Environmentalism PDF

ENVIRONMENTALISM  ENVIRONMENTALISM 1. WHAT IS ENVIRONMENTALISM? 2. IDEOLOGY 3. CONSERVATIONISM 4. HUMAN WELFARE ECOLOGY 5. DEEP ECOLOGY 6. POLITICAL EXPRESSION  ENVIRONMENTALISM WHAT IS ENVIRONMENTALISM? “…political and...

ENVIRONMENTALISM  ENVIRONMENTALISM 1. WHAT IS ENVIRONMENTALISM? 2. IDEOLOGY 3. CONSERVATIONISM 4. HUMAN WELFARE ECOLOGY 5. DEEP ECOLOGY 6. POLITICAL EXPRESSION  ENVIRONMENTALISM WHAT IS ENVIRONMENTALISM? “…political and ethical movement that seeks to improve and protect the quality of the natural environment through changes to environmentally harmful human activities; through the adoption of forms of political, economic, and social organization…”  IDEOLOGY ANTHROPOCENTRIC/ BIOCENTRIC ANDROCENTRIC “Life-Centred” “Human-Centred” “Deep” Ecology “Shallow” Ecology Ecocentrism Technocentrism Humans are “an element of the Focus on “negative effects that natural environment” environmental degradation has on Intrinsic value of individual human beings and their interests” species and creatures Instrumental value of individual species and creatures “nature has an intrinsic moral “moral obligations that humans worth that does not depend on have to the environment derive its usefulness to humans […] from obligation humans have to gives rise directly to obligations each other” - future generations to the environment”  CONSERVATIONISM Management of natural resources/environment for human benefit ‒ E.g. forestry, parks development ‒ US Yellowstone Park Act (1872) ‒ Canada: Banff National Park (1885) ‒ CNR, hot springs, tourism Balance between environmental/wildlife protection and human use (current and future) ‒ Reforestation, soil reclamation, flood control ‒ Wildlife management ‒ Corridors for safe passage ‒ Reintroduction of bison, wolf …  HUMAN WELFARE ECOLOGY RACHEL CARSON - SILENT SPRING Impact of pesticides on bird reproduction (DDT) “We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frost's familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road -- the one less traveled by -- offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth.”  HUMAN WELFARE ECOLOGY Pollution: air/water quality Carcinogens Ozone Waste Nuclear radiation Overpopulation Climate Change ‒ Flooding, desertification Biodiversity  HUMAN WELFARE ECOLOGY POLLUTION - AIR QUALITY World Health Organization (WHO) – 2016 ‒ “91% of the world population living in places where WHO air quality guidelines are not met” ‒ “Ambient (outdoor) air pollution […] estimated to have caused 4.2 million premature deaths worldwide” ‒ “Some 91% of those premature deaths occurred in low- and middle-income countries” (greatest number in South-East Asia and Western Pacific regions)  HUMAN WELFARE ECOLOGY CLIMATE CHANGE NASA (https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/) ‒ Global Temperature Rise ‒ Warming ocean, sea level rise, oceanic acidification ‒ Shrinking ice sheets, declining Arctic sea ice, glacial retreat ‒ Extreme weather events  HUMAN WELFARE ECOLOGY BIODIVERSITY International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species (2019)  HUMAN WELFARE ECOLOGY “Tragedy of the Commons” Garret Hardin ‒ Difficulty of voluntary protection of common spaces ‒ Incentives: profit, rights → no one owns/is responsible so common spaces are not protected or maintained Sustainable development ‒ Meeting present needs without compromising those of future generations (UN Brundtland Commission Report 1987) ‒ Incorporates future generations into decision-making ‒ Present day sacrifices for future sustainability ‒ Questions assumptions of economic growth (classical liberal, neoliberal)  HUMAN WELFARE ECOLOGY SOLUTIONS Free market environmentalism ‒ Addresses the ownership/responsibility problem ‒ Pollution appears free → need to attach a cost ‒ E.g. tradable pollution quotas / emissions trading [cap & trade] ‒ pay gov’t for a licence to emit air pollution - trade licences in the market ‒ → Incentive to reduce pollution Government regulation ‒ Restriction/prohibition (e.g. chlorofluorocarbons, chlorine) ‒ International agreements - Kyoto Accord (1997), Paris Agreement (2015) ‒ Incentives for innovation/ research  DEEP ECOLOGY SOLUTIONS (CONT’D) Prioritizes nature Values all life - human + nonhuman Any reductions in natural ‘richness and diversity’ justifiable only for ‘vital needs’ Decrease in human population Animal rights/ animal liberation – Peter Singer Associations: ‒ Imposing costs on organizations at odds with goals ‒ Product labelling ‒ Ecological sabotage - ‘ecotage’ ‒ E.g. tree-spiking  POLITICAL EXPRESSION PARTIES Green parties ‒ Sustainable governance + democracy and social justice ‒ E.g. Values Party NZ (1972) Community or market-based initiatives More difficult to win legislative representation in FPP systems ‒ Elizabeth May (2011), Ralph Nader (2000) ‒ BC: support established the minority NDP government (2017)  POLITICAL EXPRESSION INTEREST / ADVOCACY GROUPS Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Canadian Parks & Wilderness Society ‒ EU ban on seal fur sales ‒ Oilsands opposition Greta Thunberg https://greendreamer.com/journal/environmental- organizations-nonprofits-for-a-sustainable-future