study that includes the natural environment, built environment, and the sets of relationships between them...
- Environmental organizations
- Environmental virtue ethicsEnvironmental virtue ethicsEnvironmental virtue ethics is, as the name suggests, a way of approaching environmental ethics through the lens of virtue ethics. It is paradoxically both a very new and a relatively old or established approach. It is old or established because, as Louke Van Wensveen points out, almost all...
See also
- Biocentric individualism
- BiocentrismBiocentrism (ethics)Biocentrism , in a political and ecological sense, is an ethical point of view which extends inherent value to non-human species, ecosystems, and processes in nature - regardless of their sentience...
- BioethicsBioethicsBioethics is the study of controversial ethics brought about by advances in biology and medicine. Bioethicists are concerned with the ethical questions that arise in the relationships among life sciences, biotechnology, medicine, politics, law, and philosophy....
- Climate ethicsClimate ethicsClimate Ethics is a new and growing area of research that focuses on the ethical dimensions of climate change, and concepts such as climate justice....
- Conservation ethicConservation ethicConservation is an ethic of resource use, allocation, and protection. Its primary focus is upon maintaining the health of the natural world: its, fisheries, habitats, and biological diversity. Secondary focus is on materials conservation and energy conservation, which are seen as important to...
- Conservation movementConservation movementThe conservation movement, also known as nature conservation, is a political, environmental and a social movement that seeks to protect natural resources including animal, fungus and plant species as well as their habitat for the future....
- Deep EcologyDeep ecologyDeep ecology is a contemporary ecological philosophy that recognizes an inherent worth of all living beings, regardless of their instrumental utility to human needs. The philosophy emphasizes the interdependence of organisms within ecosystems and that of ecosystems with each other within the...
- Earth economicsEarth EconomicsEarth Economics, a 501c3 non-profit headquartered in Tacoma, Washington, United States, is dedicated to researching and applying the economic solutions of tomorrow today. Earth Economics provides robust, science-based, ecologically-sound, economic analysis, policy and tools to governments,...
(policy think tank) - EcoQuestEcoQuestEcoQuest is a series of two educational adventure games developed by Sierra Entertainment. The original concept was developed by Sierra VP of Creative Development, Bill Davis...
(a series of two educational games) - EcocentrismEcocentrismEcocentrism is a term used in ecological political philosophy to denote a nature-centered, as opposed to human-centred, system of values. The justification for ecocentrism usually consists in an ontological belief and subsequent ethical claim...
- EcofeminismEcofeminismEcofeminism is a social and political movement which points to the existence of considerable common ground between environmentalism and feminism, with some currents linking deep ecology and feminism...
- Ecological economicsEcological economicsImage:Sustainable development.svg|right|The three pillars of sustainability. Clickable.|275px|thumbpoly 138 194 148 219 164 240 182 257 219 277 263 291 261 311 264 331 272 351 283 366 300 383 316 394 287 408 261 417 224 424 182 426 154 423 119 415 87 403 58 385 40 368 24 347 17 328 13 309 16 286 26...
- Environmental movementEnvironmental movementThe environmental movement, a term that includes the conservation and green politics, is a diverse scientific, social, and political movement for addressing environmental issues....
- EnvironmentalismEnvironmentalismEnvironmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements...
- Environmental skepticismEnvironmental skepticismEnvironmental skepticism is an umbrella term that describes those that argue that particular claims put forward by environmentalists and environmental scientists who support the first are false or exaggerated, along with those who are critical of environmentalism in general...
- Human ecologyHuman ecologyHuman ecology is the subdiscipline of ecology that focuses on humans. More broadly, it is an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary study of the relationship between humans and their natural, social, and built environments. The term 'human ecology' first appeared in a sociological study in 1921...
- List of environmental philosophers
- Population controlPopulation controlHuman population control is the practice of artificially altering the rate of growth of a human population.Historically, human population control has been implemented by limiting the population's birth rate, usually by government mandate, and has been undertaken as a response to factors including...
- Solastalgia
- SustainabilitySustainabilitySustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of union, an interdependent relationship and mutual responsible position with all living and non...
- TerraformingTerraformingTerraforming of a planet, moon, or other body is the hypothetical process of deliberately modifying its atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology to be similar to those of Earth, in order to make it habitable by terrestrial organisms.The term is sometimes used more generally as a...
- Trail ethicsTrail ethicsTrail ethics deals with ethics as it applies to the use of trails. It is similar to both environmental ethics and human rights in that it deals with the shared interaction of humans and nature. There are multiple agencies and groups that support and encourage ethical behavior on...
- Van Rensselaer PotterVan Rensselaer PotterVan Rensselaer Potter II was an American biochemist. He was professor of oncology at the McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research at the University of Wisconsin–Madison for more than 50 years....
- Resource depletionResource depletionResource depletion is an economic term referring to the exhaustion of raw materials within a region. Resources are commonly divided between renewable resources and non-renewable resources...
- Crop artCrop artCrop art falls into several different categories, all of which employ land and/or what grows from it to create images.-Seed art:One version of Crop art is also called Seed art, a visual art created in mosaic-style. Mosaic is an ancient technique of making designs, often from bits of tile or...
External links
- Bioethics Literature Database
- Thesaurus Ethics in the Life Sciences
- EnviroLink Library: Environmental Ethics - online resource for environmental ethics information
- EnviroLink Forum - Environmental Ethics Discussion/Debate
- Environmental Ethics online (journal, 1979-present)
- Sustainable and Ethical Architecture Architectural Firm
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Center for Environmental Philosophy
- UNT Dept of Philosophy
- Creation Care Reading Room: Extensive online resources for environment and faith (Tyndale Seminary)
- Category List --- Religion-Online.org "Ecology/Environment"
- Islam, Christianity and the Environment