Environmental Ethical Issues Essay

Environmental ethics is the discipline that studies the moral status, relationship and value of human beings to the environment, along with its nonhuman contents. It is the branch of environmental philosophy that extends the conventional boundaries of ethics that solely takes on humans by embracing the nonhuman world. It employs influence on an enormous variety of disciplines including geography, ecology, economics, theology, sociology and law. Throughout the years, this discipline examined issues concerning global warming and ozone depletion, energy use and production, toxic waste, water quality, extinction, tropical deforestation, fisheries management, forestry management and waste management. History While nature was the center of attention of numerous nineteenth and twentieth century philosophy, the modern environmental ethics only came into view as a scholarly discipline during the 1970s. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in 1963, is among the available work that drew attention to the crisis (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2008). Carson’s work is made up of several essays earlier published in the New Yorker magazine pointing how pesticides like deildrin, aldrin and DDT coalesced all the way through the food web. Carson theorizes that commercial farming practices designed at exploiting crop profits and yields are capable of affecting both public and environmental health. Conversely, in 1967, historian Lynn White Jr. argues that the historical root of the environmental crisis is people’s Judeo-Christian philosophy that promotes the overexploitation of environment (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2008). White suggests that the attitude sustains human superiority over every other life form on earth and expresses that nature is created for human exploitation. White’s theory is extensively discussed in history, theology and has been exposed to a number of sociological testing, on top of it being repeatedly discussed by philosophers. In 1968, Paul Ehrlich, a Stanford ecologist, published â€Å"The Population Bomb,† forewarning that the escalation of human population will endanger the environmental systems’ capability to provide life-support (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2008). In addition, the forester Aldo Leopold had also campaigned for the conservation and appreciation of environment (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2008). The concerns were inspired by a combination of aesthetic and ethical responses to nature and a denunciation to offensive economic approaches that undermines the significance of the environment. Taken as a whole, however, the different viewpoints of the aforesaid philosophers have also led to the emergence of reasonably diverse environmental ethics. Current Events Currently, environmental ethics are laying down issues in numerous areas of the bio community. For instance, the World Health Organization asserts that pesticide poisoning, particularly in developing countries, causes almost 50,000 deaths every year; while the US Office of Technology Assessment claims that more than 90 percent of all human cancers are biologically induced and are obviously avoidable (Frechette, n. d. , p. 2). Some believe that the major perpetrator of this dilemma is industrial pollution, in view of the fact that the cancer rate is likely tagging along the industrialization rate all over the world. However, the most apparent consequence that unethical use of the environment has brought today is the gradual changes in the global climate. There is now a vast scientific concurrence that global warming is happening and human stimulated the said dilemma. With global warming on the rise and species and habitats dwindling, the probabilities for ecosystems to naturally adapt are diminishing. Accordingly, the supporters of environmental ethics have the same opinion that something needs to be done regarding climate change and global warming. Future Many people concur that climate change may be one of the greatest issues in environmental ethics in the future. However, there are other issues in environmental ethics that are expected to continue in the future including the wilderness destruction, waste, species extinction, resource depletion, poverty, population, nuclear weapons, marine pollution, energy, ecosystems, deforestation, atmospheric pollution and the most undervalued genetic engineering. In the United States, roughly 75 percent of its processed food contains various genetically modified ingredients (McLean, 2008). Even though humans were already altering crops long before the arrival of modern biotechnology and genetics; however, with the growing human population and the effects of climate change, it is even more expected that this process will become exceptionally prevalent in the future. Environmental ethics in food crops genetic engineering creates issues like imminent hazards to the wildlife and environment; potential socio-economic consequences; impending dangers to human health; and potential to public confidence caused in some way by refusal to label genetically modified foods as such (McLean, 2008). The field of environmental ethics is evidently important as it is concerned with the formulation of humans’ moral obligations with regard to the environment. Several concepts developed to provide solution to some issues include government intervention and market failure, economic efficiency, valuing environmental resources, and the relationship between the aggregate economy and the environment. However, without the involvement of the numerous large polluters, it may be expected that these concepts will fall short. Conclusion The convergence of legal, political and ethical debates concerning the environment, the emergence of attitudes that strengthen animal rights activism and the enigmas over whether an environment ethic is something new or only an extension or modification of existing ethical theories are continually revealed in wider political and social movements. Because of the growing concern for the environment and the consequence that human actions bring upon the environment, it is evident that the field of environmental ethics will be even more indispensable in times to come. Nevertheless, despite all of these upheavals caused by divergent philosophies, every one must indispensably remember the basic rule that environmental actions are ethical when it tends to safeguard the beauty, stability, and integrity of the environmental community and it is unethical when it tends otherwise. References Frechette, K. S. (n. d. ). Ethical Issues in Environmental and Occupational Health. Association of Schools of Public Health. Retrieved May 7, 2009, from http://www.asph. org/UserFiles/Module7. pdf McLean, M. R. (2008). The Future of Food: An Introduction to the Ethical Issues in Genetically Modified Foods. Santa Clara University. Retrieved May 8, 2009, from http://www. scu. edu/ethics/practicing/focusareas/medical/conference/presentations/genetically-modified-foods. html Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (2008, January 3). Environmental Ethics. Retrieved May 7, 2009, from http://plato. stanford. edu/entries/ethics-