Ethics concern
how we ought to behave. Environmental ethics asks the question:
“How
ought we to behave in the environment?”
or more accurately,
“How
ought we to behave as a powerful, participant species in the
ecosystem, of which we are only a part?””
Your answer to
this question will reflect your particular theory of system, authority,
causation, agency, time, etc. -- which you have no doubt developed all
term long in this course.
But, at the very
least, several general propositions can be made about how to proceed
from here. These can be stated simply, even if they may be hard to implement.
First,
we should pay attention to the patterns, trends and prospective tendencies
of our collective behavior. In this sense, environmental ethics must
of necessity be in part a "consequentialist" ethics.
Second,
we need to relate our personal behavior to these society-wide, or global
trends. (Did you observe “Buy Nothing” day?)
Third,
to do this we should begin to measure and monitor that behavior with
realistic measuring tools that can help us to perceive what changes
are required. (Switch from GDP to GPI, abandon the fantasy of infinite
growth, etc.)
Fourth,
we need to attend to the system-wide implications (in most cases the
global implications) of policies pursued for narrow purposes. (What
are the global implications of our “domestic” energy and
farm policies?)
Fifth,
we need to envision effective public policy that will help us accomplish
a paradigm shift moving beyond the growth paradigm to the sustainability
paradigm. (Environmental ethics is not about private piety, but public
policy. WWJD is fine, but it is not enough….).
Sixth,
we need to recognize that all environmental ethics involves attention
to questions of environmental justice. (This is true both domestically
and internationally, and it has been emphasized for years by voices
often excluded from environmental policy making both here and abroad.)
| |
"Anti-globalisation
summit opens," BBC News Online, (16 January, 2004, 14:19
GMT Friday). |
Seventh,
we should not be distracted by “junk science,” non-science,
pseudo-science and numerous other efforts to side-step and divert the
paradigm shift that needs to be devised. (Forget Lomberg, Fred Singer,
etc.)
Eighth,
we need to develop an enduring sense of public urgency (without panic)
and a purposeful focus that can outlast the fickle attention of the
fad-driven media, the quarterly corporate dividend reports and the 2-yr
electoral cycle of the “spectator democracy” to which we
are subjected. (Paradigm shifts are long-term propositions.) Crucial
for this aspect of our work is to engage directly in the current struggle
for media reform throughout the country.
In effect, those
concerned with environmental ethics need to start to generate their
own effective new media outlets, given the collapse of journalistic
integrity and the corporatization of all "mainstream" media
(MSM news) outlets. In the mainstream media reporting on the current
political campaign there is a near total absence of coverage on the
most pressing problem facing all of humanity. If we depend only on MSM
news to convey to us what is important we are surely a lost cause. Consider,
for example, the recent study by the League of Conservation Voters:
"What
Are They Waiting For?," YouTube - LCVheatison, (18 December
2008).
In this vein, please
take time to listen at length to the analysis the comments of Bill Moyers
on Friday, 12 January 2007 in his keynote speech in Memphis at the NMRC.
While listening, think, for a moment what the implications of his insights
are for our understanding of our environment and our development of
an effective environmental ethic to respond to our circumstance.
 |
"Bill
Moyers at NCMR 2007," YouTube, (12 January 2007). |
So, we must learn
to avoid the distractions of terrorism, elections, trips to Mars, and
other forms of "virtual reality" -- even when large groups
of scientists seem giddy with delight over their new achievements and
heady sense of possibility.
|
"Bush
unveils Moon and Mars plans," BBC News Online, (14 January,
2004, 22:03 GMT Wednesday). |
|
"'Doomsday
Clock' adjusted," BBC News Online, (17 January 2007). |
Ninth,
we need to demand more of our public “leaders” and support
those who provide genuinely new visions of leadership. In particular,
we need to raise the intelligence of debate on threats to our global
circumstance. Those political figures who refuse to listen need to be
exposed with detailed analysis of the special interests that brought
them to power and keep them there. In
this regard, we need to be particularly attentive to the means that
are used to silence, marginalize or completely exclude important voices
from the public debate.
In this election
year especially, it is essential to recognize how the public debate
is being shaped by the corporate media in collaboration with the mainstream
candidates in order to determine the range of "thinkable thought"
and exclude genuine alternatives that should be kept before the public.
MSNBC's successful
move to exclude Rep. Dennis Kucinich from the Presidential debate
in Nevada provides a sad case study of this kind of manipulation, and
we need to be prepared to challenge this kind of premature foreclosure
on the democratic process as a
few
news organizations have begun to do. Why is it that we hear of the
Green
Party's candidates as only minor voices in the national debate while
mainstream media spends its resources compiling Brittany Spears stories?
Tenth,
we need to cultivate a measure of uncharacteristic humility -- as a
culture, as a country and as a species -- if we are going to learn to
survive in this complex ecosystem. With this must come a new reverence
for life and a sense of its precariousness.
Finally,
as part of this effort we need to start listening to wisdom form other
cultures, other ages, other species…
|
The
BBC's Fergus Walsh "This is an alarming predicition of
a disappearing world" Climate
risk 'to million species' BC News Online, (7 January, 2004,
18:01 GMT Wednesday).
|
*
* *
These, then, are a few simple answers to the question: “Where
can we go from here?” The task before us is to learn to live
sustainably as a participant species in a precious and precarious ecosystem
that we did not create and cannot control. The best we can strive for
is to control our own behavior as a species in order to prolong our
symbiotic relationship with the Earth's complex web of live. We need
to move the human community to a post-carbon fueled civilization without
becoming a post-nuclear world. This will not be easy, but we need no
longer be confused about the goal. Nor should we hesitate to affirm
that this is the over-riding ethical imperative that faces the entire
human community at this point.
In accordance with the techniques of analysis you have learned to use
in this course and the ecological The
Ecocitizen's Creed of Environmental Ethics you should now be able
to forge your own principled and convincing system of environmental
ethics. We need to learn to live in a system that we did not create,
cannot control and must not destroy.
Consider the Blue Marble from a distance...
Thank
you very much for paying attention to these important matters. Keep
your eye on the ball. Keep up the good work, and keep in touch.