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ENVIROETHICS Home

ENVIROETHICS  2001

ENVIROETHICS 2001

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Subject:

Re: Ethical implications of environmental change

From:

Steven Bissell <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Discussion forum for environmental ethics.

Date:

Sat, 27 Oct 2001 18:31:55 -0600

Content-Type:

text/plain

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Parts/Attachments

text/plain (57 lines)

Right on Chris. May I add that even if local changes are "only"
environmental, as John Foster suggests, that is also a basis for ethical
concern. The real issue of environmental ethics is how to conduct human life
so as to best represent your local environment. Combined with certain
knowledge about global issues, all environmental concerns are truly local.

I still am not sure what JF's point is. After saying that ecosystems do not
change, he then says that they are only conceptual. I'm not sure what that
means, but there you go. I agree, if this is indeed what JF means, that
ecosystems are not real in the sense that we can easily defines the
boundaries of one and the next. I disagree that ecosystems are whatever you
want to say they are. I think there is a body of knowledge that supports the
idea that ecosystems are local in most cases and include biotic and abiotic
components. I'm not sure what the significance of phyla is, actually I'm
pretty sure there is no significance to ecosystems.

I've started to ramble. Enough said.
Steven


-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion forum for environmental ethics.
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Chris Perley
Sent: Saturday, October 27, 2001 6:14 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Ethical implications of environmental change


I thought I might add another thought relating to this apparent controvercy
concerning whether the environment (or ecosystems) change.  JF has suggested
that either ecosystems do not actually change - or that the change is within
some pattern that relates to a "climax".  I think there are shades of the
"balance of nature" myth in his thinking, but that is beside the point.

IF the environment does not change in reality - then an environmental ethic
that condemns change seems to have soem support.  The implications for
humans as a species are major.  We breath, we eat, we excrete.  Human
ethical boundaries are too constrained if "no change" occurs in any sense.
Every act we do is wrong because we cause an "unnatural" change.

On the other hand, if we take John's view that all this flux and dynamism
over geological scales is not *actually* change in some conceptual way
(change only being significant if a new higher order phyla emerges - so
species extinctions are not *significant*, nor the wiping out of one
ecosystem because we judge it has "moved" somewhere, etc.), then how are we
to judge the apparently not *actual* change when humans convert forest to
pasture on the same scale that climate did it elsewhere?  It seems to me
that under this view, there are no meaningful boundaries to our actions -
because even an asteriod hit which doesn't cause a major taxonomic change
comes under the Foster definition of "no change".

Thankfully the reality is there is change, and therefore a context for an
environmental ethic that neither a belief in either 1. no change or 2. no
substantive change unless a major evolutionary event, can provide.

Chris P

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