But one cannot justifiably demand that we sacrifice the quality of our environment and the quality of our lives for the sake of the environments of other beings. It is one thing to argue that what at first seems a sacrifice will be eventually compensated for by overlooked benefits. We are accustomed to thinking environmentally. A decision having adverse effects upon one's children, for instance, may forever despoil one's psychological backyard. Similarly, decisions about how to live physically must take into account the effect on the air and land, the plants and animals.
Decisions take place against a background where consequences ramify.
Of course, the background, by definition, is not generally foremost in attention. But we must always strive to remember what sustains us, what conditions makes our lives possible and desirable. We can and should think about our social and psychological environment in term of needs of the self, and we can and should think of our physical environment in terms of needs of the human. It may be uniquely human to care about nature for its own sake, but it certainly isn't definitively human. Some of us care very much, some not at all.