When it comes to environmental issues there are many value perspectives and different opinions on how the issues should be resolved. These perspectives that author Judith Lazyer describes her book “The Environmental Case” includes Promethean, conservationist, preservationist, and ecological perspectives. In our class we connected topics we learned in our Environmental Policy class to the books such as “Flight Behavior” and Ecotopia in our English Reality and Utopia class. A connection I found between these books and the policies we learned about in POLS 336 was that all our books included the Promethean and Ecological perspectives when it came to environmental issues. These perspectives were also included in the case studies we read in “The …show more content…
This perspective is about seeking policies that protect the health of ecosystems, recognizing the interdependence of humans and nature. When it comes to the Conservationist viewpoint in “Flight Behavior” that is shown with Dellarobia and Ovid. Ovid comes and studies and the migration of the butterflies to determine why they went someone completely different from where their ancestors have gone for years before them. Dellarobia begins to have the value perspective when after she talks to Ovid and the other student workers and realizes that the butterflies being in a different location is actually not just a big deal for the butterflies but also humans because the incorrect location of the butterflies is connected with climate change. In “Flight Behavior” Dellarobia tells the reporter Tina; “ What I was going to say before is that these butterflies migrated to the wrong place this year, for the first time ever. I guess in the history of the world. So even though it looks really pretty, it might be a problem. It could actually be terrible” (Kingsolver, 207). Dellarobia is explaining to the reporter that the butterflies migrating to a different location is not only bad for them but also bad for the rest of the world because we are all interconnected and what affects one species affects the others. Ovid and Dellarobia have the ecological perspective because they are studying the butterflies to discover why they …show more content…
The Promethean perspective is shown in Ecotopia quite a bit because they as a society work towards using nature productively. This differs from Bear in “Flight Behavior” because the Ecotopians use nature productively in a way that benefits both them and the environment. In “Flight Behavior” Bear manipulates nature and uses it to benefit himself and does not worrying abut the negative impact. One way they use nature productively is with the way Ecotopia has their sewage system set up. In the book “Ecotopia” the assistant Prime Minister tells Will; “ The first major project of his ministry after Independence, he said, had been to put the country’s food cycle on a stable-state basis; all food wastes, sewage and garbage were to be turned into organic fertilizer and applied to the land, where it would again enter into the food production cycle” (Callenbach, 17). With their stable state they are using nature productively where the food wastes and sewage are recycled in a way that nourishes the earth after nourishing people. It shows that the Ecotopians are not wasters and use nature everyway they can in a way to not waste anything. The Ecological perspective is shown in “Ecotopia” when Will discovers how Ecotopia produces and recycles their plastic. The production and recycling of plastic in Ecotopia is ecological because it shows how the health of the ecosystem is important to the people
I will begin this report with a summary of this great book and delve deeper into the thoughts that the literary family has of it. I will then go on to explain its importance in the development of environmental policy and impact, and end with my thoughts regarding the material and the interaction among social and environmental values and impacts presented by the author Michael Pollan.
It is generally agreed that modern environmentalism begins with ‘A Fable for Tomorrow’, the first chapter in Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962). The fairytale-like opening to the book begins with the words, ‘There was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings’, painting a classic pastoral picture where she describes civilization far from modern ills coexisting with nature yet away from the perceived danger of the wild. However pastoral peace swiftly gives way to destruction- 'Then a strange blight crept over the area and everything began to change. Some evil spell had settled on the community: mysterious maladies swept the flocks of chickens; the cattle and sheep
In 1989, seventy five percent of Americans identified themselves as environmentalists, and the number has continued to grow since then (Walls 1). Environmentalism is now the most popular social movement in the United States, with over five million American families donating regularly to environmental organizations (Walls 1). Environmentalists today focus on what kind of world they hope to see in the future, and largely deal with limiting pollution and changing consumption rates (Kent 1 and 9). Modern environmentalists also have much different issues than those Carson’s America faced. With climate change becoming more threatening each year, protection of the natural world is needed more than ever. Pollution has caused the warmest decade in history, the deterioration of the ozone layer, and species extinction in extreme numbers (Hunter 2). It not only threatens nature, but also human populations, who already suffer from lack of clean water and poisoning from toxic chemicals (Hunter 16). Unlike environmental actions in the 1960’s, which were mostly focused on protection, a massive increase in pollution has caused efforts to be focused on environmental restoration (Hunter 16). Like in the time of Silent Spring, environmentalists are not only concerned with one country. Protecting the environment remains a global issue, and every nation is threatened by the
Cases have been widely used in medical ethics and law. In both fields, numerous books and articles about cases have appeared, including book-length catalogs of cases. I argue that pluralistic casuistry provides an adequate approach to environmental ethics. It retains the strengths while avoiding the weaknesses of the other approaches. Importantly, it resolves some broader theoretical issues and provides a clear, explicit methodology for education and praxis.
Most of the necessities humans need are provided in supermarkets, in fact supermarkets have become a necessity for our everyday life. They are now the main source of water, food, clothes and everyday tools. Therefore, the plastic bags demanded and supplied in this industry increase every day. In the past decade, we produced as much plastic as we did in the whole twentieth century (Freinkel, 2011). This exponential increase of a non-biodegradable material has negatively impacted our environment immensely. Plastic production requires our dwindling fossil fuel resources, robs away animal lives, litters our beautiful landscapes and even affects our very own well-being. Hence, if plastic production doesn’t diminish immediately, we will suffer great
Analyzing human obligation pertaining to all that is not man made, apart from humans, we discover an assortment of concerns, some of which have been voiced by philosophers such as Tom Regan, Peter Singer and Aldo Leopold. Environmentally ethical ideals hold a broad spectrum of perspectives that, not only attempt to identify a problem, but also focus on how that problem is addressed through determining what is right and wrong.
Recently, an uninhabited island in the South Pacific Ocean was found to be polluted with 38 million pieces of plastic that had been carried over by currents (Wang, “No one lives on this remote Pacific island”). The island, dubbed ‘trash island’, is home to diverse animal populations that have all been devastated by the pollution. On the beach, hundreds of birds were seen dead by reporters and scientists. When analyzed, the primary cause of death turned out to be consumption of plastic. When animals ingest plastic, it clogs their stomach and poisons their body with toxic chemicals. These toxic chemicals cause an array of issues, such as reproductive and endocrine problems. Eventually, this leads to death (Knoblauch, “The environmental toll of plastics”). But due to the nature of plastics, it can take hundreds or even thousands of years to completely degrade, meaning that as plastic pollution continues to build up, more places like ‘trash island’ will be discovered. According to conservation scientist Alex Bond, “…[The island] is just an indicator of what’s floating around out there” (Wang, “No one lives on this remote Pacific
Data and statistics that will likely be collected and what exhibits or tables will be produced from this data
About a million people around the world seemed to enjoy the hilarious yet tragic scenes of cooling towers crumbling. Ecotricity, a British (and the country’s first) green energy company, which was founded in 1996, released a short clip via YouTube on February 7, 2012, attracting over 3.4 million views as of September 2016. Ecotricity’s central goal is to confront and bash the bad behavior of the Big Six power companies in the UK – British Gas, EDF Energy, npower, E. ON UK, Scottish Power, and SSE. The Big Six has been notoriously known for “unethical pricing, awful customer service, and the dire lack of investment in new sources of green energy,” (Ecotricity, ¶8) yet it supplies gas and electricity to a large majority of British homes and businesses.
Such ploys seek to undermine any legitimate eco-consciousness in the audience, replacing it with rhetoric that is ultimately ambivalent toward the health of ecosystems, but definitively pro-business. These tactics assume a rigidly anthropocentric point of view, shutting out any consideration for the well-being of non-human existence; they seem to suggest that nature lies subordinate to our base desires. In addition to upholding the subordination of nature to business and leisure activities, this view establishes nature as something privately owned and partitioned (243), rather than something intrinsic to the world. Our relationship with nature becomes one of narcissism.
To understand the nature-society relationship means that humans must also understand the benefits as well as problems that arise within the formation of this relationship. Nature as an essence and natural limits are just two of the ways in which this relationship can be broken down in order to further get an understanding of the ways nature and society both shape one another. These concepts provide useful approaches in defining what nature is and how individuals perceive and treat
William F. Baxter exemplifies this anthropocentric viewpoint. In his book People or Penguins: The Case of Optimal Pollution, he argues that society should respect and attempt to preserve environmental balance only if the benefits to humans outweigh the costs. Baxter claims that, since there is no normative definition of “pure” air or water, society should aim for a level of pol...
The topics of: Energy, agriculture, pollution and climate change, biodiversity, and random miscellaneous environmental incongruities bring up some of the most crucial concerns of today's environmental issues. There is so much going on in today's world revolving around environmental concerns, and the information in newspapers serve as a great informational tool to inform the economy of what is going on around them and possibly what they can do to help.
Simmons, Randy T. Critical thinking about Environmental issues: Endangered Species. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2002. Print.
The world today is vastly different from what it was before urbanisation and industrialisation had taken its toll on the world. Since the turn of the new millennium the issue of the environment has suddenly evolved into a widespread issue which is greatly discussed throughout the world. No longer are humans living in a world where the environment is serene or stable but much rather becoming unrecognisable and diminishing before our eyes. The plants, trees and flowers are life forms which God has created for us to enjoy its beauty but it is now solely up to us and many other organisations to protect preserve and respect how fragile our environment really is.