IPP 503: Environmental Ethics

AWAYMAVE - The Distance Mode of MA in Values and the Environment at Lancaster University

Week 1: Introduction

Environmental Ethics: Week 1. Introduction

Environmental problems have been at the centre of modern public debate. This course deals with the ethical issues raised by those environmental problems and the different philosophical approaches that have been applied to those issues.

As a way of beginning to think about those issues it is perhaps best to begin with some particular examples.

1. Case studies

Exercise: Follow the links below to examine in more detail one or more of the following examples:

Exxon-valdez

‘No one anticipated any unusual problems as the Exxon Valdez left the Alyeska Pipeline Terminal at 9:12 p.m., Alaska Standard Time, on March 23, 1989. The 987foot ship, second newest in Exxon Shipping Company's 20-tanker fleet, was loaded with 53,094,5 10 gallons (1,264,155 barrels) of North Slope crude oil bound for Long Beach, California. Tankers carrying North Slope crude oil had safely transited Prince William Sound more than 8,700 times in the 12 years since oil began flowing through the trans-Alaska pipeline, with no major disasters and few serious incidents. This experience gave little reason to suspect impending disaster. Yet less than three hours later, the Exxon Valdez grounded at Bligh Reef, rupturing eight of its 11 cargo tanks and spewing some 10.8 million gallons of crude oil into Prince William Sound.

Until the Exxon Valdez piled onto Bligh Reef, the system designed to carry 2 million barrels of North Slope oil to West Coast and Gulf Coast markets daily had worked perhaps too well. At least partly because of the success of the Valdez tanker trade, a general complacency had come to permeate the operation and oversight of the entire system. That complacency and success were shattered when the Exxon Valdez ran hard aground shortly after midnight on March 24.

No human lives were lost as a direct result of the disaster, though four deaths were associated with the cleanup effort. Indirectly, however, the human and natural losses were immense-to fisheries, subsistence livelihoods, tourism, wildlife. The most important loss for many who will never visit Prince William Sound was the aesthetic sense that something sacred in the relatively unspoiled land and waters of Alaska had been defiled.

Industry's insistence on regulating the Valdez tanker trade its own way, and government's incremental accession to industry pressure, had produced a disastrous failure of the system. The people of Alaska's Southcentral coast-not to mention Exxon and the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company-would come to pay a heavy price. The American people, increasingly anxious over environmental degradation and devoted to their image of Alaska's wilderness, reacted with anger. A spill that ranked 34th on a list of the world's largest oil spills in the past 25 years came to be seen as the nation's biggest environmental disaster since Three Mile Island.’

Links:

'1989: Exxon Valdez creates oil spill disaster'

'Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council'

Climate change

‘Climate change is with us…Climatologists reporting for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) say we are seeing global warming caused by human activities.
People are causing the change by burning nature's vast stores of coal, oil and natural gas. This releases billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) every year, although the changes may actually have started with the dawn of agriculture, say some scientists.
The physics of the "greenhouse effect" has been a matter of scientific fact for a century. CO2 is a greenhouse gas that traps the Sun's radiation within the troposphere, the lower atmosphere. It has accumulated along with other man-made greenhouse gases, such as methane and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). Some studies suggest that cosmic rays may also be involved in warming.
If current trends continue, we will raise atmospheric CO2 concentrations to double pre-industrial levels during this century. That will probably be enough to raise global temperatures by around 2°C to 5°C. Some warming is certain, but the degree will be determined by cycles involving melting ice, the oceans, water vapour, clouds and changes to vegetation.
Warming is bringing other unpredictable changes. Melting glaciers and precipitation are causing some rivers to overflow, while evaporation is emptying others. Diseases are spreading. Some crops grow faster while others see yields slashed by disease and drought. Clashes over dwindling water resources may cause conflicts in many regions.
As natural ecosystems - such as coral reefs - are disrupted, biodiversity is reduced. Most species cannot migrate fast enough to keep up, though others are already evolving in response to warming.
Thermal expansion of the oceans, combined with melting ice on land, is also raising sea levels. In this century, human activity could trigger an irreversible melting of the Greenland ice sheet. This would condemn the world to a rise in sea level of six metres - enough to flood land occupied by billions of people.’

Links:

'The New Scientist special report on Climate Change'

'Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change'

Tigers and people:

(Copyright Anish Anheria/Sanctuary - reproduced here with permission)

On the one hand:

'We have to recognise that tigers cannot coexist with high density human settlements living off market-driven economic activities like agriculture and forest biomass exploitation. Therefore, human and livestock population densities need to be reduced inside prime tiger habitats through sensible and fair relocation policies, to allow wild ungulate prey to recover from habitat pressures, poaching and competition with livestock'.

'Sierra Club Volunteers: Saving Wild Tigers'

'Avoiding Paper Tigers and Saving Real Tigers'

On the other:

‘[E]every attempt by the people of Nagarahole to defend their rights has come under attack. The people have not alternative but to resort to peaceful non-cooperation and protest. They however believe that they have the right and knowledge to manage their traditional territories in the best interests of conservation of biodiversity and wild life… The Nagarahole forests must be under the direct supervision of the adivasi, in tune with their indigenous identity and with due recognition and powers to their conservation idioms with the guarantee that there would be no forced re location of any of these adivasi families from their habitat.’

Nagarahole: Adivasi Peoples' Rights and Ecodevelopment

'World Rainforest Movement: India - Welcome to Mowgli's Land'

The ruddy duck problem:

'The UK's Ruddy Duck Problem'

As numbers of ruddy ducks have increased in the UK, so have the numbers of birds recorded in continental Europe. There have been over 900 records of some 1,500 ruddy ducks in 21 European and North African countries. Ruddy ducks were first seen in Spain in 1983 and records have since become more frequent, with about 20 birds occurring annually. The two species have begun to interbreed, producing fertile hybrid offspring.
International conservation organisations and European governments believe that hybridisation with ruddy ducks poses a very serious threat to the survival of the globally threatened white-headed duck. Ruddy ducks are naturally more promiscuous in their mating behaviour than white-headed ducks. If the number of ruddy ducks reaching Europe from the UK is allowed to continue to increase, there is a danger that the more competitive ruddy duck will inundate the Spanish white-headed duck population. The likely result would be a population of hybrid birds with individual birds showing, over time, fewer and fewer characteristics of white-headed ducks. The population would eventually comprise solely ruddy ducks…Not only are ruddy ducks reaching Spain, they have recently been recorded in Turkey - the wintering grounds of the main central Asian population of white-headed ducks. If ruddy ducks become established here and spread eastwards, control would be impossible due to a lack of infrastructure and resources. Therefore, there is an urgent choice to make: act now to combat this threat, or allow ruddy ducks to continue to increase and spread across Europe, placing the world population of white-headed ducks in jeopardy. The evidence strongly suggests that UK birds are responsible for the ruddy duck's spread across Europe. Without control of this core population in the very near future, conservation measures on the continent are unlikely to succeed. RSPB - The Conservation Problem

Animal Aid will be at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT), Slimbridge on Good Friday (April 2nd) to protest against the organisation's support for the government's planned slaughter of thousands of ruddy ducks…The WWT protest concludes a Week of Action directed at the major cull supporters. Demonstrations have also taken place at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the Countryside Council for Wales and English Nature. The protests are the opening salvos in a sustained campaign designed to force a cancellation of the planned killing…The supposed 'logic' behind the killing is that ruddys, introduced to Britain from North America by the WWT itself, have bred and spread to Spain where they are mating with the endangered white-headed duck (endangered because it has been hunted and its habitat destroyed by people). The result of this mating is an 'impure' hybrid. Those promoting the cull are deeply offended by this mixing of blood, even though the ruddys and the white headed ducks can produce healthy offspring and are therefore close genetic kin. Animal Aid Press Release

Poverty and pollution:

Everyone should have the right to live in a clean, safe environment. There is no place in a modern society for factories spewing out thousands of tonnes of carcinogenic chemicals. This alone should be cause for strong action to reduce pollution from factories. But the fact that this pollution is also in the most deprived areas of the country makes action even more vital. It is morally wrong that on top of all the other problems that poorer communities face, they should have to bear the burden of factory pollution as well… 'Pollution and Poverty - Breaking the Link'

Consider one or more of the cases above in detail and answer the following questions:

• a) What environmental goods and bads are in dispute?
  Why does the environment matter in these cases?
• b) To whom does the environment matter?
  
• c) What conflicting human interests are involved?
  
• d) What impact does the problem have on individual animals; on other individual organisms; on species as a whole; on ecosystems?
• e) Do you think these impacts are bad or good? What would constitute "bad" and "good" in each case?

Now read chapter one of J. O’Neill, A. Holland and A. Light Values and the Environment.

2. Why do environments matter?

There are a variety of different ways in which our environments and the other beings who share those environments matter to us.

1. we live from them - they are the means to our existence.
2. we live in them - they are our homes and familiar places in which everyday life takes place and draws its meaning, and in which personal and social histories are embodied.
3. we live with them - our lives take place against the backdrop of a natural world that existed before us and will continue to exist beyond the life of the last human.

1. Living from the world

We live from the world: we mine its resources; cultivate and harvest its fruits; shape the contours of the land for human habitation, roads, minerals and agriculture; dredge rivers for transport. And all these activities are subject to the action of the natural world: flood, drought, hurricane, earthquake and landslide can be a source of ruined endeavour and human sorrow. Human life, health and economic productivity is dependent upon the natural and cultivated ecological systems in which we live - on their capacity to assimilate the wastes of economic activity and to provide its raw materials. The damage that economic activity does to these capacities, accordingly, is a major source of increased environmental concern.

2. Living in the world

We live in the world. The environment is not just a physical precondition for human life and productive activity, it is where humans (and other species) lead their lives. Environments matter to us for social, aesthetic and cultural reasons. Some of this dimension often comes under the heading of 'recreation value' in economic texts, and for some part of the role that the environment plays in human life the term is a quite proper one: it catches the way in which forests, beaches, mountains, and rivers are places in which social and individual recreation - of walking, fishing, climbing, swimming, of family picnics and play – take place. However the term 'recreation' can be misleading in the sense that it suggests a view of the natural environment as merely a playground or spectacle, which might have substitutes in a local gym, or art gallery, whereas the places in question might have a different and more central part in the social identities of individuals and communities. Particular places matter to both individuals and communities in virtue of embodying their history and cultural identities. The loss of aesthetically and culturally significant landscapes or the despoliation of particular areas matters in virtue of this fact.

3. Living with the world

We live with the world: the physical and natural worlds have histories that stretch out before humans emerged and have futures that will continue beyond the disappearance of the human species. This fact is one to which environmentalists often make appeal. Correspondingly a source of growth in environmental concern has been the life sciences and nature conservation movement. The loss of biodiversity, the disappearance of particular habitats and the extinction, local and global, of particular species of flora and fauna have all become increasingly central to public debate and policy making. A good part of people’s concern is not about the conservation of natural resources or about cultural significance, as such, but about the natural world as a direct object of value, often quite independent of any use it might have for individuals. This concern has been voiced by philosophers in terms of the 'intrinsic value' of nature and by economists in terms of its 'existence value'. Whether either term has done much to clarify the issues is a moot point to which we return later.

Exercise:

Consider how these three different dimensions figure in the cases outlined above.

3. Value conflicts

Conflicts can exist between different kinds of value that might be attributed to the environment. For example, the drainage of marshland from the economic perspective of agricultural productivity and the possibility of increasing sustainable agricultural yields over time might count as improvement; but from the perspective of biodiversity or the cultural significance of ancient marshes it may be damaging. Conversely, a farmer might see the decision to flood as damaging and will worry about the growing influence of conservation policy on the future of his livelihood.

Exercise:

Consider the cases with which we started. What are the conflicts involved?

How do you think they might be properly resolved?

4. The distribution of goods and harms.

Environmental choices have a clear distributional dimension. They take place in the context of inequalities in property and power; they have consequences for the subsequent distribution of damages and goods across different groups, often falling hardest on the poorest. Public decisions and actions distribute environmental goods and harms among different persons and beings. They raise problems of the equity or justice of the actions.

Exercise:

Consider the cases above. How are different goods and harms distributed among the affected parties?

Who is damaged and who gains the benefits?

How should we decide if a given distribution is justified or not?

5. Addressing conflicts

Environments are sites of conflict between different values and different social groups. They are also sites of conflict within social groups and even within individuals, where they appear as dilemmas. These conflicts occur at a number of different levels - at the local level in the management of environmentally significant sites, at the level of decisions about specific economic and environmental projects, at the level of policy and at the level of regulation. They are conflicts that concern both citizen and policy maker.

Exercise:

Consider the conflicting interests and values in the cases with which we started. How should such conflicts to be resolved?

6. Utilitarianism

One response to the problem of value conflict is to find a common measure of values through which the gains and losses in different values can be traded off one with another. The most well-known version of this position is utilitarianism which still dominates a great deal of public policy making.

The utilitarian tradition approaches the issue of apparent conflicts between different values and interests by attempting to find some measure through which different ends can be traded off with each other so as to maximise the total welfare of affected agents.. Hence we need a measure of welfare such that gains and losses in welfare can be appraised and the choice that produces the greatest total welfare be discerned. Thus utilitarianism, understood as an account of decision making, recommends the policy that maximises the welfare of affected agents.

Classical Utilitarianism: The right action is that which has the consequences which maximises the well-being or happiness of affected agents i.e. the best action is that which produces the greatest improvement in well-being of affected agents.

Exercise:

What implications do you think the utilitarian approach would have for the cases you have examined above?

What problems did you have in applying the case?

Do you think the utilitarian approach to that case looks plausible?

Next week we will consider this utilitarian approach in more detail.