Environmental Worldviews, Ethics, and Sustainability

ENVIRONMENTAL WORLDVIEWS, ETHICS, AND SUSTAINABILITY Chapter 28 BIOSPHERE 2 • Biosphere 2, was designed to be self sustaining life-supporting system for eight people sealed in the facility in 1991. The experiment failed because of a breakdown in its nutrient cycling systems. ENVIRONMENTAL WORLDVIEWS AND VALUES • Environmental Worldviews include: • How you think the world works. • What you believe your environmental role in the world should be. • What you believe is right and wrong environmental behavior. INSTRUMENTAL AND INTRINSIC VALUES Instrumental (utilitarian) • A value something has because of its usefulness to us or to the biosphere • i. e. preserving natural capital and biodiversity • Intrinsic (inherent) • The value something has just because it exists regardless of whether it has any instrumental value to us. CLASSIFYING WORLDVIEWS • Worldviews are generally divided into two groups: • Holistic (Ecocentric) is earth centered and focuses on sustaining the earth’s • Natural systems (ecosystems) • Life-forms (biodiversity) Life-support systems (biosphere) • For all species • Atomistic is individual centered • Anthropocentric (human-centered) • Biocentric (life-centered) ANTHROPOCENTRIC, BIOCENTRIC, AND ECOCENTRIC • Anthropocentric (human-centered) • No-problem school (all problems solved), free-market school (global economy), responsible school (mix of previous 2) • Instrumental values play a larger role. • Biocentric (life-centered) • Human as one with the earth • Aldo Leopold and John Muir • Intrinsic values play a larger role • Ecocentric (earth-centered) Humans destroy the earth • Emerson, Thoreau, Aldo Leopold, John Muir, Rachel Carson • Environmental Worldviews and Values • Intrinsic values play a larger role ENVIRONMENTAL WORLDVIEWS • Planetary Management • Anthropocentric • We are the most important • We are apart from the rest of nature • Because of our technology we will never run out of resources • Economic growth is unlimited and we should use earth’s resources for our benefit • Stewardship • Biocentric • Be stewards to earth • Manage earth’s life support system We most likely will not run out of resources but they should not be wasted • Environmental Wisdom • Ecosystem-centered (Biocentric) • We are dependent on nature • Don’t waste resources • Success depends on how well we learn how nature sustains itself • Ecofeminist Worldview • Main cause of environmental problems not just human-centeredness, but male-centeredness • Advocate society fixing rift between humans and nature as well as ending oppression base on sex, race, class, and cultural/religious beliefs • Social Ecology Worldview Creating better democratic communities • New forms of environmentally stable production • New types of environmentally friendly technology CULTURAL GROUPINGS • There are 3 different cultural grouping which determine a person’s values and worldviews • Moderns • (about 45% of the adult U. S. population) actively seek materialism and the drive to acquire money and property, take cynical view of idealism and caring, accept some form of the planetary management worldview, and tend to be pro big businesses • Traditionals (about 19% of the adult U. S. population) believe in family, church, and community, helping others, having caring relationships, and working to create a better society. They tend to be older, poorer, and less educated • Cultural Creatives of New Progressives (about 36% of the adult U. S. population) • have a strong commitment of family, community, the environment, education, equality, personal growth, spiritual development, helping other people, living in harmony with the earth, and making a contribution to society.

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SHIFTS IN ENVIRONMENTAL VALUES AND WORLDVIEWS • Global and national polls reveal a shift towards the stewardship and environmental wisdom. LIVING MORE SUSTAINABLY • Four guiding principles for living more sustainably • Respect earth and life and all its diversity • Care for life with understanding, love, and compassion • Build societies that are free, just, participatory, sustainable, and peaceful • Secure earth’s bounty and beauty for present and future generations HOW TO LIVE MORE SIMPLY Some affluent people in developed countries are adopting a lifestyle of voluntary simplicity • Voluntary simplicity is doing and enjoying more with less by learning to live more simply • Based on Mahatma Gandhi’s principle of enoughness • “The earth provides enough to satisfy every person’s need but not every person’s greed…When we take more than we need, we are simply taking from each other, borrowing from the future, or destroying the environment and other species. ” • When you choose voluntary simplicity it means • Spending less time working for money Leading lives less driven to accumulate stuff • Spending more time living • You basically must ask yourself “How much is enough? ” • Voluntary simplicity shouldn’t be confused with forced simplicity of the poor, who don’t have enough to meet their basic needs for food, clothing, shelter, clean water, air, and good health. • Law of Progressive Simplification • “True growth occurs as civilizations transfer an increasing proportion of energy and attention from the material side of life to the nonmaterial side and thereby develop their culture, capacity for compassion, sense of community, and strength of democracy. LIVING MORE SUSTAINABLY • In order to make the planet a better place we must realize that individuals matter. Most of the environmental progress we have made during the last few decades occurred because individuals banded together to insist that we can do better. • We must implement earth education. • We need hope, a positive vision of the future, and commitment to making the world a better place to live. [pic]

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