Sri Sharda Institute Of Indian Management- Research Foundation 7,Institutional Area Phase II Vasant kunj, New Delhi 110070 Tel:+91 11 26124090/91 Fax: +91 11 26124092 Email: [email protected],[email protected]Website: www.srisiim.org , www.srisiim.ac.in The Project On Environmental Management Environment Ethics Submitted To: Submitted By: Ms. Sartaj Khera Bhanu Pratap Singh 20110105 1
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Sri Sharda Institute Of Indian Management-Research Foundation7,Institutional Area Phase II Vasant kunj, New Delhi 110070
“The completion of our project depends upon the co-operation, coordination and
combined efforts of several resources of knowledge, inspiration & energy”. I
Always knew that in an organization, the work atmosphere yields enormously on
an individual’s productivity and quality of work. The competence and expertise of
people around us at Was a factor that motivated us to strive and achieve nothing
short of perfection.
We owe a great many thanks to all those, without whom this project wouldn’t
have been as much a learning experience and as successful. To those, who helped
and supported us during the course of this project.
My deepest sense of gratitude for Dr RITWIK DUBEY, for constant guidance,
professional help and support during the course of the project, for .guiding us
and helping us at all times during the project. He was the key inspirer for us and
without his guidance this project would have been a distant reality.
We thank my colleagues and friends for providing constant encouragement and
help. We are indebted to them for their timely help & the enthusiasm they
expressed in helping us bring this project to the fruitful end.
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Environmental ethics
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 environmental law, environmental sociology, ecotheology, ecological economics, ecology and environmental geography.
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 vehicles? What environmental obligations do we need to keep for future generations?[1][2]
Is it right for humans to knowingly cause the extinction 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 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 journalThe Trumpeter: Journal of Ecosophy in 1983. The first British based journal of this kind, Environmental Values, 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 Smith are two recent examples of this, as cited by Peter Vardy in "The Puzzle of Ethics".[6] 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.
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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 Noses 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.[7] 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; 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.
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Conservation ethicsMarshall'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 summit 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 Aristotle 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)
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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.[8] 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.[9] The authors refer to the idea as a thought experiment 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.
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
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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.
In Germany, the University of Greifswald has recently established an international program in Landscape Ecology & Nature Conservation with a strong focus on environmental ethics. In 2009, theUniversity of Munich and Deutsches Museum founded the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, an international, interdisciplinary center for research and education in the environmental humanities.
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Environmental Ethics Of General Motors
Around 100 years ago the American Chestnut Tree was struck by a fungus that killed most all of the trees. This month however, researchers have tweaked the genetic code of the tree to make it sustain against the fungus that wiped it out. Researchers have used a gene from a breed of a wheat plant that has shown resistance in trees against such fungal pathogens. They plan to begin planting the trees this month in a botanical garden. After talking about Genetically modified seeds in class I am kind of hesistant to jump on board to this modified chesnut tree. While the tree is beautiful and is very useful for woodworking and construction, it makes me begin to think about what will happen when that pathogen becomes stronger and overcomes the gene that makes the trees survive. Will that fungus then begin to wipe out other species of trees that have not yet been effected by it? Will this new tree pollinate with other chestnut trees that survived the pathogen to start with and create a hybrid tree? It seems as though they need to keep this tree in the labs a little while and see exactly what kind of affects it will have before we begin to plant in the wild.
The struggle by the European biotechnology sector to persuade the authorities in the EU to allow it to grow genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in crops could be reaching a crucial stage. For the first time since a moratorium on approvals was imposed in 1998 by a group of EU member states, then lifted two years ago, the EU is poised to approve a GMO product for cultivation."If it is given the go-ahead, it will be good news for plant and industrial biotechnology in Europe after a difficult regulatory period," says Natalie Moll, a director at the European Association for Bioindustries (EuropaBio).However, leaders of the biotech sector in Europe concede that there is still a long way to go before there is broad acceptance of GMOs in the region. In the middle of December, EU environment ministers rejected, by a qualified majority, a move by the European Commission to order Austria to abandon its ban on the cultivation of two genetically modified types of corn. These had been approved at EU level before the moratorium.
Potatoes to go
Several GMO food and feed products have been approved for marketing in the EU since the moratorium was abandoned. Since 1998, no new genetically engineered plants can be grown as crops in the EU on a commercial scale.The product that is due to make the big regulatory breakthrough is a genetically optimised potato developed by BASF, called Amflora. It produces pure amylopectin starch for application in the paper, textile and adhesives industries.
Its approval will be particularly significant for the progress of the fledgling white or industrial biotech segment in Europe, which hopes to use biotechnology to make chemicals and chemical feedstocks.Amflora will be cultivated as a non-food crop. But it is still receiving a backlash from the deeply entrenched opposition to GMOs among large sections of the EU public, farmers and politicians.When the proposed approval of the potato was debated in December by the EU's standing committee on GMOs, representing experts from the governments of the 25 member states, it failed to gain the support of a qualified majority of its 321 members.Instead, Amflora managed to gather the backing of only 42% of the committee, well short of the necessary 72% majority. The dossier on the potato was next due to be passed to the Council of Ministers, comprising members of all the EU governments.If, as seems likely, it is again unable to achieve a qualified majority in the Council, the decision on its future is then transferred to the European Commission. The EU executive will almost certainly approve the potato, since it has already recommended that the potato's cultivation be allowed. BASF is hoping that the Commission's consent will come in time for Amflora to be cultivated in time for a market launch this year.The Commission will be merely doing what it has been doing since the moratorium was lifted. All approvals since then have failed to gain a qualified majority in both the standing committee and the Council, leaving the go-ahead to be given by the Commission."The approval procedure is not working properly," says Moll. "It could be a long time before it is operating smoothly, although the biotechnology industry is hoping that the present problems can be resolved as soon as possible."The political opposition to GMOs in the EU comes mainly from eight countries - Austria, Cyprus, Denmark, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg and Poland. Between them, they can muster enough votes to block approvals.The states with the most supportive attitude to GMOs are the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK and, lately, Germany, following the departure of the Greens from the country's government. Ireland and Spain's backing for green biotechnology appears to have cooled.
Public versus farmersA firm majority in favour of GMOs among the EU's member states, which expanded to 27 in January with the accession of Bulgaria and Romania, is unlikely to emerge until there has been a significant waning in hostility among the public and farmers in Europe.Most of the politically influential antipathy to genetic engineering in agriculture comes, however, from farmers, who want to safeguard what they regard as the exclusive quality of their food crops.
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"Ultimately, the current opposition to GMOs in certain EU countries is protectionist," says one European biotechnology consultant. "Italy, for example, will have nothing to do with GMOs. Research into plant genetic engineering is virtually banned there. The country has a system of controls on the source of specialty foods, which is important to farmers. They feel it will be destroyed if GMOs are allowed."He adds: "Poland is opposed to gene technology because of its large numbers of small farmers, who are big suppliers of organic food to the rest of Europe."BASF's Amflora potato should not be regarded as a threat to the food sector because it will be cultivated solely for industrial and technical applications."Since potatoes do not have wild relatives in Europe and are propagated by tubers, not seeds, it is extremely unlikely that out-crossing (the transfer of genes to other plants) will take place," Thorsten Storck, global project manager at BASF Plant Science, told a science conference at Ludwigshafen, Germany, in November 2006.The GM product does not have the normal mixture of amylopectin and amylose, which are the two components of starch in conventional potatoes. In industrial processes, potato starch is superior to wheat and corn starch because it has a higher molecular weight and a lower fat and protein content. However, the required functional properties all come from the amylopectin because it has thickening qualities, as well as high viscosity, stability and clarity. Potato starch has to be chemically modified to eliminate the gelling effects of amylose.Instead of having the usual 80:20 combination of amylopectin and amylose, the Amflora potato contains only amylopectin in its starch."The potato will be produced solely under contract farming conditions," said Storck. "Amflora will not be made available on the general market."He continued: "It is a product that is designed for the European market. In non-European countries, corn starch is mainly used for industrial applications. Of the 2.5m tonnes of potato starch used annually in the world, 2m tonnes are made in Europe."
Problem aheadOne possible problem still facing BASF, even after it gains EU approval, could be the lack of practical co-existence rules on the cultivation of GM plants in individual countries. These should lay down minimum distances between GM
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and non-GM crops. A green biotechnology supporter, such as the UK government, has only recently completed a consultation exercise on the drawing-up of co-existence regulations."Some countries are leaving it to regional authorities to issue co-existence rules," says Moll. "As a result, we are getting a wide range of regulatory distances, with some 500m or more when scientific studies show [that] 20m-25m is sufficient, depending on the crop."When they refused to back a proposal by the Commission to lift a ban by Austria on the growing of two genetically engineered maize varieties, EU environment ministers reaffirmed the right of countries to take into account "different agricultural structures and regional ecological characteristics" when assessing the risks of GMOs.Agreement among EU member states that governments should be entitled to decide for themselves the conditions under which GMOs should be grown is likely to remain a major hurdle to the widespread cultivation of genetically modified crops in Europe for the foreseeable future.
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Environmental Ethics Case Studies: An Archive
Should the Humpback Chub be Saved?
Ian A. Smith
Metropolitan State College of Denver
[Adapted from Smith’s “The Role of Humility and Intrinsic Goods in Preserving
Endangered Species: Why Preserve the Humpback Chub?” Environmental Ethics Vol.
32 No. 2 (Summer): 165-182. Copyright 2010.]
In the western United States, environmental groups like the Glen Canyon Institute have
worked tirelessly to save several species of endangered fish along the Colorado River,
including the humpback chub (Gila cypha). Partly on the basis of wanting to save these
endangered fish species, the Institute has advocated that the Glen Canyon Dam in the
Colorado River Basin be decommissioned. Without the dam, the Colorado River will
warm up and become muddy again in Glen Canyon, which is good for the endangered
fish species. However, removal of the dam is bad for the introduced fish species of the
river, such as the striped bass, largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, and walleye which
prefer cool, clear waters that the dam has been able to provide.
If the Institute is successful in having the dam decommissioned, then Lake Powell
(which Glen Canyon dam created) and the associated tail waters of Lees Ferry, with
their burgeoning introduced fisheries, will cease to be fisheries any longer. This is an
economic disadvantage to decommissioning the dam – others include a severe
reduction in tourism in the area, as the main source of tourism in the area is Lake
notorious for its high housing costs. “Anything that increases the value of real property
is great if you already have a piece of the pie,” one citizen complained at a recent public
forum on the progress of the Greenbelt Program. She was particularly concerned
because the Greenbelt amenity will mainly abut high-income areas of the City, making
already highly desirable properties even more valuable. “Same old story. The rich get
richer.” More troubling to Isadore Freeman, a longtime resident of Pittsfield Township, is
the inequity, as he sees it, of curtailing commercial and industrial growth just when it is
arriving in Pittsfield. “We have been waiting years to benefit from that growth! The
elitist swine across Ellsworth Road don’t care a nickel about us.”
Pittsfield Township, especially when compared with Ann Arbor, is not affluent and many
residents struggle financially. The growth of its tax base has not kept up with its needs
for services and employment opportunities have mostly been quite distant for residents
of Pittsfield. “Just when we expected our roads to be fixed, they shut off the tap. How
fair is that?” The swine, as it were, contend that the City plans to purchase property and
development rights for the greenbelt on the open market. “If there is demand for a
Walmart way out there, then Sam Walton can buy it out from under us,” an unnamed
source in the City administration explained. Of course, that assumes that the City does
what the City plans. The possibility that the City may use its eminent domain powers
provides an incentive for landowners in the path of the greenbelt to sell to the City and
for developers to look elsewhere for property. Also, those not wishing to sell are likely to
cut the best deal now, rather than later risk the chance that the ordered selling price
from condemnation will be lower. Even without the threat of condemnation, there are
not many able to compete with the purchasing power of Ann Arbor’s program, Sam
Walton not withstanding.
Interestingly, it is no longer just the purchasing power of Ann Arbor taxpayers that
opponents of the Greenbelt must face, but also the dollars from their own pocketbooks.
Recently, the US Department of Agriculture anted up $335,000 from its Farm and
Ranchland Protection Program to subsidize the Greenbelt Program.
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Water, the West, and Our Changing Climate: Political and Ethical ChallengesWater is the central limiting resource of the Western United States, the source a unique
and elaborate body of law, the site of extensive dams and development, and the center
of a history of divisive politics of the West. For the past 100 years, water has been
developed to serve largely narrow utilitarian ends: agriculture, mining, and the ever-
growing population of the West. Today, a new challenge faces those who manage and
plan for water in the west: climate change. Scientists and engineers, as well as the
NOAA, are already documenting change and planning for the stresses water variability
and shortages might place on users in desert states such as Utah, New Mexico, and
Arizona.
However, in western states with a libertarian bent, the law and politics of water and the
politics of climate change make an especially heady mix. The very claim that warming is
happening, not to mention that it is caused by anthropogenic activities, has divided
politicians and scientists, policy makers and activists, along partisan lines. Many of
those with the most power in state and local governments regard climate change
abatement measures as a challenge to “western” values of liberty and free enterprise.
Moreover, states are deeply divided because of a long history of tension over rights to
water – from the headwaters of the Colorado to Mexico.
Scientists, lawyers, water users, stakeholders, leaders of environmental organizations,
and leaders in state and local government have very different perceptions about the
extent and nature of risks due to climate change, and how to address these risks. These
differences in knowledge and perception will no doubt have substantial repercussions
for water use and availability in the future.
The object of this case study is first, to summarize the state of climate science,
particularly, it’s potential impacts on water resources in the west. Second, we will reflect
on the political, social and logistical complications that these changes will bring for