bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Reproductive Liberty and Overpopulation: A Response
Authors: Warner Stanley
Published: June 2007

This appraisal of Carol A. Kates’ ‘Reproductive Liberty and Overpopulation’ challenges her call for world-wide population control measures – using compulsory methods if necessary – to save the world's environment. The most successful part of Kates’ paper is her argument that reproductive rights are not indefeasible and nonnegotiable, but that like many rights, they are conditional and open to a balancing of individual freedom against collective community interests. But her advocacy of mandatory state population controls is flawed in several respects. First, she underestimates the force of the emerging consensus for voluntary population reductions through policies that empower women. Second, she walks on difficult ethical grounds. Are compulsory controls on reproduction ethically justified simply because humans are loathe to take the alternative route of curtailing their ‘individualistic’ ‘materialistic’ appetites for more economic growth and consumption? Third, Kates fails to recognise that her search for measures that immediately and directly reverse population growth would necessitate coercing an entire generation of women toward zero reproduction in order for death rates to have their effect. Lastly, problems with the feasibility of her plan and the absence of international support make it unlikely it will ever come to pass. Alternatives to Kates’ policies are discussed at the close.
Not Out of the Woods: Preserving the Human in Environmental Architecture
Authors: Light Andrew , Wallace Aurora
Published: June 2007

The North American environmental movement has historically sought to redress the depletion and degradation of natural resources that has been the legacy of the industrial revolution. Predominant in this approach has been the preservation of wilderness, conservation of species biodiversity and the restoration of natural ecosystems. While the results of such activity have often been commendable, several scholars have pointed out that the environmental movement has inherited an unfortunate bias against urban environments, and consequently, a blind spot to ways in which densely populated built spaces can serve to enhance rather than degrade efforts to achieve sustainability. After exploring this concern we argue that environmental architecture can serve as a counter-balance to this bias, focused, as it is, on the ways in which the construction and organisation of built spaces for humans can help or hinder the pursuit of environmental priorities. But if environmental architecture is to take this role then it must be understood in a broader context, one which does not exclude other moral, political and aesthetic values in the production of human environments. We will highlight several examples of how environmental architecture has combined success and failure at taking a broader view of environmental questions, with a specific focus on one green skyscraper that may be good for the natural environment but not necessarily for the human environment of the city.
Environmental Philosophy and the Public Interest: A Pragmatic Reconciliation
Authors: Minteer Ben A.
Published: June 2007

Most environmental philosophers have had little use for ‘conventional’ philosophical and political thought. This is unfortunate, because these traditions can greatly contribute to environmental ethics and policy discussions. One mainstream concept of potential value for environmental philosophy is the notion of the public interest. Yet even though the public interest is widely acknowledged to be a powerful ethical standard in public affairs and public policy, there has been little agreement on its descriptive meaning. A particularly intriguing account of the concept in the literature, however, may be found in the work of the American pragmatist John Dewey. Dewey argued that the public interest was to be continuously constructed through the process of free, cooperative inquiry into the shared good of the democratic community. This Deweyan model of the public interest has much to offer environmental philosophers who are interested in making connections between normative arguments and environmental policy discourse, and it holds great promise for enhancing environmental philosophy's role and impact in public life.
Reconciling Realism and Constructivism in Environmental Ethics
Authors: Evanoff Richard J.
Published: June 2007

This paper outlines a constructivist approach to environmental ethics which attempts to reconcile realism in the ontological sense, i.e., the view that there is an objective material world existing outside of human consciousness, with the view that how nature is understood and acted in are epistemologically and morally constructed. It is argued that while knowledge and ethics are indeed culturally variable, social constructions of nature are nonetheless constrained by how things actually stand in the world. The ‘realist’ version of constructivism proposed here can be linked to dialectical forms of reasoning which see knowledge and ethics as arising out of human interactions with an objectively real environment, and contrasted with strong constructivist views which see nature as ‘nothing more than’ a social construct. While both the physical environment and human attitudes towards it are in part socially constructed, nature also retains a measure of autonomy, or ‘wildness’, apart from human constructions.
Are We at War with Nature?
Authors: Turner Derek D.
Published: June 2007

A number of people, from William James to Dave Foreman and Vandana Shiva, have suggested that humans are at war with nature. Moreover, the analogy with warfare figures in at least one important argument for strategic monkeywrenching. In general, an analogy can be used for purposes of (1) justification; (2) persuasion; or (3) as a tool for generating novel hypotheses and recommendations. This paper argues that the analogy with warfare should not be used for justificatory or rhetorical purposes, but that it may nevertheless have a legitimate heuristic role to play in environmental philosophy.
Re-framing Flood Control in England and Wales
Authors: Scrase J. Ivan , Sheate William R.
Published: June 2007

Traditionally floods have been understood to be acts of God or nature, with localised impacts afflicting those who choose to live or to invest capital in lowland and coastal locations. This central idea of causation, located outside human agency, survives somewhat precariously today, but is reflected in the lack of any right to protection from flooding in England and Wales. However in 1930 new legislation institutionalised a social framing of the impact of floods as part of a wider national problem. This related the interests of lowland agriculture and land drainage to the national economic and military interest. Modernising and expanding agricultural production was a political priority from the 1930s to the 1980s. The cost of preventing flooding and draining land was transferred from the affected landowners to the nation as a whole. River and coastal engineering was central to the new policy, and by the early 1970s much of the riverine and coastal environment was radically altered by flood defence structures and associated land drainage. As a result of food over-production and conflicts with conservation interests in the early 1980s, the emphasis has shifted from drainage to flood defence, while risk reduction and environmentalist values have also been promoted. The institutional arrangements from 1930 largely survive, however, and a new coherent social framing has failed to emerge. It is argued that for a risk-oriented framing to succeed, new assumptions about causation and a new ethical outlook are now needed. Emphasis on flood ‘control’ rather than ‘defence’, and a shift in priorities from economic benefits towards human rights and intrinsic value in nature are proposed as key elements in such a re-framing.
Does ‘Restoration’ Necessarily Imply the Domination of Nature?
Authors: Ladkin Donna
Published: June 2007

‘Restoration’ is a contested term holding important implications for public policy decisions in the areas of land development and use. A number of environmental philosophers including Eric Katz and Robert Elliott have argued against ‘restora-tion’, on the principle that human efforts can never restore natural landscapes to their pre-disrupted value, and that the assumption of our ability to do so implies ‘domination’. This paper argues that restoration attempts should not be dismissed ‘out of hand’, and can be conducted outside of a ‘dominator logic’ provided four criteria are enacted: 1) humans see their role as co-creators working alongside nature, 2) the aim of restoration is seen to be increase of land health and biodiversity 3) there is a commitment to learning from the land and 4) the land's own ‘projects’ (Plumwood) are taken into account.
Citizens, Denizens and the Res Publica: Environmental Ethics, Structures of Feeling and Political Expression
Authors: Smith Mick
Published: June 2007

Environmental ethics should be understood as a radical project that challenges the limits of contemporary ethical and political expression, a limit historically defined by the concept of the citizen. This dominant model of public being, frequently justified in terms of a formal or procedural rationality, facilitates an exclusionary ethos that fails to properly represent our concerns for the non-human world. It tends to regard emotionally mediated concerns for others as a source of irrational and subjective distortions in an otherwise rationally ordered ethicopolitical community. In doing so it underestimates the important role played by ‘structures of feeling’, those culturally variable patterns of emotionally mediated responses, that provide the (shifting) grounds for all ethical experience, motivation, communication and interpretation. An alternative model of political expression more suitable to an environmental ethic, the denizen, is suggested.
Capital Substitutability and Weak Sustainability Revisited: The Conditions for Capital Substitution in the Presence of Risk
Authors: Figge Frank
Published: June 2007

The capital approach is frequently used to model sustainability. A development is deemed to be sustainable when capital is not reduced. There are different definitions of sustainability, based on whether or not they allow that different forms of capital may be substituted for each other. A development that allows for the substitution of different forms of capital is called weakly sustainable. This article shows that in a risky world and a risk-averse society even under the assumptions of weak sustainability the circumstances under which different forms of capital may be substituted are limited. This is due to the risk-reducing effect of diversification. Using Modern Portfolio Theory this article shows under which conditions substitution of different forms of capital increases risk for future generations.
‘The World Must be Romanticised …’: The (Environmental) Ethical Implications of Schelling's Organic Worldview
Authors: Miller Elaine P.
Published: June 2007

This essay addresses the implications of German Idealism and Romanticism, and in particular the philosophy of Schelling as it is informed by Kant and Goethe, for contemporary environmental philosophy. Schelling's philosophy posits a nature imbued with freedom which gives rise to human beings, which means that any ethics, insofar as ethics is predicated upon freedom, will be an ‘environmental ethic’. At the same time, Schelling's organismic view of nature is distinctive in positing a fundamental gap between nature and human beings. Without this absolute alterity, there could be no real ethical relationship between human beings and nature. I conclude by briefly gesturing toward Schelling's role in the development of an ethics of alterity (which I apply to environmental ethics) in continental philosophy through Heidegger, Derrida, and Levinas.
Disciplining Nature: The Homogenising and Constraining Forces of Anti-Markets on the Food System
Authors: Carolan Michael S.
Published: June 2007

To understand the changing patterns within agriculture, it is important to look not only at social relations and organisational configurations. Also salient to such an analysis is an examination of how those formations give shape to non-humans. Much attention has been placed recently on the political economy of agriculture when speaking of these emergent patterns. Yet in doing this, the natural environment is all too often relegated to the backdrop; where the agro-economy is viewed as something that manoeuvres within the environment but never through it. The conceptual groundwork for this paper draws from two often unconnected scholars: Michel Foucault and Fernand Braudel. In Foucault, we find a framework, with a little conceptual development, through which to talk about how the economy (of both discipline and capital) enters into nature. Specifically, the argument is made that through the embodiment of discipline, nature too becomes disciplined. Yet in Foucault we find a discursive conception of socio-economic history; where capitalism is discussed, but always as an effect of the discursive structures of power/knowledge. Enter the work of Braudel, to provide us with a materialist counterweight to Foucault's theorising. In Braudel, we find a detailed analysis on the emergence of capitalism, out of which then comes his distinction between markets and anti-markets. In short, when both accounts of history are overlaid, interesting connections between the emergence of Braudelian anti-markets and Foucaultian discipline are revealed. Two brief case studies are then examined to add further depth to the discussion: the first focusing on corn; the second centring on the cow. The paper then concludes speaking on the issue of resistance.
Unprojected Value, Unfathomed Caves and Unspent Nature: Reply to an Editorial
Authors: Attfield Robin
Published: June 2007

This article replies to Alan Holland's challenge to reconcile belief in non-anthropogenic intrinsic value with the poetry of John Clare and its projection onto nature of human feelings, and thus with projective humanism. However, in literature and broadcasts, feelings are found projected upon buildings and belongings as well as upon natural creatures. This and the fact that many living creatures (such as the Northamptonshire species not remarked by Clare) never become objects of human projections but still remain valuable suggests that the basis of natural value lies elsewhere, at least in part. Such themes, together with that of nature's independent value, are variously illustrated from poems of Gray, Cowper and Marvell, and from expressions of nature's otherness in the Christian verse of Hopkins (who also helps answer Holland's further question concerning ‘what we have lost’), and in the pantheistic (or pagan) prose of Grahame's Wind in the Willows. In none of these writers does the value of nature depend on the projection of a humanistic sensitivity, but in different ways on the nature (diversely conceptualised) of natural creatures themselves.
Can we be ‘Friends of the Earth’?
Authors: Shearman Richard
Published: June 2007

Reasons for protecting biodiversity are usually defined in terms of its instrumentality. Although there may be a number of ways to seek an alternative non-anthropocentric approach, I have chosen to develop an Aristotelian response that draws upon his conception of friendship and self-love. In doing so, I argue that a person living according to moral virtue will recognise that the nonhuman world should be valued and thus protected (at least in part) for its own sake.
The Commons, Game Theory and Aspects of Human Nature that May Allow Conservation of Global Resources
Authors: Dodds Walter K.
Published: June 2007

Fundamental aspects of human use of the environment can be explained by game theory. Game theory explains aggregate behaviour of the human species driven by perceived costs and benefits. In the ‘game’ of global environmental protection and conservation, the stakes are the living conditions of all species including the human race, and the playing field is our planet. The question is can we control humanity's hitherto endless appetite for resources before we irreparably harm the global ecosystem and cause extinction of even more species? The central problem is that some proportion of the individuals or groups will behave selfishly. The inducement for using more than a fair share, or ‘cheating’, increases as that resource becomes rarer, thus the benefits of cheating increase. In addition, the total number of people is increasing, so the proportion of cheaters must decrease to even keep total resource use constant. Cost benefit analysis of the effect of regulation and incentives on potential cheaters may provide a rational approach to controlling environmental problems. While it is debatable that environmental values are constant across cultures, communal use of resources seems to follow global rules. Cooperative use and punishment of those who use more than their share appear to be ubiquitous in human societies. Schemes for controlling human impact on the global environment must take into consideration basic behaviours including development of social norms and the positive feedback created because resources become more valuable with increasing rarity leading to more incentive for consumption.
Justice for the Environment: Developing a Set of Indicators of Environmental Justice for Scotland
Authors: Todd Helen , Zografos Christos
Published: June 2007

This paper explores the context of environmental justice (EJ) in Scotland, and presents a case study whereby the main attributes for an indicator of EJ were identified, encompassing procedural and distributive aspects of justice. Through a participatory process, weights were assigned using a Multi-Criteria Analysis tool, the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). Results show that overall, environmental injustices are mostly associated by respondents to unequal distribution of health burdens due to pollution, yet greater weight is attached to procedural justice by community environmental activists. The paper suggests that AHP may be applied to many situations and could form a basis for the development of tools to address and deliver EJ in Scotland.
Ecological Restoration, Environmentalism and the Dutch Politics of ‘New Nature’
Authors: Van Der Heijden Hein-Anton
Published: June 2007

‘New nature’ refers to the current practice in which ten thousands of hectares of superfluous agricultural lands are ‘given back to nature’, compensating for the loss of ‘old nature’ in other parts of the Netherlands. Around the issue of ‘new nature’ two discourses have emerged. In each discourse different environmental values are emphasised: about what nature is or could be; about the relationship between nature, agriculture and development; about ecological mitigation, and so on. Whereas the Dutch branch of WWF is the most active promoter of the sectorial nature development discourse, environmental groups like Friends of the Earth try to weigh these sectorial interests against the background of increasing environmental degradation.
Different Perspectives on Cross-Compliance
Authors: Mann Stefan
Published: June 2007

Cross-compliance has proven its effectiveness, as can be shown by looking at the Swiss experience with cross-compliance since 1999. Besides describing the existing cross-compliance practices in Switzerland, the paper shows different perspectives on the efficiency and fairness of cross-compliance. It concludes that transaction cost advantages justify cross-compliance only in few cases. Usually, it will be more efficient to decouple social and environmental policy. The strong support for cross-compliance by the Swiss population is explained by a perceived unfairness in the distribution of property rights between farmers and society. If property rights would be redistributed, there probably would be no more need for cross-compliance.
Monkeywrenching, Perverse Incentives and Ecodefence
Authors: Turner Derek D.
Published: June 2007

By focusing too narrowly on consequentialist arguments for ecosabotage, environmental philosophers such as Michael Martin (1990) and Thomas Young (2001) have tended to overlook two important facts about monkeywrenching. First, advocates of monkeywrenching see sabotage above all as a technique for counteracting perverse economic incentives. Second, their main argument for monkeywrenching – which I will call the ecodefence argument – is not consequentialist at all. After calling attention to these two under-appreciated aspects of monkeywrenching, I go on to offer a critique of the ecodefence argument. Finally, I show that there is also a tension between the use of cost/benefit analysis to justify particular acts of ecosabotage and the clandestine nature of those acts.
Risk, Trust and ‘The Beyond’ of the Environment: A Brief Look at the Recent Case of Mad Cow Disease in the United States
Authors: Carolan Michael S.
Published: June 2007

The epistemologically distant nature of many of today's environmental risks greatly problematises conventional risk analyses that emphasise objectivity, materiality, factual specificity and certainty. Such analyses fail to problematise issues of ontology and epistemology, assuming a reality that is readily ‘readable’ and a corresponding knowledge of that reality that is asocial, objective and certain. Under the weight of modern, invisible, manufactured environmental risks, however, these assumptions begin to crack, revealing their tenuous nature. As this paper argues, statements of risk are ultimately social products that come to us by way of translation. They are statements not of what is (ontology) but of knowledge (epistemology) expressed in probabilistic terms, and are thus thoroughly social in nature, for it is we – through our actions and social networks – that imbue them with meaning. One way we do this is through our social relations of trust. And it is this relationship – between trust and risk – that this paper seeks to detail both conceptually and empirically (while remaining grounded in a realist philosophy of science). While one could look toward any number of case studies to develop the conceptual details of this project, this paper focuses on the relatively recent (and first) case of mad cow disease to have been reported within the United States. Here, we have an epistemologically distant, and thus hotly contested, ‘object’ (or is it?), which has been the source of much risk debate; a debate that is also, in part, the effect of a deeper erosion of trust, particularly toward those managing our meat supply.
The Silence of Nature
Authors: Vogel Steven
Published: June 2007

In claiming that ‘nature speaks’, authors such as Scott Friskics and David Abram implicitly agree that language use is linked to moral considerability, adding only that we need to extend our conception of language to see that non-humans too use it. I argue that the ethical significance of language use derives from its role in dialogue, in which speakers make truth-claims, question and potentially criticise the claims of others, and provide justifications for the claims they raise themselves. Non-human entities (as a contingent matter) seem not to engage in dialogue in this sense, and none of the examples Friskics and Abram offer suggest that they do. Thus the conception of language such authors employ is too weak to support the ethical conclusions they implicitly wish to defend.
Thinking through Botanic Gardens
Authors: Heyd Thomas
Published: June 2007

This essay discusses ways of thinking about botanic gardens that pay close attention to their particularity as designed spaces, dependent on technique, that nonetheless purport to present (and preserve) natural entities (plants). I introduce an account of what gardens are, how botanic gardens differ from other gardens, and how this particular form of garden arose in history. After this I contrast three ways of understanding the function of botanic gardens in the present time: as sites of recreation, of conservation or of encounter with nature. Finally I develop the idea that these gardens may serve as archetypes of collaboration with nature. I conclude that, in principle, botanic gardens can model alternative, creative new ways for human beings to relate to the natural environment.
‘Playing God’ and ‘Vexing Nature’: A Cultural Perspective
Authors: Kirkham Georgiana
Published: June 2007

In this paper I examine the twin concepts of ‘playing God’, and its secular equivalent - that which I term for the purpose of this discussion ‘vexing Nature’ - as they relate to arguments against (or for) certain human technological actions and behaviours. While noting the popular subscription to the notion that certain acts constitute instances of ‘playing God’ or interfering in the natural order, philosophers often deny that such phrases have any application to the central ethical issues in the areas where they are most commonly applied. I examine, in detail, the interpretations of these phrases put forward by bio-ethicists Ruth Chadwick and John Harris and argue that the concepts ‘playing God’ and ‘vexing nature’ are best understood as an expression of a moral intuition that is both significant and deserving of serious philosophical attention. My contention is that intuitions of this kind often express a concern for the virtue of, and doubt about the intentions of, the agent whose acts are described in these terms, and that these concepts are best understood as part of an historical and cultural continuum specific to the Western tradition. Understood as such, this indicates that debate continues over the purpose of art and technology, and the place of humanity within the natural environment, and that a kind of traditional teleological virtue ethics still exerts a significant influence on popular conceptions of the moral issues underlying this debate.
Naturalism and Environmentalism: A Reply to Hinchman
Authors: Baxter Brian H.
Published: June 2007

The values which are definitive of the humanist project, such as freedom and self-determination, are of central concern to environmentalism. This means, according to Lewis P. Hinchman, that environmentalists should seek a rapprochement with humanism, rather than rejecting it for its apparent anthropocentrism. He argues that this requires in turn the acceptance of those approaches to human self-understanding which are central to the hermeneutic traditions and the rejection of naturalist approaches, such as sociobiology, which is accused of producing deterministic, reifying, reductionist, dehumanising forms of understanding of human beings and human life. This paper seeks to show that sociobiology does not pose the kinds of threat to humanism and environmentalism outlined by Hinchman.
Buddhism and the Ethics of Species Conservation
Authors: James Simon P.
Published: June 2007

Efforts to conserve endangered species of animal are, in some important respects, at odds with Buddhist ethics. On the one hand, being abstract entities, species cannot suffer, and so cannot be proper objects of compassion or similar moral virtues. On the other, Buddhist commitments to equanimity tend to militate against the idea that the individual members of endangered species have greater value than those of less-threatened ones. This paper suggests that the contribution of Buddhism to the issue of species conservation should not, however, be discounted. It argues, on the contrary, that Buddhist traditions, in reminding us of the moral significance of the suffering of individual animals, add an important dimension to debates concerning the ethical justification of efforts to conserve endangered species.
On the Moral Considerability of Homo sapiens and Other Species
Authors: Sandler Ronald , Crane Judith
Published: June 2007

It is sometimes claimed that as members of the species Homo sapiens we have a responsibility to promote the good of Homo sapiens itself (distinct from the good of its individual members). Lawrence Johnson has recently defended this claim as part of his approach to resolving the problem of future generations. We show that there are several difficulties with Johnson's argument, many of which are likely to attend any attempt to establish the moral considerability of Homo sapiens or species generally. Further, even if Homo sapiens were morally considerable, this would not ground an adequate response to the problem of future generations. The sort of moral considerability that would be appropriate to Homo sapiens, or species generally, would not be as robust nor have the implications that many have supposed.
Aesthetics in Practice: Valuing the Natural World
Authors: Brady Emily
Published: June 2007

Aesthetic value, often viewed as subjective and even trivial compared to other environmental values, is commonly given low priority in policy debates. In this paper I argue that the seriousness and importance of aesthetic value cannot be denied when we recognise the ways that aesthetic experience is already embedded in a range of human practices. The first area of human practice considered involves the complex relationship between aesthetic experience and the development of an ethical attitude towards the environment. I then discuss how aesthetics has played a role in scientific study and the use of evaluative aesthetic concepts in science, such as variety and diversity. The final section shows the connection between the beneficial effects of aesthetic engagement with nature and the restorative value of nature for human well-being.
Thoreau's Aesthetics and ‘The Domain of the Superlative’
Authors: Phillips Dana
Published: June 2007

Recently, ‘ecocritics’ have tried to show how literature might help us weather the global environmental crisis both emotionally and intellectually. Their arguments have been based, in part, on the assumption that despite its obvious strengths natural science has well-defined intellectual and ethical ‘limits’, and that environmental values are (therefore) best articulated by concerned humanists more in touch with the imagination. This essay addresses some of the problems faced by green humanists in their uneasy, mistrustful relationship with natural science, using passages from Thoreau as touchstone texts and juxtaposing those passages with remarks made by Bachelard, Coleridge, Stevens, Nietzsche, and Kant.
Ethics and Climate Change: A Commentary on MacCracken, Toman and Gardiner
Authors: Singer Peter
Published: June 2007

Climate change is an ethical issue, because it involves the distribution of a scarce resource - the capacity of the atmosphere to absorb our waste gases without producing consequences that no one wants. Various principles might be used to decide what distribution is just. This commentary argues that on any plausible principle, the industrialised nations should be doing much more than they are doing now, and much more than they are required to do by the Kyoto protocol, to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. The commentary also responds specifically to some issues raised by MacCracken, Toman and Gardiner, including feasibility, the discount rate, and grounds for pessimism.
Environmentalism: Spiritual, Ethical, Political
Authors: Smith Michael
Published: June 2007

The normative foundations of the environmental movement can be thought of in a range of different ways. The present paper is a commentary on very interesting papers by Thomas Dunlap, Thomas Hill and Kimberly Smith, who take up the spiritual, ethical and political perspectives respectively. Their accounts are described and evaluated.
Climate Change Discussions in Washington: A Matter of Contending Perspectives
Authors: Maccracken Michael C.
Published: June 2007

The scientific evidence and understanding underpinning societal responsibility for the accelerating pace of climate change has become increasingly strong over the past hundred years. Although many nations have begun to take actions that have the potential to eventually slow the pace of change, contention over the issue continues in the United States, particularly in the nation's capital. A major cause appears to arise from different interpretations of the evidence arising from different perspectives on the issue, including those of the scientific, environmental, fossil-fuel generating, technological, economic and ethical communities. In addition, the public encounters a cacophony of intermixed perspectives from the media and elected officials. While each perspective provides some useful insights, each alone contributes to inhibiting development of the national political consensus needed to responsibly address climate change. Without leadership that balances and reconciles competing perspectives, it is unlikely that a sufficient limiting of emissions will be enacted to prevent significant changes in climate that will impose increasing challenges for those in both developing and developed nations.
A Perfect Moral Storm: Climate Change, Intergenerational Ethics and the Problem of Moral Corruption1
Authors: Gardiner Stephen M.
Published: June 2007

The peculiar features of the climate change problem pose substantial obstacles to our ability to make the hard choices necessary to address it. Climate change involves the convergence of a set of global, intergenerational and theoretical problems. This convergence justifies calling it a ‘perfect moral storm’. One consequence of this storm is that, even if the other difficult ethical questions surrounding climate change could be answered, we might still find it difficult to act. For the storm makes us extremely vulnerable to moral corruption.
Values in the Economics of Climate Change
Authors: Toman Michael
Published: June 2007

Economics has played an important role in assessing climate change impacts, and the effects of various individual and policy response strategies. Proponents of a key role for economics in analysis of climate change policies and goals argue that its capacity to incorporate and compare a variety of costs and benefits makes it uniquely useful for normative assessment. Critics of economic analysis of climate change have questioned not only its empirical capacities, but also its fundamental usefulness given some of the important but often implicit assumptions on which it is based. After reviewing this debate and its implications for public policy on climate change, the paper sketches a way in which more technical economic analysis and public dialogue might be combined.
Caring for Nature: What Science and Economics Can't Teach Us but Religion Can
Authors: Rolston Holmes
Published: June 2007

Neither ecologists nor economists can teach us what we most need to know about nature: how to value it. The Hebrew prophets claimed that there can be no intelligent human ecology except as people learn to use land justly and charitably. Lands do not flow with milk and honey for all unless and until justice rolls down like waters. What kind of planet ought we humans wish to have? One we resourcefully manage for our benefits? Or one we hold in loving care? Science and economics can't teach us that; perhaps religion and ethics can.
Ecological Restoration Restored
Authors: Chapman Robert L.
Published: June 2007

Conceptual and methodological changes in ecology have the potential to alter significantly the way we view the world. A result of embracing a dynamic model (‘the flux of nature’, and ‘disturbance regimes’) has been to make ecological restoration projects a viable alternative, whereas under ‘equilibrium ecology’ (climax communities/nature-knows-best) restoration was considered destructive interference. The logic of sustainability strategies within the context of dynamic forces promises a greater compatibility with anthropogenic activity. Unhappily, environmental restoration turns out to be paradoxical under the current identification of wilderness with wildness where wildness is, at least, a necessary condition for the possession of natural value. The solution to the paradox is to separate wilderness from wildness both conceptually and ontologically by enlarging the domain of wildness to include certain human activities.
Gender, Values and Power in Local Environmental Conflicts: The Case of Grassroots Organisations in North Catalonia
Authors: Agüera-Cabo Mercè
Published: June 2007

Not much attention has been paid to gender in environmental management and decision-making. This article explores how a gender dimension can contribute to the environmental debate by means of a comparative study of three environmental grassroots organisations in the North of Catalonia (Spain). The study shows that gender is significant for distinguishing different priorities between women and men in local conflicts and in environmental interests in general. The analysis of unequal power relations between genders in grassroots organisations leads us to discuss how women have fewer opportunities to influence the environmental debate and to advance their ideas. The concluding thoughts stress the need for developing a gender dimension in environmental management and decision-making, considering the opportunities that are presented by emerging governance practices, and particularly by participatory processes.
Global and Ecological Justice: Prioritising Conflicting Demands1
Authors: Wissenburg Marcel
Published: June 2007

‘Global and ecological justice’ (or some variant) is a very popular catchphrase in policy documents, treaties, publications by think-tanks, NGOs and other bodies. I argue that it represents an informal combination of four distinct and sometimes conflicting ideas: global justice, protection of the ecology, sustainability and sustainable growth. To solve the practical, conceptual and logical complications thus caused, a more precise interpretation of global justice and ecological justice is suggested, on the basis of which it is also possible to rank the two and re-interpret the further goals of sustainability and growth.
Representations of Tropical Forests and Tropical Forest-Dwellers in Travel Accounts of National Geographic
Authors: Nygren Anja
Published: June 2007

As one of the most widely read genres of literature, travel writing plays a crucial role in forming popular images and understandings of foreign places and foreign peoples. This essay examines the dominant images of rainforests and rainforest peoples portrayed in accounts of travels in tropical America published in National Geographic. Special attention is paid to the issues of how particular representations are privileged in this magazine's travel accounts and how these representations relate to questions of authority and power. The analysis shows that the prevailing representations of the tropical forests and tropical forest-dwellers in the travel accounts of National Geographic rely on historically changing, but equally categorical distinctions between ‘good’ and ‘bad’, and ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’.
Biosecurity and Insecurity: The Interaction between Policy and Ritual during the Foot and Mouth Crisis
Authors: Nerlich Brigitte , Wright Nick
Published: June 2007

In 2001 a highly infectious animal disease, foot and mouth disease, broke out in the UK and spread rapidly. In May, when the spread seemed to be slowing down, new disease hotspots appeared in previously little affected regions, such as North Yorkshire. New biosecurity rules were imposed. Based on a series of semi-structured interviews with stakeholders, this article shows that the biosecurity measures farmers implemented during the epidemic meant more than just reducing the risk of spreading FMD. For many, cleansing and disinfecting became Foot and Mouth. Biosecurity actions became invested with symbolic values and, in particular, were ritualised as part of the symbolic spatial construction of an otherwise ‘invisible’ enemy.
The Project Tiger Crisis in India: Moving Away from the Policy and Economics of Selectivity
Authors: Damodaran A.
Published: June 2007

This paper discusses the economic and philosophical inadequacies that have characterised the Project Tiger scheme in India. Launched in the 1970s to protect the habitats of the Royal Bengal Tiger, Project Tiger has over time evolved into a management system that has abstracted the tiger from its habitat by highlighting its charismatic functions. However the abstraction has also caused the tiger to be valued for its narrow consumptive uses. By comparison the habitats that have nurtured the tiger have received less attention. The paper critiques partial equilibrium frameworks that have attempted to value a tiger in terms of demand and supply functions rather than as an integral element of an ecosystem. While considering the superiority of the Total Economic Value concept as a value-determining method, the paper also points to the limitation of the concept in not addressing the conflicts between use and non-use values of a tiger. In the light of these facts, the paper advances the theory of complementarity as a valuation approach that considers the tiger and its habitat as a joint resource that needs to be protected and conserved in the larger interests of biodiversity conservation in India.
Scientists’ Perspectives on the Deliberate Release of GM Crops
Authors: Kvakkestad Valborg , Gillund FrøYdis , KjøLberg Kamilla Anette , Vatn Arild
Published: June 2007

In this paper we analyse scientists’ perspectives on the release of genetically modified (GM) crops into the environment, and the relationship between their perspectives and the context that they work within, e.g. their place of employment (university or industry), funding of their research (public or industry) and their disciplinary background (ecology, molecular biology or conventional plant breeding). We employed Q-methodology to examine these issues. Two distinct factors were identified by interviewing 62 scientists. These two factors included 92 per cent of the sample. Scientists in factor 1 had a moderately negative attitude to GM crops and emphasised the uncertainty and ignorance involved, while scientists in factor 2 had a positive attitude to GM crops and emphasised that GM crops are useful and do not represent any unique risks compared to conventional crops. Funding had a significant effect on the perspective held by the scientists in this study. No ecologists were associated with factor 2, while all the scientists employed in the GM-industry were associated with this factor. The strong effects of training and funding might justify certain institutional changes concerning how we organise science and how we make public decisions when new technologies are to be evaluated. Policy makers should encourage more interdisciplinary training and research and they should make sure that representatives of different disciplines are involved in public decisions on new technologies.
Getting behind Environmental Ethics
Authors: Grove-White Robin , Szerszynski Bronislaw
Published: June 2007

There are major problems in the way in which the environmental ‘ethics’ question is now being framed – problems which could lead to growing confusion and disillusionment, unless they are rapidly addressed and understood. It is on such problems that this paper focuses. We point to three dimensions of the environmental ‘phenomenon’ which prevailing accounts of environmental ethics are tending to overlook. We then identify several ways in which incomplete ethical models tend to be reflected in actual environmental policy discourse. Finally, we suggest three hitherto-absent ingredients which will need to be recognised if future models of the ethics question are to be able to reflect, and hence to engage adequately with, social reality.
Rethinking the Relations of Nature, Culture, and Agency
Authors: Murphy Patrick D.
Published: June 2007

Beginning with a critique of the Enlightenment human/nature dualism, this essay argues for a new conception of human agency based on culturopoeia and an application of an ecofeminist dialogic method for analysing human-nature relationships, with the idea of volitional interdependence replacing ideas of free will and determinism. Further, it posits that we need to replace the alienational model of otherness based on a psychoanalytic model with a relational model of anotherness based on an ecological model, and concludes by encouraging attention to developing bioregional natured cultures in place of nation states and multinational corporations.
Sustainability: An Interdisciplinary Guide
Authors: Pezzey John
Published: June 2007

A definition of sustainability as maintaining ‘utility’ (average human wellbeing) over the very long term future is used to build ideas from physics, ecology, evolutionary biology, anthropology, history, philosophy, economics and psychology, into a coherent, interdisciplinary analysis of the potential for sustaining industrial civilisation. This potential is highly uncertain, because it is hard to know how long the ‘technology treadmill’, of substituting accumulated tools and knowledge for declining natural resource inputs to production, can continue. Policies to make the treadmill work more efficiently, by controlling its pervasive environmental, social and psychological external costs, and policies to control population, will help to realise this potential. Unprecedented levels of global co-operation, among very unequal nations, will be essential for many of these policies to work effectively. Even then, tougher action may be required, motivated by an explicit moral concern for sustainability. An evolutionary analysis of history suggests that technology and morality can and will respond to a clearly perceived future threat to civilisation; but we cannot easily predict the threat, or whether our response will be fast enough.
Aesthetic Disillusionment: Environment, Ethics, Art
Authors: Foster Cheryl
Published: June 2007

What happens when an object you take to be beautiful or aesthetically pleasing, no longer appears beautiful or pleasing when you learn something new about it? I am assuming a situation in which there is no direct change in the perceptual features of the object, and that what you learn is not the location of some new surface property but rather a bit of non-perceptual information. I classify episodes of dampened appreciation under the heading ‘aesthetic disillusionment’, and in this paper I explore the relationship between such episodes and the broader issue of ethical constraints on aesthetic activity and appreciation. Does it make sense to say that one should not, or ought not, take pleasure in certain objects or events? I think it does – but in a very particular, almost ecological way. The subsequent discussion focuses on ethical constraints as they operate on the aesthetic appreciation of objects and events within the natural environment.
The Fiduciary Duty of Corporate Directors to Protect the Environment for Future Generations
Authors: Saxe Dianne
Published: June 2007

The ‘business judgement rule’ requires corporate directors only to act with honesty and reasonable care in the interest of shareholders. A stronger ‘fiduciary’ duty is required where one party requires protection from another. This paper argues that where corporations take risks with the environment, directors are fiduciaries. Stakeholders are in that case the general public, future generations and other species, which have not voluntarily accepted risk and cannot limit liability. Recognition of fiduciary duty in such cases is consistent with recent trends in the law of equity. It would require all economic activities to move from open to closed (sustainable) systems.
Beasts versus the Biosphere?
Authors: Midgley Mary
Published: June 2007

Apparent clashes of interest between ‘deep ecologists’ and ‘animal liberationists’ can be understood as differences in emphasis rather than conflicts of principle, although it is only too easy for campaigners to regard as rivals good causes other than their own. Moral principles are part of a larger whole, within which they can be related, rather than absolute all-purpose rules of right conduct. This is illustrated using the practical dilemma which often occurs in conservation management, of whether or not to cull animals that are damaging their habitat by overgrazing. Here, and in general, when we are faced with a choice between two evils, the need for scrupulous discrimination and honesty cannot be overstated; but it is not a worthy option to retreat behind moral principles of limited application.