Environmental Ethics:
We have a dream – a world without poverty, and equitable world, a world that respects human rights, a world that is environmentally, socially and economically sustainable, where the challenges like climate change, loss in biodiversity and social inequity have been successfully addressed. But there is an urgent need to break the link between production and the consumption on the one hand and environmental destruction on the other. As the immense environmental, economic risks arising from our current path will be much harder to manage if we are unable to measure the key aspects of the problem.
The economic market cannot resolve environmental problems and we need to find a solution that embraces the ethical dimensions of environmental protection. The Rapid growth of population, income per capita & use of fossil fuels over the past half-century have led us to major threats to climate stability and to ecosystems in both developed and developing countries.
Environmental ethics are one of the most important modern environmental conservation and sustainable development tools. It is also a global issue for implications in development considering the necessity of environmental ethics. It is very easy for us to carry our duties and responsibilities properly that lead to sustainable development.
The field of environmental ethics concerns human beings ethical relationship with the natural environment and its emergence was no doubt due to increasing awareness in the 1960s of the effects that technology, industry, economic expansions and population growth were having on the environment. The job of environmental ethics is to outline our moral obligations in the face of such concerns. In order to tackle what our obligations are, it is usually thought necessary to consider first why we have them.
- The well-being and flourishing of human and non-human life on Earth value themselves in intrinsic & inherent worth.
- Richness and diversity of life forms contribute to the realisation of the values and are also values in themselves.
- Humans have no right to reduce this diversity except to satisfy vital needs.
- Present human interference with the non-human world is excessive, and the situation is rapidly worsening.
The future of Environmental Ethics:
There is enough evidence for at least three future developments that environmental ethics needs to be and will be informed by changes in the political efforts for environmental problems. The effectiveness of civic bodies in ‘getting there’ will affect the types of ethics that emerge but without proper participation of many large polluters, the reductions in greenhouse gas emissions is so small. After all, the environment is not something one can remove oneself from.
Environmental ethics will, however, be informed by our scientific understanding of the environment. Whether it is changed in our understanding of how ecosystems work, or changes in the evidence concerning the environmental crisis, it is clear that such change will inform and influence those thinkers.
