- "Environmental ethics is an established field of practical philosophy... Ethics exerts influence on a large range of disciplines including environmental law, environmental sociology, ecotheology, ecological economics, ecology and environmental geography."
Environmental ethics refers to the moral principles and values that guide human interactions with the natural world. It addresses questions about how we should treat the environment, what our responsibilities are to future generations, and what our obligations are to other living organisms.
Environmental Ethics: This is the philosophy or system of values that guides human behavior towards the environment. It involves examining human relations with nature, the moral relationship between humans and other living beings, and the ethical questions raised by human actions on nature.
Environmental Sustainability: This is the ability of ecosystems and human institutions to continue functioning for an indefinite period of time without causing harm to the natural environment. It involves identifying ways of balancing human needs with the needs of other species and natural resources.
Environmental Justice: This is the fair distribution of environmental benefits and risks among different social groups. It involves addressing inequalities in the distribution of environmental hazards and access to environmental resources.
Climate Change: This is the long-term change in the earth's climate attributed to human activities, such as burning of fossil fuels and other industrial processes. It involves understanding the impacts of climate change on different ecosystems, species, and human societies, and identifying strategies to mitigate and adapt to its effects.
Biodiversity Conservation: This is the protection and preservation of biodiversity, which refers to the variety and abundance of living organisms in an ecological system. It involves identifying strategies to protect endangered species, habitats and ecosystems.
Resource Depletion: This is the exhaustion of natural resources such as fossil fuels, minerals, and water. It involves understanding the sustainability of different human practices that use natural resources and identifying ways to manage them more efficiently.
Environmental Governance: This is the legal and institutional structures and processes that facilitate the management of the environment. It involves assessing the effectiveness of environmental policies, laws and regulations, and identifying strategies to strengthen them.
Environmental Health: This is the impact of environmental factors on human health. It involves identifying the health risks associated with exposure to pollutants or contaminated natural resources, and identifying strategies to prevent or mitigate the negative health impacts.
Ecological Economics: This is a branch of economics that considers the relationship between humans and nature. It involves understanding the economic benefits and costs associated with human activities that impact the environment and identifying ways to promote sustainable economic growth.
Environmental Education: This is the process of imparting knowledge and skills related to the environment, sustainability, and human interactions with nature. It involves developing strategies to promote public awareness and understanding of environmental issues, and inspiring action to protect the environment.
Anthropocentrism: This is a human-centered view of environmental ethics, which asserts that humans are superior to all other life forms on earth and have the right to exploit them.
Biocentrism: This type of environmental ethics holds that all living things possess intrinsic value and should be respected and protected, regardless of their usefulness to humans.
Ecocentrism: This environmental ethics view asserts that entire ecosystems, as well as the relationships between different species that exist within them, have intrinsic value and should be protected.
Deep ecology: This approach sees humans as only one of many species in the natural world and argues that all living beings are interconnected and should be valued equally.
Ecofeminism: This environmental ethics view draws connections between the oppression of women and the exploitation of the earth, arguing that both result from a patriarchal society that values domination and control over cooperation and nurturing.
Animal rights: This ethical viewpoint regards animals as having intrinsic rights and advocates for laws and policies that protect them from harm and exploitation by humans.
Environmental pragmatism: This approach promotes solutions to environmental problems based on practical considerations, such as cost-effectiveness and political feasibility, rather than on strict ethical principles.
Social ecology: This environmental ethics perspective focuses on the social and economic systems that contribute to environmental degradation, arguing that addressing these root causes is necessary for sustainable environmental policy.
Green anarchism: This is a radical environmentalism movement that advocates for the dismantling of oppressive systems of power, including capitalism and the state, to allow for a more egalitarian and harmonious relationship with the earth.
- "The main competing paradigms are anthropocentrism, physiocentrism (called ecocentrism as well), and theocentrism."
- "These decisions raise numerous questions."
- "Should humans continue to clear cut forests for the sake of human consumption?"
- "Why should humans continue to propagate its species, and life itself?"
- "Should humans continue to make gasoline-powered vehicles?"
- "What environmental obligations do humans need to keep for future generations?"
- "Is it right for humans to knowingly cause the extinction of a species for the convenience of humanity?"
- "How should humans best use and conserve the space environment to secure and expand life?"
- "What role can Planetary Boundaries play in reshaping the human-earth relationship?"
- "The academic field of environmental ethics grew up in response to the works of Rachel Carson and Murray Bookchin and events such as the first Earth Day in 1970..."
- "Two papers published in Science had a crucial impact: Lynn White's 'The Historical Roots of our Ecologic Crisis'... and Garrett Hardin's 'The Tragedy of the Commons'..."
- "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."
- "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..."
- "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."