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welfare from the pollutants, or the changes to the climate that |
will occur as a result of the use of fossil fuels and the loss of |
forest. The greenhouse effect - to take just one danger to our |
environment - threatens to bring about a rise in sea level that |
will inundate low-lying coastal areas. This includes the fertile |
and densely populated Nile delta in Egypt. and the Bengal delta |
region, which covers 80 per cent of Bangladesh and is already |
subject to violent seasonal storms that cause disastrous floods. |
The homes and livelihood of 46 million people are at risk in |
these two deltas alone. A rise in sea level could also wipe out |
entire island nations such as the Maldives, none of which is |
more than a metre or two above sea level. So it is obvious that |
even within a human-centred moral framework, the preservation |
of our environment is a value of the greatest possible |
importance. |
From the standpoint of a form of civilisation based on growing |
crops and grazing animals, wilderness may seem to be a wasteland, |
a useless area that needs clearing in order to render it |
productive and valuable. There was a time when villages sur- |
268 |
The Environment |
rounded by farmland seemed like oases of cultivation amongst |
the deserts of forest or rough mountain slopes. Now, however, |
a different metaphor is more appropriate: the remnants of true |
wilderness left to us are like islands amidst a sea of human |
activity that threatens to engulf them. This gives wilderness a |
scarcity value that provides the basis for a strong argument for |
preservation, even within the terms of a human-centred ethic. |
That argument becomes much stronger still when we take a |
long-term view. To this immensely important aspect of environmental |
values we shall now tum. |
FUTURE GENERATIONS |
A virgin forest is the product of all the millions of years that |
have passed since the beginning of our planet. If it is cut down, |
another forest may grow up, but the continuity has been broken. |
The disruption in the natural life cycles of the plants and animals |
means that the forest will never again be as it would have been, |
had it not been cut. The gains made from cutting the forest - |
employment. profits for business, export earnings, and cheaper |
cardboard and paper for packaging - are short-term benefits. |
Even if the forest is not cut. but drowned to build a dam to |
create electricity, it is likely that the benefits will last for only a |
generation or two: after that new technology will render such |
methods of generating power obsolete. Once the forest is cut or |
drowned, however, the link with the past has gone for ever. |
That is a cost that will be borne by every generation that succeeds |
us on this planet. It is for that reason that environmentalists are |
right to speak of wilderness as a 'world heritage'. It is something |
that we have inherited from our ancestors, and that we must |
preserve for our descendants, if they are to have it at all. |
In contrast to many more stable, tradition-oriented human |
societies, our modem political and cultural ethos has great difficulty |
in recognising long-term values. Politicians are notorious |
for not looking beyond the next election; but even if they do, |
269 |
Pradical Ethics |
they will find their economic advisers telling them that anything |
to be gained in the future should be discounted to such a degree |
as to make it easy to disregard the long-term future altogether. |
Economists have been taught to apply a discount rate to all |
future goods. In other words, a million dollars in twenty years |
is not worth a million dollars today, even when we allow for |
inflation. Economists will discount the value of the million dollars |
by a certain percentage, usually corresponding to the real |
long-term interest rates. This makes economic sense, because if |
I had a thousand dollars today I could invest it so that it would |
be worth more, in real terms, in twenty years. But the use of a |
discount rate means that values gained one hundred years hence |
rank very low, in comparison with values gained today; and |
values gained one thousand years in the future scarcely count |
at all. This is not because of any uncertainty about whether |
there will be human beings or other sentient creatures inhabiting |
this planet at that time, but merely because of the cumulative |
effect of the rate of return on money invested now. From the |
standpoint of the priceless and timeless values of wilderness, |
however, applying a discount rate gives us the wrong answer. |
There are some things that, once lost, no amount of money can |
regain. Thus to justify the destruction of an ancient forest on |
the grounds that it will earn us substantial export income is |
unsound, even if we could invest that income and increase its |
value from year to year; for no matter how much we increased |
its value, it could never buy back the link with the past represented |
by the forest. |
This argument does not show that there can be no justification |
for cutting any virgin forests, but it does mean that any such |
justification must take full account of the value of the forests to |
the generations to come in the more remote future, as well as |
in the more immediate future. This value will obviously be |
related to the particular scenic or biological significance of the |
forest; but as the proportion of true wilderness on the earth |
dwindles, every part of it becomes significant) because the op- |
270 |
The Environment |
portunities for experiencing wilderness become scarce, and the |
likelihood of a reasonable selection of the major forms of wilderness |
being preserved is reduced. |
Can we be sure that future generations will appreciate wilderness? |
Perhaps they will be happier sitting in air-conditioned |
shopping malls, playing computer games more sophisticated |
than any we can imagine? That is possible. But there are |
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